Now that the NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone, news about the Vancouver Canucks and their lack of moves are coming out.
Donnie & Dhali’s Rick Dhaliwal reported on Monday morning that the Carolina Hurricanes made a last ditch effort after the completion of the Mikko Rantanen trade to acquire Canucks forward Brock Boeser:
“Carolina GM [General Manager] Eric Tulsky said, because the Rantanen deal took so long to get cleared by the NHL, he didn’t have enough time to get other significant deals done. Some say Tulsky called Vancouver in the last half an hour of the deadline and offered up one of the two first-round picks from the Rantanen deal for Boeser.
“But remember this, the Canucks said before the [deadline] they don’t want to get weaker. They don’t want to get worse with the Boeser trade. Picks and prospects don’t make you better today. Picks and prospects make you better in the future.
“There was a late push by Carolina. Some say to get Boeser, and some say they offered up one of those two picks.”
Dhaliwal also mentioned that the Canucks tried to re-sign the forward earlier in the week ahead of the trade deadline:
“Vancouver made Brock Boeser a new contract offer late last week. I think it was before Friday’s deadline. Clearly, the offer wasn’t good enough. [It was a] Last second stab by the Canucks to sign him on Friday. I do not believe they came close. So the Vancouver Canucks did try last week. They took a stab at him 11th hour. They made a new contract offer to Brock. It wasn’t good enough. I think they took a shot at him Wednesday or Thursday.”
Dhaliwal then clarified that this was a separate deal from the five-year, $8 million annually extension made to Boeser earlier in the season.
Boeser has spent his entire nine-year NHL career with Vancouver and currently sits ninth in goals (197) and 12th all-time in points (422) in the franchise’s history. The former first-round pick is coming off a career-year in 2023-24, where he scored 40 goals and 33 assists for 73 points in 81 games. He has followed that up this season with 18 goals and 20 assists for 38 points through 56 games.
The American winger is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and will now hold all of the cards in the decision on where he plays next season.