Friday March 7th, 2025 will go down in history as one of the busiest, priciest trade deadlines in NHL history:
Wyatt “the Stanchion” Arndt traded coverage of Friday night’s ‘Post-trade-deadline fallout; Minnesota V Canucks Stanchies’ to Cody Severtson, in exchange for future considerations.
Call me Patrik Allvin, because I definitely lost the trade.
Where do we even begin? The trade deadline, or the game, a victory over the Minnesota Wild where the Vancouver Canucks again started strong only to get caved in by shot volume despite winning by a 3-1 score.
I assume I’ll get into both later in this recap.
To summarize, the Canucks performed in a manner that justified management’s decision to ride out the string and see what happens without buying or selling. They played a brand of hockey that was simultaneously encouraging and frustrating.
Let’s get into Friday night’s action and see a bit of the everything that the Canucks’ offered!
Best table setting
Same dude. Same.
Worst aperitif
Down the road, CanucksArmy will overflow with articles detailing the opportunity cost of standing pat on one of the selleriest seller’s markets in the history of NHL seller’s markets. So I’ll be brief in my take on what the Canucks didn’t do.
First, it is very odd that the Canucks’ went to great lengths to create a cap situation that would allow them to toll daily cap space in anticipation of the trade deadline. Regardless of how the season has gone, that none of the carefully tolled cap space ended up utilized on a rental to help for the playoff push, or as part of a three-way-retention deal is quite odd. The club had one retention spot available and could have surely played third party to another org’s transaction. Maybe that was on the table, but it fell apart?
Second, at a trade deadline that saw Anthony Beauvillier fetch a 2nd-round pick, Luke Schenn fetch a 2nd AND a 4th-round pick, Brandon Tanev fetch a 2nd-round pick, a third-team-in-three-months Andrei Kuzmenko fetch a 3rd-round pick, a 33-year-old Brock Nelson on a $6-million-dollar ticket fetch a top right-shot center prospect and a 1st-round pick, you’re telling me that the Vancouver Canucks, with all their connections to local and national media, could not manufacture a market for, nor return value commensurate to the above for unsigned free agents Brock Boeser, Pius Suter, or Derek Forbort?
Really?
Pius Suter makes $2-million per season, is on pace for 20 goals, can play as a perfectly reliable complimentary scoring winger in the top six, or as a high-calibre defensive middle-six center. No takers?
Seemingly every team that sold their player got an unbelievable return. Yet the Canucks couldn’t strike any deal?
Considering the failure that was “bringing the band back together for 2024-25,” are they really watching this season’s games and going, “we should bring the band back together for 2025-26” when evaluating Suter, Boeser, and Forbort?
Really?
For perspective, and believe me, I know that the players listed above carry all kinds of intangibles that GMs love that do not show up on the statline. But, here are the major forwards moved at this year’s trade deadline, their goalscoring rates across all situations since 2022-23, age, and cap-hit when they were traded this season.
  • 14th, Mikko Rantanen, 28 years old, $9.3-million
  • 41st, Andrei Kuzmenko, 29-years-old, $2.75-million
  • 47th, Brock Nelson, 33-years-old, $6-million
  • 60th, Brock Boeser, 28-years-old, $6.65-million
  • 87th, Josh Norris, 25-years-old, $7.95-million
  • 161st, Dylan Cozens, 24-years-old, $7.1-million
  • 219th, Reilly Smith 33-years-old, $3.75-million
  • 287th, Anthony Beauvillier, 27-years-old, $1.25-million
  • 300th, Casey Mittelstadt, 26-years-old, $5.75-million
Maybe I’m completely off base on their work at the deadline. However, I find it almost impossible to believe that the offers GM Patrik Allvin received on Boeser were so bad that he “would have to run out of [the Rogers Arena media room] because [the local media] would not believe him.”
“I don’t think you use this day as a defining day of how you build a team,” said Allvin in a post-deadline scrum with the local beat.
The Pittsburgh Penguins fundamentally defined their short-term and long-term outlook by fetching tremendous value for bit-part roleplayers. In my opinion, GM Kyle Dubas did well to set that franchise up decently for those early post-Crosby/Malkin growing pain seasons.
