Report: Canucks ‘aggressively trying to make a trade’ ahead of regular season

The Vancouver Canucks are intent upon making a trade before the start of the 2023–24 season, Vancouver hockey insider Rick Dhaliwal reported on Monday’s edition of Donnie & Dhali – The Team.

Dhaliwal did not name a specific player the Canucks are shopping, but he did make it clear that the team is looking to shed a body to create some space under the salary cap.

“I think the Canucks are aggressively trying to make a trade right now, folks,” Dhaliwal said. “Keep an eye on it, they’re trying to move a body to create cap space.

“The season is upon us, they’re over the cap, there are LTIR candidates but they also need to move a body so I think that they are feverishly working the phones right now trying to move a body,” Dhaliwal added. “We’ll see how that goes this week.”

It’s pretty easy to identify the candidates to whom this report would apply through the process of elimination. Take away Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, J.T. Miller, Thatcher Demko, Filip Hronek, and Andrei Kuzmenko, and who does that leave?

The Canucks would probably love to move Tyler Myers, whose signing bonus was supposedly due at some point in the last couple of weeks. Myers has one year left at a $6 million cap hit. He’s also able to submit a 10-team no-trade list, which could complicate things.

Myers is the only obvious candidate to move from the defence corps. There are many more potential targets up front, namely Conor Garland, Brock Boeser, and perhaps even Anthony Beauvillier. Of those three, Beauvillier would be the easiest to move, but he’s only 26 and finished very strong after being acquired from the New York Islanders.

There’s also Tanner Pearson, who is aiming to return to the NHL this year after being sidelined for almost all of last season. Pearson has one year left at $3.25 million and, most notably, does not currently have a no-trade clause.

Nevertheless, it’ll be fascinating to watch all this play out over the next few weeks as the Rutherford/Allvin management team continues to gear up for its second full season with the Canucks. Stay tuned.