It’s rare, but sometimes the universe reaches out and delivers a crystal-clear message.

Like, let’s imagine you’re a professional hockey franchise in the midst of a troubling, up-and-down season. A year of turmoil. And, let’s imagine, despite all that, that your team somehow manages to still be in a playoff position as of a week before the Trade Deadline.

What do you do? Do you hold fast? Do you give up entirely? Do you add to the roster in the hopes that there’s still a major turnaround pending? Do you dare go ‘all-in’?

All options would have seemingly been on the table for GM Patrik Allvin and the Vancouver Canucks in recent days. But then, almost on cue, they spent their third- and second-last games prior to the 2025 Trade Deadline losing 5-2 to the Anaheim Ducks and then 6-3 to the Seattle Kraken.

Those are two non-playoff teams. Those are the exact sorts of teams that the Canucks should be beating, maybe handily, if they ever want to turn the 2024/25 campaign around. But instead, it was the Canucks getting beaten handily. Heck, if it wasn’t clear-cut enough, the Canucks’ also lost their MVP, Quinn Hughes, to an injury ‘tweak’ near the end of Saturday’s game.

Now, they’ve got just one game – a rematch with the Ducks on Wednesday – between them and the deadline.

Here we go back to that concept of a crystal-clear message being sent by the universe. And this time, that message is “This is not your year!” With maybe an additional message of “Don’t buy at the 2025 Trade Deadline!” And perhaps, if we were to turn our ears to the winds, we might just hear an echo of “Sell…sell…sell.”

And that wouldn’t be the only thing telling the Canucks to sell these days.

We covered this past week how the NHL is shaping up into one of the strongest sellers’ market in recent memory for the 2025 Trade Deadline. Simply put, there are too many teams still in the playoff race and not enough clearly dropped out of it yet for it to be anything but a sellers’ market.

Believe it or not, since we published that article a few days back, we’ve already seen a handful of trades around the league that dramatically reinforce the notion of a sellers’ market, and further underline that message that now is the time to sell, for those teams that are able.

The Canucks are able to sell. And after these last couple of dismal performances, they should also be willing, too.

The first trade we’ll draw your attention to is a February 26 swap of minor leaguers in which the Los Angeles Kings sent Tyler Madden to Minnesota for defender Joseph Cecconi. Why do we bring this up? Only to point out how upset some folks once were when Madden was included in the Canucks’ trade for Tyler Toffoli back in 2020. Five years later, he’s getting moved in what is essentially an AHL transaction. Funny how things change!

That brief diversion aside, the first trade we’ll actually draw your attention to is Saturday’s swap-meet involving the Colorado Avalanche and the New York Rangers. In a multi-player, multi-piece transaction, the Rangers sent Ryan Lindgren (at 50% retention), former Canuck Jimmy Vesey, and prospect Hank Kempf to the Avalanche in exchange for Juuso Parssinen, Calvin de Haan, and conditional second and fourth round picks in this upcoming draft.

That’s a lot of moving parts. But, more or less, it was a trade of a discounted Lindgren for a second round pick.

Now, Lindgren is a long-time veteran defender for the Rangers who has played some good hockey for them in the past, with the key part of that statement definitely being the ‘past’ bit. The current, 2024/25 version of Lindgren, is instead a master-class in disastrous NHL defending.

We know that JFresh player cards aren’t the be-all and end-all of hockey analysis. But when they look this bad…

…it definitely means something. That is the profile of a player who should be bought out, not a player who should be going for a second round pick near the Trade Deadline. And yet, in a sellers’ market, these strange things will happen. Defensive depth is always at a premium this time of year. And if there’s only so much defensive depth available, the prices get out of hand.

For as bad as Lindgren has been recently, he’s still got 43 playoff games under his belt to go along with 387 in the regular season. You can’t put a price on experience. Or, maybe you can, and that price is a second rounder.

The next trade to go down involved the Nashville Predators and the Minnesota Wild, and it was a lot simpler. This time, it was just Gustav Nyquist (also at 50% retention) going to the Wild in exchange for a 2026 second round pick.

Again, with the seconds. It used to be that a second round pick was considered a fairly valuable commodity. But this was just traded for a player with 9 goals and 21 points on the 2024/25 season.

This one reads very similar to the Lindgren trade. Nyquist was having a dreadful season in Nashville, but he definitely used to be better, and in the more recent past than Lindgren. Last year, Nyquist put up a career-high of 75 points. Sure, that seemed anomalous for a 34-year-old, but it still happened.

We hope what you’re seeing here is a trend of the acquisition prices at this particular Trade Deadline being heavily based on past performance. Why is that? Well, because, again, it’s a sellers’ market, and there just aren’t that many pieces, total, available. And if a piece who is currently performing well isn’t on the table, the next-best option is someone who performed well in the past, as opposed to someone who’s never performed well at all.

Why is this relevant to the Canucks? Well, because they’ve got a bunch of pieces who performed better in the past that they might want to sell at this Trade Deadline. And at these prices, they can reasonably assume they’ll be well compensated if they do so.

We’re obviously talking Brock Boeser here. But also Derek Forbort, who played roles on five straight playoff teams prior to his arrival in Vancouver. Or maybe we’re talking about Thatcher Demko. Pius Suter, on his way to a career season, looks to be the exception to this rule, but then that’s all the more reason to sell high on him. How many other players experiencing career seasons are going to be available at this deadline? Not many!

There was a final trade on Saturday that we’ll mention, even if it is a bit less relevant to the Canucks. The Chicago Blackhawks dealt Seth Jones, at 25% for the next six years (!) and a fourth-round pick to Florida for goalie Spencer Knight and a conditional 2026 first round pick.

Now, the Canucks don’t have their own overpriced former star to offer up in trades. Or…maybe they do, but we don’t have time to get into it right now!

The point to be gathered here is that salary looks to be an increasingly less important barrier to NHL trades in this present moment. A year ago, most folks would have deemed the Jones contract as ‘unmoveable.’ Now, here it is, being moved for a first round pick and a goalie with serious potential.

That has a lot to do with the announcement that the salary cap is rising this summer, then next summer, and then the following summer.

And it is just one more reason why selling is now easier and more lucrative that it has perhaps ever been before.

So, we reach a point at which the team’s circumstances, both long-term and immediately-recent, are telling them to sell. We reach a point at which the team’s own fanbase are telling them to sell. We reach a point at which the market itself is practically shouting “sell, sell, sell.”

The Canucks have drafted just one player in the second round in their past five drafts, and it was Danila Klimovich. Now, second rounders are being handed out like candy. Who has been more sugar-deprived than the Canucks of late?

None of this actually equates to the Canucks deciding to sell. Allvin and Co. are  still holding their cards incredibly close to the vest, as they often seem to do.

But the ‘should’ of it all is becoming increasingly hard to argue with. There has never been a better time to embrace the role of the seller.

Get ready, hockey fans! The Daily Faceoff Deadline is happening on March 7th from 11 AM to 4 PM Eastern, and you won’t want to miss it. We’ll be LIVE, breaking down every trade and big move as it happens, with instant reactions and expert analysis from the Daily Faceoff crew. Plus, we’ve got special guests lined up throughout the show, offering exclusive insights from some of the biggest names in the game. From blockbuster trades to surprise moves, we’re covering it all. Tune in to the Daily Faceoff YouTube channel and follow Daily Faceoff socials on March 7th to catch all the action!