Canucks forward Conor Garland to play for Team USA at World Championship

According to Vancouver hockey insider Rick Dhaliwal, Canucks forward Conor Garland will head overseas to play for Team USA at the 2023 IIHF World Championship in Tampere, Finland and Riga, Latvia.

Garland, 27, scored 17 goals and 46 points in 81 games with the Canucks during the 2022–23 regular season. The Scituate, Mass. product previously represented the United States at the 2021 World Championship in Riga, finishing second in tournament scoring with six goals and 13 points in 10 games.

The Canucks acquired Garland from the Arizona Coyotes in 2021 — shortly after that World Championship — as part of a blockbuster deal which saw Oliver Ekman-Larsson also head to Vancouver and the No. 9 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft transfer to Arizona.

The Coyotes originally selected Garland in the fifth round (No. 123 overall) of the 2015 NHL Draft. The five-foot-ten winger made his NHL debut with the Coyotes in 2018–19 and spent parts of three seasons in the desert before being traded to Vancouver.

Through 322 career games over parts of five NHL seasons with the Coyotes and Canucks, Garland has collected 83 goals and 194 points. He also appeared in eight games with the Coyotes during the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, picking up a goal and an assist.

Garland is under contract with the Canucks at a $4.95 million cap hit through the end of the 2025–26 season, at which point he’ll be 30 and eligible to become an unrestricted free agent.

The Canucks finished the 2022–23 regular season with a 38–37–7 record in 82 games, finishing 12 points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Aside from a spot in the 2020 bubble playoffs, the Canucks haven’t qualified for the postseason since 2015.

Garland is one of the vast majority of Canucks forwards under contract for next season, with Vitali Kravtsov and Nils Höglander the team’s only major pending restricted free agents up front. Contract extensions for J.T. Miller and Andrei Kuzmenko are also slated to take effect in 2023–24.

The 2023 IIHF World Championship will run from May 12 to 28, with games being broadcast nationwide in Canada on TSN.