According to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the Canucks have made their first move of the day, acquiring 23-year-old forward Brendan Leipsic from the Vegas Golden Knights for Philip Holm.

The move comes just days after Holm made his NHL debut for the Canucks in Friday night’s 6-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knight. Going into yesterday’s game against the Arizona Coyotes, Holm was pencilled in to play but was a late scratch in favour of Ben Hutton (another player who’s in the rumour mill). That makes far more sense in light of this move.

Holm, whom the Canucks signed as an undrafted European free agent last off-season, was a pending restricted free agent. After a rough first training camp, which is to be expected from someone playing their first handful of games in North America, Holm went to the AHL’s Utica Comets where he’s excelled on their top pair and in every phase of special teams. In 42 games with the Comets, Holm had 29 points (11 goals and 18 assists) and looked the part of someone with NHL potential.

That said, Holm is already 26-years-old, and as such we have to take his counting stats with something of a grain of salt. In the best-case scenario, I could see Holm developing into a third pair defender. This isn’t a huge loss.

In Leipsic, the Canucks get a younger player (he’s only 23-years-old) whose been highly productive at the AHL level and has flashed middle-six upside in the NHL. In 50 career NHL games, Leipsic has 16 points (three goals and 13 assists), which prorated over a full 82-game season is about a 26 point pace.

What’s especially encouraging are the circumstances in which Leipsic has produced those numbers. With Vegas, Leipsic was seemingly the only player to not be on the receiving end of more good bounces than bad. It took Leipsic until December 28th to notch his first goal of the season.

When we use the Corsica.Hockey expected goals metric, Leipsic’s shot volume and quality should leave him with about three more goals at 5-on-5 alone.

If there’s any team that can help Leipsic get going offensively, it’s probably the Canucks. Canucks head coach Travis Green knows Leipsic from their time together with the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks.

Whether Leipsic pans out or not, it’s hard to not see this trade as anything short of a massive win for the Canucks. It’s about upside, and I think Leipsic offers a fair amount more than Holm.