It is not often in life that a person gets to undo one of their greatest mistakes.

It might be even rarer for a professional sports franchise to get the same opportunity.

And yet…here we are.

The May 2016 transaction that sent Jared McCann, a second round pick (33^rd overall, flipped to Buffalo who used it on Rasmus Asplund), and a fourth round pick (94^th overall, used on Jonathan Ang) to Florida for Erik Gudbranson and a fifth round pick (140^th overall, used on Cole Candella) is not the worst trade in Canucks history. Or even in recent memory. Our own Tyson Cole ranked it as the fourth-worst of the quarter-century a few weeks back.

But it’s a pretty bad trade, all the same, at least from a Vancouver perspective. The picks wound up being a wash, but Gudbranson only ever ranged from ‘fine’ to ‘disastrous’ while a Canuck. McCann, for his part, didn’t do much in Florida, racking up seasons of 28 points and 18 points, respectively. He wouldn’t really break out until the 2020/21 season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, in which he put up 32 points in 43 games.

But the breakouts kept coming from there. By 2022/23, now with the Seattle Kraken, McCann would post career highs of 40 goals and 70 points. And, look, most regretted the original trade on the basis of having paid such a high price for Gudbranson alone. To have McCann subsequently blossom into an offensive force was some serious salt in the wound. But let’s get back to that idea of undoing the mistakes of the past.

Rumours began circulating yesterday that the Kraken may intend to make McCann available ahead of the 2025 Trade Deadline.

And if that’s true, he almost instantly becomes a compelling trade target for the 2024/25 Vancouver Canucks.

But could they really bring him back? And if so…should they?! We investigate, below.

GM Patrik Allvin is reportedly on the lookout for a “mid-20s impact forward” as his next major acquisition.

Born May 31, 1996, McCann is 28 now and will be 29 by the start of next season. That’s not exactly ‘mid-20s.’ But it does make him 23 days younger than Marcus Pettersson, whom the team just committed to long-term. If we’re talking an age range that fits in with the current core, McCann probably just barely qualifies.

As for the ‘impact’ side of the statement, that’s up for debate. That 40-goal, 70-point campaign was just two seasons ago. And though 2023/24’s results of 29 goals and 62 points in 80 games was a serious step-down, that’s still an impactful statline – and may have had a lot to do with the decreased quality of the team around McCann.

Unfortunately, the slide has definitely continued into 2024/25. As of the 4 Nations Interlude, McCann sits at 14 goals and 42 points through 57 games. The points-per-game have decreased a little from last year, and the goals per game (0.25) are less than half of what they were two years ago (0.51).

But his age would suggest that McCann isn’t quite out of his prime years yet. And his underlying numbers remain largely positive, which might indicate that McCann has some productive seasons left in him, especially if he can escape the confines of Kraken hockey.

This season aside, McCann has scored at around a 30-goal pace for each of the previous four seasons. That’s a level of goal-scoring consistency that is uncommon in the modern game.

The one point of contention here might be position. Most sites list McCann as a centre still, and that would have some appeal to the Canucks, who are still trying to make up for the loss of JT Miller. The problem is that McCann has essentially played on the wing for the entirety of the 2024/25 season, and for a good chunk of all his recent hockey.

It’s true that McCann played some centre last year and more of it in his 40-goal campaign. But he’s been bumped to the wing for a reason, and that’s because his most recent coaching staffs have felt he’s a better fit there.

If the Canucks believe he can still play centre consistently, that’s one thing. If they see him as a hybrid winger at best, they’ve then got to weigh him as an asset a little differently.

Either way, one thing that won’t get in the way of acquiring McCann will be his contract…

Any way one looks at it, McCann has a very reasonable contract.

He’s in the third year of a five-year deal that pays him an average of $5 million a season. That puts him in a tie for the 125^th-highest salary amongst NHL forwards. And even in this, his worst offensive season in a while, McCann is tied for 65^th in league scoring with, among others, Team Canada forward Anthony Cirelli.

That’s still plenty of bang for buck, and it only gets better from here.

There is, of course, the aforementioned chance of McCann bouncing back. But even if he doesn’t, this is still a borderline bargain rate, and it’s only going to look more so as the salary cap explodes this offseason, leading to a major upsurge in player salaries. McCann’s $5 million is going to be below the league average soon enough, and it runs through his 29-year-old and 30-year-old seasons.

