Canucks will lose Connor Lockhart and Arvid Costmar’s signing rights tomorrow

It doesn’t look like the Vancouver Canucks are going to be signing prospects Connor Lockhart or Arvid Costmar.

The deadline for the Canucks to sign both players is tomorrow. As of 2:00 PM Pacific on June 1st, neither Lockhart or Costmar will be property of the Canucks anymore.

The Canucks drafted Lockhart in the sixth round of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft. The 2021 draft was notably the “blind draft” as many players had no place to play competitively during the pandemic. The OHL cancelled their season altogether, meaning Lockhart had no games played in his draft year. In the year prior, Lockhart scored nine goals and added 18 assists through 57 games played with the Erie Otters.

In the OHL season after the Canucks drafted him, Lockhart tallied 23 goals and 25 assists through 64 games. This season, Lockhart recorded 29 goals and 50 assists through 66 games en route to his Peterborough Petes squad qualifying for the Memorial Cup, which is taking place right now. Lockhart has one goal through three games at the tournament after recording seven goals and nine assists through 23 OHL playoff games. Lockhart was fifth in scoring on the Petes’ OHL playoff run and picked up a hat trick on April 24th.

The Canucks drafted Costmar in the seventh round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft at 215th overall.

After putting on a bit of a show as an agitator for Sweden at the 2021 World Junior Championship, Costmar’s development has seemingly hit a wall, as the 21-year-old hasn’t been able to pass the ten point mark in any of his past three seasons in the SHL. This season, Costmar has tallied a career-high 9 points — two goals and seven assists — with Linkopings of the SHL.

The Canucks currently have 38 of 50 contracts on their books, per CapFriendly.

Should they go unsigned as we expect, both Costmar and Lockhart will be eligible to sign anywhere they want as of tomorrow. In all likelihood, this will be in the form of an AHL contract for Lockhart — and we’d be somewhat surprised to see Costmar leave the SHL.