The Carolina Hurricanes salvaged an uneasy situation with Mikko Rantanen by fetching a draft class and one of the brightest young stars in the NHL in Logan Stankoven, securing their competitive window over the short and long-term.
The Dallas Stars turned a bright young star into a top line winger on an 8-year extension, defining their competitive window for the foreseeable future.
The trade deadline can absolutely be a defining day for a franchise’s efforts to build their team, assuming your view of building a champion isn’t as microscopically narrow as, “How do we get home playoff dates this year.”
If the organization’s philosophy is that short-sighted, then I fear, so too were our calls during last season’s playoffs that “Things were finally going the other way.”
Worst amuse-bouche
Combined with the 22-54% season-ticket-holder renewal increases, the money the org saved by operating under the cap should go toward fancy new seat upgrades in Rogers Arena!
You know, the seat upgrades that the organization promised to those same season ticket holders in last last season’s renewal increase letter!
Best Hors d’oeuvre
With Carson Soucy off to the big apple, the Canucks’ rolled out a defence group featuring Junior Pettersson on the first pairing and Italian-American Icon Vittorio Mancini on the third.
Best Consomme
As they did against the Seattle Fish and the Anaheim Birds, your Vancouver Canucks came out flying against the Minnesota Wilderness. Spending a considerable amount of time forechecking like a team that was just told, “it’s actually on you to prove you deserve a trade deadline acquisition, next season!”
There was jump.
There was speed.
There were attempts!
After a simple off-the-boards pass to Dakota Joshua, Elias Pettersson recorded the club’s first shot attempt of the night, a wrister from the point against a moderately-confused Filip Gustavsson.
Moments later, Jake DeBrusk hit a burst of speed for the Canucks’ second early look of the game after picking off a Declan Chisholm outlet pass in the neutral zone. Were it not for the well-positioned stick of Jared Spurgeon, we’d be talking about one of the better Canucks’ goals scored this season.
The Wild weren’t without there lapses in the Canucks’ zone, but it was all o-zone possession for the team who couldn’t return anything at the deadline!
Four minutes into the game, DeBrusk picked off a second errant pass through the neutral zone, giving way to a shot on Gustavsson and the game’s first stoppage.
The Wild’s best look came after a giveaway from Filip Hronek following a hysterically-long wait for an opening.
The hilarious giveaway to Jon Merrill gave way to a controlled entry from Matt Boldy and backhander off the outside of Kevin Lankinen’s net.
The initial backhander wasn’t the best look, necessarily. Still, the ensuing chances, coupled with the giveaway, was a pretty funny moment in the early goings for the Canucks’ de facto first pairing.
The Canucks did an incredible job in the first ten minutes of the opening frame at creating openings through the middle of the ice. Their hard work yielded a litany of giveaways, leading to scoring chances.
While forechecking off another Junior Pettersson-sparked offensive zone entry, Dakota Joshua capitalized on a no-look giveaway from Freddy Gaudreau for a backhand chance in tight.
Despite the Canucks’ relentless pressure, the Wild finished the first period having outshot the Canucks 11 to 6. Whenever the Wild did gain the zone, which wasn’t often, they made their shots count. Almost every shot attempt was a shot on Lankinen.
And to be fair to the Canucks, most of that volume came in a particularly lengthy stretch in the middle of the period, when the Wild went Harlem Globetrotters on Vancouver.
Several minutes of sustained pressure culminated in Tyler Myers (not a typo) sweeping an empty-net goal off of Ryan Hartman’s stick.
It wouldn’t be a non-Wyatt Stanchies without Myers doing something hilariously cool in his absence.
The pressured was eventually alleviated, when Drew O’Connor drew a hooking penalty against Devin Shore while executing an end-to-end rush.
Worst Appetizer
Late in the first, after losing their way footing midway through the period, the Canucks were blessed with back-to-back power play opportunities. A tale of two cities, as it were.
The Canucks’ first Quinn Hughes-less power play looked as toothless as a Quinn Hughes-less power play can get. The Wild had as many shot attempts as the Canucks did after two minutes.
The best look came for Minnesota, off a shorthanded odd-man rush led by Marcus Johansson.
Fortunately, the Canucks’ generated a sustained bit of offensive zone time during the return to 5-on-5, resulting in a second drawn penalty. This time, Nils Höglander drew a tripping penalty against Zach Bogosian.
