The NHL’s holiday roster freeze – the first of two major freezes during the 2025-26 regular season – is now upon us. But ahead of this little miniature deadline, a few notable trades went down, and they established a rather high market for forwards.

Hours before the midnight freeze on December 19, two trades were announced. First, the Montreal Canadiens brought back Phillip Danault, a player who had once starred for them as a two-way centre, from the Los Angeles Kings. Back in 2021, Danault had left the Canadiens due to their unwillingness to give him a sixth year of term on his contract, and he got that sixth year as a UFA from LA. Now, in a nice bit of poetry, the Canadiens have acquired the fifth and sixth years of Danault’s contract anyway – and paid a second round pick in order to do so.

The other trade saw pending UFA Mason Marchment traded from the Seattle Kraken, a team he had just joined via trade this offseason, to the Columbus Blue Jackets. It cost the Jackets a second round pick in 2027 and a fourth in 2026.

Now, two trades do not exactly set the market on their own. And neither of these deals represented any earth-shattering, door-busting value on the returns. But both bode extremely well for a Vancouver Canucks team that hopes to sell off some forwards of its own once the roster freeze is lifted – and, in particular, forwards like Kiefer Sherwood.

The expected value on Sherwood has always been a little tough to gauge because of how unique a player he has become in Vancouver. On the one hand, anyone who has watched him these last two seasons can attest that he is an immensely impactful player. Given the dryness of the rental market this season, it’s not a stretch to say that Sherwood is among the bigger difference-making pending UFAs available, and that alone should entail a high price via trade.

Then again, despite Sherwood’s goal-scoring pace this year, he’s still not considered a bona fide top-six talent by most. Is someone really going to pay a premium price for a piece that no contending team would ever want to place on their top two scoring lines?

That’s probably why you’ve already seen the projected returns for Sherwood ranging anywhere from a ‘first round pick and a great prospect’ to a mere ‘second round pick.’

But that’s also why the Danault and Marchment trades really set a positive standard for getting the most out of Sherwood.

All three of Danault, Marchment, and Sherwood are what are typically referred to as ‘middle-six’ talents. That means they each probably have no business in a contending top-six, and yet they each offer a little bit more than does the typical strictly bottom-six player.

For Danault, this has come in the form of two-way defensive excellence. Danault has scored as many as 54 points in a season while matching up with the best the opposition has to offer, and often coming out on top. He’s received Selke votes – but never a nomination – in six different seasons.

But if we’re talking the present day, we have to admit that Danualt’s game has fallen off – big time. Coming off a year in which he got 43 points in 80 games, Danault has just five points on 30 games thus far in the 2025-26 campaign. He’s scored exactly zero goals this year. And Danault isn’t even doing the thing he’s supposed to be doing well – his expected goals rate of 47.95% this year is easily the worst of his career.

In other words, the Canadiens decided that Danault’s past performance was worth a second round pick, despite his current performance really not being up to snuff. And that’s with a whole other season remaining on Danault’s contract past this year at a $5.5 million cap hit that, unless he turns it around, has become more of a detriment than a excess value.

And still, a second round pick, on the promise of maybe being partially as impactful as Danault used to be.

Marchment is a player much more akin to a Sherwood type. He’s a winger, too, and a rambunctious one at that. The son of later former NHLer Bryan Marchment has built his game on physicality and antagonism, much like his father, but also has a history of goal-scoring. Marchment put up 22 goals in each of his two most recent seasons with the Dallas Stars before being traded to Seattle in a cap-cutting move this past offseason.

But Marchment has not been a hit for the Kraken. At the time of trade, Marchment had just four goals and 13 points through his first 29 games, and was deemed to be not a terrific fit for their lineup or style of play.

And, still, as a pending UFA rental, Marchment landed a second and a fourth round pick as his return.

If we put these folks head-to-head, especially as of this current 2025-26 regular season, the comparison is not that close, and it heavily favours Sherwood. He’s already got 16 goals on the season in just 35 games. That’s more goals than either Danault or Marchment have scored in all but three of their own individual seasons, and it’s come in less than half of a year. It’s 12 more goals than Marchment has this year, and 16 more than Danault’s zero.

All three names are ‘checkers,’ and Marchment can be extremely physical at times, but then Sherwood has the second-most hits in the entire league a year after setting the single-season record for hits.

In the categories of goal-scoring and hitting, which are Sherwood’s two leading categories, he’s miles ahead of either Danault or Marchment.

Sure, there are some other dimensions to consider here. Danault is a centre, and those always have extra value, especially in this, a season where everyone seems to want a centre. And Marchment has that history of playoff experience with the Stars to consider.

But each of these players, at a $5.5 million cap hit for Danault and a $4.5 million cap hit for Marchment, is significantly more expensive than Sherwood. With Sherwood, an acquiring team has the added value of not having to adjust their cap much, if at all, to accommodate Sherwood into the lineup. All this, in the first season with a playoff salary cap!

And so, in a market where the minimal price on a useful middle-six forward appears to have been set at a second round pick, what can the Canucks expect back for one of the most useful middle-six forward in the game, who comes at a bargain price?

If Danault, with his zero goals, and Marchment, with his four, brought back second-round picks of their own, then what should Sherwood bring back, especially given that he comes at an extremely discounted cap hit already?

It’s hard to look at this precedent and not feel like the asking price for Sherwood has to start at a first round pick. Marchment’s price-tag of a second round pick – from a team in Seattle that may just sink in the standings and bring that second rounder into the 30s – and a fourth round pick is not terribly far off. And Sherwood has, this season anyway, been terribly more impactful than Marchment on the ice.

According to this market, Sherwood should bring back a first round pick, at a minimum. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that the Canucks could probably even hold out for slightly more, if they timed and played their cards right.

In fact, the Danault and Marchment trades might actually conspire to give Sherwood a little bonus value on top of all we’ve discussed. After all, there are only so many depth forwards to go around…and with two now off the table, Sherwood becomes an even rarer commodity.