The Vancouver Canucks haven’t officially moved on to the 2025 offseason quite yet, but in many ways, the rest of us already have.

After a disappointing 2024/25 campaign, the Summer of 2025 promises to be an active and vitally important one. The Canucks will do their level best to put together a competitive roster for the 2025/26 season, and that’s going to require some upgrades to the roster itself. Primarily, those upgrades are going to need to come up front.

Now, this early, early offseason is primetime for hopes and dreams. No moves have occurred yet, the full scope of possibilities are still open, and the situation is perfect for a little optimism. We’re Offseason Dreaming already, and imagining the very best things that could feasibly happen for the Canucks this summer.

First up: someone who just might be the perfect trade target to solve their centre-depth woes.

We’re talking, of course, about Coquitlam’s own Mathew Barzal, currently of the New York islanders.

The Islanders, much like the Canucks, ended up 2024/25 stuck in the mushy middle – not dramatically close to grabbing a playoff spot, but not so far out of it as to land a good draft pick.

But the situation is different for New York than it is for Vancouver. For one, the Islanders entered the season as one of the oldest teams in the league, and though that’s changed a little due to some in-season selling off of veterans, they don’t hold quite the same hopes of a youth-driven upswing as do the Canucks.

That’s led to some calls for a rebuild, or at least a retool of sorts. We don’t know how likely such a thing is to occur while the 82-year-old Lou Lamoriello is still in charge – he can be forgiven if he’s not too future-oriented at the moment. But Lamoriello will retire eventually, maybe even as soon as this offseason, and one way or another, change is coming to Long Island.

Were the Islanders to make a commitment toward getting younger, Barzal might not immediately stand out as a candidate to be traded. He’s still just 27 years old, and will hit 28 in late May. That puts at least three years between him and the likes of 25-year-olds Noah Dobson and Alexander Romanov, and makes him considerably older than the team’s top prospects, like the newly-acquired Calum Ritchie.

So, there is a scenario out there where the NYI decide to really kickstart a youth movement by trading their top prime-aged talent for a package of future-laden assets.

There’s also the other side of this, in which Barzal himself may have a desire to move on. He did, somewhat infamously, appear to be caught on camera this season commenting on the emptiness of the Islanders’ UBS Arena.

We must say, it is probably most likely that the Islanders do not look to trade Barzal, and that he remains with them through whatever roster upheaval they have planned. But the potential exists for the situation to move in another direction, where Barzal could become available for the right price.

And if that situation arises, the Canucks must pounce on it.

We won’t waste much time explaining why the Canucks would be interested in someone who is either a passable 1C or a very high-quality 2C.

Heading into 2025/26, their centre depth consists of a mercurial Elias Pettersson, an injured Filip Chytil, the sophomore Aatu Räty, and good ol’ Teddy Blueger. The need for another top-six centre is obvious and apparent, and GM Patrik Allvin has already made it be known as his top offseason priority.

Barzal has experienced a fairly up-and-down career in the NHL thus far, including this current season, in which he’s been out of the lineup since February with a lower-body injury. But it comes on the heels of a banner campaign in 2023/24, in which Barzal stayed healthy and put up a perfect 80 points in 80 games. That would have been a career-high, save for the 85 points Barzal once notched as a rookie.

In must be noted that Barzal spent the bulk of his years on Long Island playing under coach Barry Trotz (2018-2022), who doesn’t exactly have a reputation for fostering offensive creativity and freedom. That seemed to keep Barzal’s numbers a little artificially low. In 2022/23, his first Trotz-free season, Barzal put up 51 points in 58 games. The next year was 80 in 80. And then came this year, in which Barzal started cold, began to pick up steam, and then got hurt, halting his season at a mere 20 points in 30 games.

Suffice it to say that Barzal’s ability to produce is, and always has been, more than adequate for an NHL second line centre, and at its best, is well into 1C territory.

And Barzal offers a lot more than a statline. Right from the earliest days of his career, he’s developed a reputation as a smart and responsible two-way centre, and even received Selke votes as a rookie. His main weapon is his blazing straight-line speed, which combines with his agility and ability to stop on a dime to create one of the most elusive skaters in hockey. The appeal to a team constantly wishing to get faster, like Vancouver, is obvious enough.

Barzal has decent enough size at 6’1”, and is right-handed, to boot. He’s far more of a playmaker than a goal-scorer, and yet has notched up to 23 goals in one campaign.

He’s, in other words, everything that the Canucks could possibly be looking for down the middle. But is the price right?

Barzal’s contract is a real double-edged sword. On the one hand, he’s signed from now through to 2031, meaning the next six seasons after this one, or ages 28 through 33. He’s as long-term a solution as is ever going to be found through trade.

At the same time, Barzal is on the books in each of those seasons for an average salary of $9.15 million. Which, anyway you slice it, seems like a lot to pay for a player coming off 20 points.

But is it? Remember that the cap ceiling is going through the roof, and the salaries will follow. The Canucks were reportedly willing to offer pending UFA Brock Boeser an average of $8 million over the next five seasons. Boeser is just three months younger than Barzal, and most would agree that Barzal is the better and more complete player. For little more than a million more than the Canucks’ final offer to Boeser, and just one extra year of term, does Barzal not seem worth it?

Barzal’s contract also comes with an especially-stringent 22-team no-trade clause all the way through. Normally, that’d be an obstacle to a trade. But not when we’re talking about the player in question’s actual hometown.

We have to imagine that, of the ten teams Barzal would allow a trade to, Vancouver makes the list. And having only a limited list of destinations to work with could conspire to lower the asking price for Barzal to Vancouver, not raise it.

Speaking of that asking price…

Barzal would be a terrific fit in Vancouver, and his contract wouldn’t really be an obstacle to that fit. But we’re not pitching a free agent signing here. Barzal is still very much the property of the New York Islanders, and even if they decide to part ways this offseason, they won’t be doing so for free – or for cheap.

If we imagine the Islanders are mainly interested in future-based assets, we must still acknowledge that the amount of future assets is going to need to be massive.

Let’s start with the Canucks’ current first round pick, which should slot somewhere between 13^th and 15^th overall. That’s a valuable piece, but it barely gets the conversation started on Barzal.

The Canucks would really, really like to avoid trading any of their holy prospect trinity of Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Tom Willander, and the younger Elias Pettersson. At the same time, those are the exact sort of assets that the NYI would likely demand in these trade talks.

It’s also hard to imagine the Canucks putting together a big enough package without those prospects included.

What could it be? This year’s first round pick, the 2026 first round pick, and a smattering of B-tier-or-worse prospects, like your Sawyer Mynios or Kirill Kudryavtsevs?

That could get closer, but it reads as the sort of package that might only be accepted if Barzal were to be straight-up demanding his way out of town. As of now, we have no evidence that that is the case.

Were the Canucks to include one of those three top prospects – and remember, we’re just talking hypotheticals here – would that seal the deal? A 2026 first round pick plus, say, a Tom Willander, is definitely a package that any team has to stop and consider. Does it really buy six seasons of a two-way top-six centre at what is becoming an increasingly reasonable cap hit? Or is it at least close enough that the Canucks could finish off the set with an extra second round pick or something like that?

We’re not sure we’re fully convinced. But we don’t have to be. This is the early onset of the offseason, and at this point, we’re just dreaming.

Mathew Barzal might be the perfect outcome for the Canucks’ summer search for a centre. How likely of an outcome he’ll be remains to be seen.