The second power play also started quite poorly. But it ended with a bang!
1-0 Canucks: Elias Petterson from Filip Hronek and Brock Boeser
It was the clapper heard ’round the lower mainland: an Elias Pettersson one-timer that hasn’t been seen in a dog’s age.
For a brief moment, my body and spirit transported to a pre-COVID world whilst watching EP40 wind up for this clapper.
Ahhh, such a simple time. A blissfully peaceful time, where the decisions of Jim Benning were our biggest stressor. An era devoid of the constant threats to our democracy by our southern neighbours, and [redacted, because David Quadrelli asked me to refrain from making too many politically-charged comments].
EP40’s goal brought me back, man.
For a brief time, I felt alive.
Pettersson’s goal quelled the bleeding, leading to Jonathan Lekkerimäki’s third look of the game, a rifling wrister over Gustavssons’ net.
Late in the first, Kiefer Sherwood and the Wild’s Hartman engaged in one of the goofier “fights” I’ve seen. One of the few times a fighting major was assessed against two players who did not throw a single punch.
Sherwood was technically assessed a tripping minor ahead of the fight, giving the Wild a late chance to tie with their first power play of the game.
Taking a page out of the Canucks’ book, the Wild’s power play looked equally as toothless until the end of the period.
Best Fish[ing for compliments]
Apologies for the 12-course-meal motif, but Pius Suter’s food quote had me reaching for a theme for this game.
You know who ate, though? Elias Pettersson (the forward).
After rolling back the clock with his power play one timer, he opened the middle frame with a 91 mph slapshot to keep the Wild on their toes.
Having done zero research to back up my statement, I can confidently say this was the first time all season that EP40 rattled off two 90+ mph slapshots in the same game.
The above shift ended with a miscue on backchecking coverage by Joshua and Hronek, but Lankinen was sharp tracking Marcus Johansson. So who cares!?
Later, Marco Rossi salvaged a lost battle between Marcus Petterrsson and Yakov Trenin with a floated toward the goal for Mats Zucarello’s tip attempt.
Again, Lankinen was sharp.
So was Petey.
Five minutes into the frame, Pettersson did his dekes, and nearly scored from his ass. A two-goal lead that would’ve proven very helpful heading into the third.
Alass, it wasn’t meant to be.
Midway through the third, the Wild-giveaway issue reared its head (odd bounce related, to be fair). An awkward backhand high-flip attempt from Middleton deflected off Pius Suter’s stick to Brock Boeser for a golden opportunity from the middle of the ice.
While he did not prove the NHL wrong in its valuation of his abilities with a goal to extend the Canucks’ lead, it was nevertheless a moment that got the Vancouver faithful off their feet inside Rogers Arena.
Vancouver finished the middle frame up on the scoreboard despite being outshot 23 to 14 across 40 minutes.
Personally, I thought the shot totals were pretty misleading. I thought the Canucks were just as threatening as Minnesota whenever they gained the zone. They just had a tougher time getting shots through traffic onto Gustavsson.
A late power play resulted in an incredible chance for Conor Garland off a cross-ice feed from DeBrusk.
Later, EP40 fooled the Wild’s entire PK lineup and the arena with a fake-slapshot-into-a-pass for Boeser up the middle.
A Hughes-less power play wouldn’t be a Hughes-less power play without an extremely-high-danger shorthanded rush opportunity.
Sure enough, a missed pass to DeBrusk up the middle of the ice gave Gustav Nyqvist and Hartman a shorthanded two-on-one chance that saw Nyqvist rifle a shot off the post.
The Wild’s late press shorthanded bled into the third, with Zuccarello drawing a tripping penalty against Hronek to give Minnesota back-to-back power play opportunities.
It was a soft call.
Hronek pushed an already-falling-down Zuccarrello.
K.
Best and Worst Trou Normand
The Wild’s last power play opportunity of the game was, well, wild.
After forty seconds of modest work on the power play, Minnesota’s first power play unit went gangbusters trying to break the stalemate, prompting Lankinen to go hero-mode to keep the Canucks alive.
First, Matt Boldy drove into the middle of the ice for a shot that skirted off Lankinen’s mask and into the boards.