That’s some major value, in and of itself.

McCann does have a no-trade clause in each of these three remaining seasons, but it only allows him to submit a ten-team no-trade list. We don’t exactly know how McCann would feel about returning to Vancouver, but we suspect he’d be open enough to it to not list Vancouver as one of his ten no-gos. And, so, the table is set.

The Canucks could fit McCann’s cap hit onto their books easily now, without even having to dump a cent of salary. They could fit him even more easily in the two seasons to come.

The only thing left to consider is the potential cost of acquisition…

All of this said, one has to wonder why Seattle is putting McCann on the trade block at all.

They’ve certainly got intentions of climbing back into the playoffs as soon as possible. And with the cap ceiling going up by leaps and bounds, they’re not exactly hurting for cap space, either.

One has to imagine that putting McCann on the block now signals an intention to perform a minor retool, cashing out on some key veterans in exchange for supplemental picks and prospects.

Remember that the Kraken are only three-and-a-half seasons old. They’ve only conduct four entry drafts thus far. That leaves them quite shorthanded on future assets, even still, and it’s not hard to understand their impetus to bring in more.

It’s possible they see McCann as a truly declining asset. But it’s more likely that they view him as someone other teams must still value, and might offer up some decent assets in return for.

Which brings us back to the Canucks, and whether it is truly worth their while to consider McCann.

We recently did an article on what the Canucks still had left to offer up in trades, and we came up with a mix of first round picks in this year and future years, some B-to-C-level prospects, and perhaps the returns brought back from the trades of pending UFAs.

The latter seems less likely now with the Canucks rolling again. And so, we’re probably left with the picks and prospects on hand.

Forgive us for being a bit predictable here, but we imagine the Kraken’s ask begins with a first round pick. McCann certainly has the offensive profile and the contract efficiency to demand such a return.

Or, we should specify, Seattle’s ask from Vancouver would probably start with a first round pick or one of Tom Willander, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Aatu Räty, or Elias Pettersson II. It’s the Canucks who would look at that list of asks and probably prefer to send out the first rounder.

How much might need to be added on top of that? It’s tough to say without knowing how many teams are in on the bidding, but it might not be that much.

Here’s where the increased cap may actually hurt McCann’s trade value a bit. With every team having extra cap space on hand this summer, the impulse to pay for an acquisition via trade might be less, due to each team thinking they can instead do their shopping via free agency. That probably reduces McCann’s in-season market to mostly those teams trying to make the playoffs, and that should lessen any bidding wars.

But we still don’t see the Canucks getting away with this player without giving up at least a first (or a top-four prospect) and an additional sweetener of some sort.
So…

The answer to the first question is a pretty clear-cut ‘yes.’ If the Kraken decide they’d rather not trade McCann to their closest geographic rival, well, then there’s not much that can be done about that. But presuming they’re willing to deal with Vancouver, as they have in the past already, then there aren’t any other major impediments.

The Canucks have the roster space, the cap space, and the assets to accommodate the acquisition of McCann.

The ‘should’ of it all is a little trickier to answer. And it involves a lot of unanswered questions.

Do the Canucks still see McCann as a centre? If so, the desire to trade for him is greatly heightened. There just aren’t that many scoring centres available at any given time, and the Canucks need one.

Do the Canucks see McCann more as a winger? In that case, one has to imagine that any plans surrounding him would be dependent on the future of Brock Boeser. If Boeser is extended, there’s far less need to add another scoring winger. If Boeser goes, then McCann looks like an apt replacement at a fraction of the salary.

And, of course, we can’t look at all this in a vacuum. McCann is sure to be one of the few truly offensive-talented forwards available below the age of 30. But he probably won’t be the only one.

And the Canucks probably only have it in them to add one notable forward to the roster in the course of this season, not two. So, they’ve got to pick their shot.

From where we’re sitting, McCann looks likely to be one of the best options available on the market, if not the best. At this point, it’s a pretty straightforward cost-benefit analysis, and without knowing the asking price, it’s hard to come to any concrete conclusions.

The benefits of bringing back McCann – even aside from rectifying a mistake of the past – are evident enough.