Spooner on unconditional waivers to be bought out

After a rollercoaster 2018-19 season through three different franchises, Ryan Spooner will become an unrestricted free agent.

Acquired by the Oilers earlier last season for Ryan Strome, and then acquired by the Canucks for Sam Gagner, Spooner has had his share of moving around to different cities.

He was only able to play 11 games for Vancouver, getting four assists on the way, but he never seemed to fully fit in and was given only a sliver of playing time under Green.

With one year remaining on his two-year, $8-million contract, the Canucks will only be hit with a slight cap hit after he is bought out.

A $1.03-million hit will be on the Canucks cap for the next two years — a decent price to pay to open up a roster spot and add almost $3-million to their remaining cap space. The Rangers retained some of his original salary, so therefore they will be getting a $300k hit in the buyout.

With that, the Canucks are now up to around $18.5-million in cap space and still have some major contracts to sign. Brock Boeser, Nikolay Goldobin, Tyler Motte, Josh Leivo, and Josh Teves all need new contracts as restricted free agents and will take up a significant portion of that remaining cap space.

Even with the buyout, the Canucks might be in a position that they will have to make more moves if they truly want to sign Tyler Myers to the reported estimate of $7-million AAV.

Vancouver will possibly be a busy franchise this weekend and when free agency opens on Monday.