Then, Tyler Myers broke his stick on what should have been an easy clearance, resulting in a point-blank opportunity for Marco Rossi.
Then, it was Rossi again with a rifling shot in and out of Lankinen’s glove.
Lankinen had the crowd on its feet with his electric string of saves. An exhausted Sherwood made a break for the bench for a new twig, giving Rossi and Faber the space to split the defence for a Faber one-timer past Lankinen.
1-1 Tie: Brock Faber from Marco Rossi and Matt Boldy
At this point, the floodgates opened and the Wild started to take over, with a capital-O, pressing for the tiebreaker.
Sherwood’s next few shifts were electric, like he was actively trying to absolve himself for the possibly-foolish decision to shoot for the bench for a new stick on the PK.
Midway through the final frame, with the Canucks doubled in shots on goal, Teddy Blueger deflected a breakout pass right to Nils Höglander in the slot. Höglander deferred to Sherwood for the one-timer, whose shot was denied by a hail-mary dive from Spurgeon.
Devin Shore responded in kind with a wrist shot off the bar and out to center.
Late in the third, a Canucks fivesome of Drew O’Connor, Sherwood, Chytil, Hronek, and Junior Pettersson found themselves pinned inside the d-zone, obliterated by the Wild’s cycle game.
It was quite ugly to watch. Three straight icings in a row led to scenes like this, where no Canuck was remotely close to picking off a pass to stem the bleeding.
In true Canuck-fashion, Kiefer Sherwood broke his 16-game goal-less drought, giving the Canucks a late lead despite having been utterly dominated for the better part of the final 16 minutes.
2-1 Canucks: Kiefer Sherwood from Filip Hronek
With Minnesota trailing, head coach John Hynes desperately tried to pull Gustvasson for the extra attacker. Still, the Canucks’ late rally to win 50/50 puck battles made that a much more difficult task than it had been throughout the first 16 minutes of the third.
A turnover from Marcus Johansson gave DeBrusk and Chytil a two-on-none rush attack that kept Gustavsson pinned between the pipes.
After finally pulling Gustavsson for the extra attacker, Teddy Blueger chased down a clearing effort from Pius Suter to score a very casual empty netter.
3-1 Canucks: Teddy Blueger from Pius Suter
Very demure celebration.
I don’t know if I’d call it a demure victory, but it was something.
Best Plat Principal
https://twitter.com/NHL_Willander/status/1898223189106549104
While Friday’s game was pretty ugly, I wanted to highlight Marcus Pettersson’s play as a smooth operator.
If Luke Schenn returned a 2nd and a first, I have to think M’Petey would have returned, at minimum, Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin at the trade deadline. He was so smooth for Vancouver. Especially so during the first 40 minutes.
I’m kidding, even though I legitimately loved his game tonight in spite of the ugly shot totals. For me, he was the main course worth watching. Maybe it was the previous decade of watching Derrick Pouliot, Erik Gudbranson, Luca Sbisa, Travis Hamonic, and [insert highly-paid UFA who was a disaster here], but seeing M’Petey just control the d-zone for 60-minutes was gratifying in ways I didn’t think possible.
Let’s go from top to bottom.
Under pressure in the neutral zone, a quick glance prevents M’Petey from a Myers-esque two-on-one freebie. Quickly spinning into the boards for a pass up to Conor Garland, a pass that continued the Canucks o-zone pressure in the first.
This clip probably isn’t much. However, so often we’ve seen defenceman throw that pass to the last man back while under pressure, gifting the opposition the freest of free odd-man rushes possible.
Elsewhere in the first, again under pressure, M’Petey executed a brilliant breakout pass to EP40 that gave the Canucks a quick entry into the Wild’s zone.
Again, it wasn’t much. But that little pull back to make the forechecking Wild player think twice about his next move was brilliant; enough to give the Canucks’ regrouping forwards enough time to break through the neutral zone the way they want.
During a particularly rough shift inside the d-zone, M’Petey showed off his cool-as-a-cucumber mentality, taking a half-second to sweep a loose puck out of the slot and into the half-wall.
Would you have preferred the dicey sequence to have not happened at all? Certainly! Still, credit where it’s due. M’Petey knows how to settle moments of panic singlehandedly.
