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Welcome back to Around the League — the column here at CanucksArmy where we deliver you news and notes from around the National Hockey League — oftentimes through a Vancouver Canucks-tinted lens!
Who would have thought there would be so much player movement around the league on a random Wednesday, still nine days away from the NHL entry draft? The Stanley Cup hasn’t even been awarded yet, and maybe not for another five days.
Firstly, the Calgary Flames trade former Vancouver Canuck goaltender Jacob Markstrom to the New Jersey Devils. But we covered that earlier this morning; check it out here.

Pierre-Luc Dubois Traded to the Washington Capitals

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman left the hockey world in awe on Wednesday afternoon when he dropped this news:
Hockey fans on Twitter erupted for four minutes as they stewed in speculation about the return. Pierre-Luc Dubois was the third overall pick in the 2016 NHL entry draft. Once full of potential, Dubois struggled in the first year of his 8-year, $8.5M per year extension would fetch.
Friedman had those answers for us shortly then after.
In exchange for Dubois, the Washington Capitals sent goaltender Darcy Kuemper to the Kings. It was a good old-fashioned hockey trade: one-for-one, with no salary retention on either end.
The Winnipeg Jets traded Dubois to the Kings less than one year ago in exchange for Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafollo, Rasmus Kupari, and a 2024 second-round pick. Dubois was immediately awarded an 8-year contract extension for $68M without playing a single shift for the Kings.
This wasn’t the first trade Dubois had been a part of. He was initially traded to the Jets after requesting a trade from the Columbus Blue Jackets. That trade saw Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic heading the other way.
2023-2024 was by far the worst season of Dubois’ career. He appeared in all 82 games but only scored 16 goals and 40 points with a minus-9 rating –– all career-lows in years he’s played above 50 games in a season.
The Kings receive Darcy Kuemper, who also had a career-bad season. Kuemper started just 30 games for the Capitals this season –– a 26-game drop from his first year in Washington. The netminder won just 13 games and finished with a career-high 3.31 goals against average and a career-low .890 save percentage.
Dubois, 25, has seven years remaining on his $8.5M contract and a full no-movement clause for the next four seasons that kicks in on July 1st. The clause will move to a 10-team no-trade list for the remaining three years.
Kuemper, 34, has three years remaining on his 5.25M contract and a modified no-trade clause. When he signed the deal, the clause was a 15-team no-trade list, but as of June 1st, 2024, it was bumped down to a 10-team list.
This trade looks to be an exchange of two bad contracts with their acquiring teams, hoping these players can bounce back to their regular form.

The San Jose Sharks

The San Jose Sharks made headlines more than once on Wednesday morning as they acquired two players.
In an attempt to clear some cap space before buying out Goodrow’s contract, the New York Rangers place Barclay Goodrow on waivers. In need of NHL talent, Sharks General Manager Mike Grier claimed Goodrow and the $3.6M annually he comes with.
Coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup championships, the Rangers sought out Goodrow in free agency and gave him a rich 6-year, $21.85M contract. This was a bit of a head-scratching deal as this was an expensive contract to give to what was known as a physical bottom-six forward.
Unfortunately for Goodrow and the Rangers, that’s all his time in New York would amount to. He would play his first two seasons on the third line, scoring 30 points in both seasons and finishing with a positive plus/minus rating. This season is where Goodrow fell off. He played 80 games, scoring just 12 points and had a minus-13 plus/minus rating.
Goodrow has trade protection, but that protection is null and void if claimed on waivers. It is a somewhat sly tactic for NHL GMs to work around the modified no-trade clause.
But this won’t be Goodrow’s first stint in San Jose, as he signed with the Sharks as an undrafted free agent in 2014. The forward spent six seasons in Northern California, playing 268 games and scoring 68 points.
Goodrow, 32, has three years remaining on his six-year deal, which will pay him $3.64M per season with a modified no-trade clause. This includes a 15-team no-trade list for all three remaining seasons.
The Rangers had the seventh least amount of cap space before the move. Now, they have $12.85M of available space to play with to extend Ryan Lindgren and find a much-needed right-winger for Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad.
The Sharks also traded a 2025 fourth-round pick to the Dallas Stars in exchange for Ty Dellandrea.
Dellandrea is a 23-year-old former first-round pick of the Stars who has struggled to stay in the lineup. That changed last season when Dellandrea played all 82 games and scored nine goals and 28 points. However, this season, he struggled to stay in the lineup, playing just 42 games and producing nine points with a -10 plus/minus rating.
It became more apparent that Dellandrea was likely on his way out when he played only six of Dallas’ 21 playoff games –– especially when he averaged just 10:44 minutes of ice time during that stretch. Dellandrea will now get a bigger role on a worse team to show what he can do in San Jose next season.

Columbus Blue Jackets fire head coach

After just one season, the Columbus Blue Jackets have parted ways with head coach Pascal Vincent. Vincent joined the organization in the 2021 season as an associate coach. He would later be promoted to head coach in September of this season after Mike Babcock resigned from the position.
This was just another step of house cleaning for the Blue Jackets in their front office this offseason. Once Don Wadell became available, he was quickly linked to the Columbus job and was later signed as the next General Manager and President of Hockey Operations.
And usually, when a new GM comes in, the existing head coach is in trouble. That was the case for Vincent. Although, Wadell did have some nice words to say about the former coach:
“As I spent time with Pascal over the past few weeks, I found him to be an outstanding person and smart hockey coach who worked very hard last year under trying circumstances, but I believe a change behind the bench is in our team’s best interest,“ Waddell said.
The Blue Jackets will now focus on finding their 11th coach in franchise history.