Now that Marcus Pettersson has signed a six-year extension with the Vancouver Canucks at a bargain rate of just $5.5 million per season, few are making any complaints about the price paid to acquire him.

A first-round pick might have been considered rich for a rental, even one of Pettersson’s calibre and even one who came with a quality bonus player in Drew O’Connor. But it doesn’t seem all that rich for six-and-a-half years of Pettersson. That’s not really up for debate anymore.

But we’re nothing if not wonderers here at CanucksArmy. And we can’t help but wonder as to the possibilities around which first-round pick the Canucks dealt away in this trade. Which then, naturally, turns quickly to a question of whether the right first round pick was traded.

We don’t know any inner details of these negotiations, at least not yet. What we do know is that GM Patrik Allvin and Co. had been talking with GM Kyle Dubas and Co. in Pittsburgh for quite some time about the topic of Marcus Pettersson. We know that, as the JT Miller trade neared completion, Allvin let Dubas know that a new asset was going to become available shortly (the New York Rangers first-round pick sent back as part of the package for Miller), and we know that the second trade didn’t take all that long to complete thereafter – really, just a matter of hours.

What we don’t know is what the hold-up was. But, really, there are two possibilities. The first is that the Canucks had already offered their own first-round pick to Pittsburgh in exchange for Pettersson and O’Connor and that the Penguins had turned it down because it was not good enough. In this scenario, the Penguins would have to then decide that the NYR first was, in fact, a better enough asset than the Vancouver first to seal the deal (perhaps with a light Melvin Fernstrom sweetener thrown into the mix.) But as we’ll see later in the article, this doesn’t make the most sense because the NYR and Vancouver firsts are relatively close in value.

The other possibility is that the Canucks wanted to hang on to at least one first-round pick in 2025, either for the purposes of making another trade between now and the draft or for the purposes of actually making a selection at the said draft. In this scenario, it is Allvin who says ‘no’ to the cost of a first-round pick until he’s got an extra one to burn and then calls Pittsburgh back and makes the trade.

To us, this is the far more likely scenario.

But then, in this case, we have to wonder whether the Canucks had the option to include their own first-round pick in the trade. Whether it had to be the NYR first or whether it could have been the Vancouver first, perhaps with a minor extra thrown in to cover any perceived difference.

We then have to wonder which of the two picks is likely to have more ultimate value.

Taken at just face value, it’s the New York pick that currently looks to be the superior asset. The Canucks are ahead of the Rangers in the standings to the tune of 61 points to 56, with both teams having played 54 games as of this writing.

Were the draft lottery to be held today, and there weren’t any major upsets, the Rangers would have missed the playoffs and be set to draft at 12^th overall.

The Canucks, meanwhile, are currently in a playoff position. So long as their playoff performance didn’t impact their draft position, were the draft to be held based on today’s standings, the Canucks would be drafting at 19^th overall.

It doesn’t take much of a mathematician to tell you that the 12^th overall pick is better than the 19^th overall pick. But we have to keep in mind that the Canucks have – again, as of this writing – gone 3-0-1 since the trades were made. The picks were closer together when the deal was struck, is what we’re saying, and that is further evidence that the Canucks probably had at least somewhat of a choice in which pick was sent.

We must also keep in mind that the NYR pick is a conditional one. And that’s important because if the draft lottery were to be held today and the Rangers were to actually end up with the 12th overall selection, then the “top-13” protection included in the trade would kick in, and the traded pick would convert to an unprotected 2026 first-rounder.

Which, naturally, is a more valuable asset than either New York or Vancouver’s 2025 first round picks. Why? Well, for one, because Vancouver and New York have already ensured they won’t be in the basement of the standings in this 2024/25 season, but that remains a possibility for 2025/26. For another, because the 2026 draft class is said to be one of the strongest in years.

Given the strong chance of that protection kicking in and the traded pick becoming an unprotected 2026 first, we can now state with some pretty good certainty that the conditional New York pick was a more valuable asset than the regular ol’ Vancouver pick.

It’s all about potential. We look at the teams currently ahead of the Rangers in the Metropolitan Division, and aside from perhaps the high-soaring Washington Capitals and their eternal rivals, the Islanders, we don’t see much likelihood of any major drop-offs. The Rangers should also be feeling plenty of pressure from some teams currently below them in the Wild Card race, like the Montreal Canadiens, Buffalo Sabres, and Philadelphia Flyers.

The point here is that it’s well within the realm of possibility for the Rangers to end up missing the playoffs in 2024/25, have their traded first-rounder slide to 2026 as a result, and then tank even further down the standings in 2025/26. That could result in the pick that was traded for Miller and then flipped for Pettersson and O’Connor being a really, really valuable asset.

This brings us right back to our initial wondering about the negotiations between Vancouver and Pittsburgh. Please keep in mind that this is not an insider snark masquerading as speculation. This is just pure speculation.

It seems obvious that, were Dubas and Co. to have their preference, they’d have chosen the NYR first. The conditions make the possibilities too tantalizing to pass up. It also seems pretty likely that, if it came down to it, the Canucks would have also preferred to keep the NYR first over their own. We had thought about offer sheets, but the next round of offer sheets will occur after the 2025 draft and involve 2026 picks as compensation.

So, we are left to wonder how willing the Penguins ever really were to make a trade involving the Canucks’ first, even back before the Canucks even had a second first to throw onto the table.

If the Canucks could have closed the deal down earlier by giving up their – at the time – only first-round pick, does that now look like a wiser decision in retrospect, knowing that they could later obtain and keep their hands on the NYR first?

Or, during negotiations involving the NYR first, did the Canucks ever have the possibility of swapping it out for their own first, at the cost of an additional asset? If so, what would have been worth it? Would an extra third-rounder have satisfied the Penguins, and would that cost be justified by the Canucks’ potentially, but not definitely, maintaining a better first-round pick?

We realize that’s a lot of question marks in a late paragraph with no actual answers. We also realize that the trades are done, and there’s no real use crying over spilled conditional draft picks.

We’re only really bringing this narrative up because it will be a fascinating one to track from here on out. It will be interesting to follow the Canucks’ own pick, the Rangers’ own pick, and – if it slides – the Rangers’ pick in 2026 to see not only which of the picks end up higher but then in a few years which of them actually turn into quality players.