In the second period M’Petey took a pass at the blueline and looked off a wrist shot on Gustvasson like he was going for a routine rim down the boards.
No words for this one.
I loved seeing M’Petey completely negate the danger of Matt Boldy’s presence at the net front, just through the use of his stick and getting over his check. A routine point shot from Jacob Middleton would have normally resulted in an embarrassing goal against for Vancouver in years past.
Not with M’Petey.
In fact, his worst moment of the night came midway through the second when he caught a rut on the backcheck, giving Yakov Trenin an open lane on Lankinen.
The Trenin-M’Petey wars continued late in the period, with the latter drawing a slashing penalty in the dying minutes of the second.
Best Salade
Similar to Marcus Pettersson, I felt it necessary to spotlight the play of Jonathan Lekkerimäki. Yes, I know the team looked like ass for most of the game, especially when under pressure. Still, need to give credit where credit is due. I thought Lekkerimäki, for a kid his size, looked wicked sharp as a distributor unafraid to drive through the middle of the ice.
I just know Rick Tocchet was making notes for Nils Höglander after seeing Jonathan Lekkerimäki cut through the middle of the ice before distributing to Filip Chytil on the wings.
Lekkerimäki’s do-si-do to dodge a check and get open at the front of the net is the kind of stuff that Rick Tocchet has been begging his team to do this season.
As if playing ‘coach’s pet hockey’ on the entry wasn’t enough, Lekkerimäki then pressured hard on the Wild’s breakout scheme, resulting in a third giveaway in the opening ten minutes of the first, and Filip Chytil’s first shot of the night.
Later in the first, Lekkerimäki displayed that willingness to cut through the middle again, dishing off to the wing before fighting off Freddy Gaudreau on his route to Gustavsson’s crease.
In the second, Lekkerimäki found new ways to compensate for his side with savvy defensive positioning and crisp zone entries.
It’s unusual seeing one of the slightest players on the Canucks’ roster constantly battling for loose pucks before cutting to the heaviest areas of the ice. Late in the second, Lekkerimäki sprang onto the ice, outmuscling his check to maintain a run of offensive zone possession, before again driving to the middle for the zillionth time of the game.
Remember when we used to spend entire seasons begging Jake Virtanen to use his size to drive through the guts of the ice? As if it didn’t need to be said, it’s awesome that the smallest players in the organization (Lekkerimäki, Pettersson, Garland, and Hoglander) are the guys who can consistently be relied upon to do just that.
Best Fromage
Best dessert
I don’t even think Hronek had that impressive of a game, but this was a great stat to highlight.
That said, this wraparound denial of Hronek’s from early in the third was sick.
Best of the Worst Mignardises
There aren’t too many players in hockey who would be able to take the high road after hearing their GM say that, while actively trying to get rid of you, the trade packages they did receive were laughably bad. That is of course, after weeks and weeks of frustrating go-nowhere contract extension talk that followed an offseason where that same GM said he doesn’t think you can repeat your 2023-24 performance.
Boeser did though.
While I think that retaining Brock without an extension in place was both foolish and risky, I also think that it was arrogant of Allvin to joke with the media about his failed efforts to trade a beloved long-time member of the team.
Boeser’s been through a lot in his time as a Canuck.
He’s ninth in all-time franchise goalscoring, tied with Thomas Gradin and just a few back of Bo Horvat.
Nothing Boeser has done on-ice or off has warranted any level or form of disrespect from this organization, let alone publicly, because the team botched trading a guy they (apparently/evidently) have no interest in re-signing.
I thought that the treatment of Bruce Boudreau was a low point.
This org better not prove me wrong by disparaging, by all accounts, an absolute beauty during his final days as a Vancouver Canuck.
It is not Boeser’s fault that the org didn’t trade him at his peak value at the end of last season. It is not Boeser’s fault that the organization could not sell the idea of a “professional, high-character individual who can easily score 40 goals in the right system at 50% retained” to 15 contenders.
Blaming Boeser’s on-ice performance this year as to why they couldn’t fetch decent trade packages, in a year where Anthony Beauvillier returns a 2nd-round pick, is embarrassing buck-passing from a professional organization.
The players and coaches of this franchise have always taken the high road.
It would be nice if they learned a lesson from that sometime during the next decade of this current rebuild.
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