GM Patrik Allvin said all along that it was his intention to avoid LTIR relief space and keep the Vancouver Canucks actually, legitimately under the NHL salary cap ceiling to start the 2024/25 season.

Even as injuries started to mount – first Thatcher Demko, then Dakota Joshua – Allvin maintained that he had ways of achieving his goals. Plans, not yet entirely fulfilled.

But as more and more players dropped into and out of the preseason lineup, including Teddy Blueger, Pius Suter, and Conor Garland, the odds of the Canucks not using at least a little LTIR space as of their opening day roster seemed slimmer and slimmer.

But if we haven’t learned to trust in Allvin and Co. by now, it’s definitely time. Because in trading the injured Tucker Poolman for the non-injured Erik Brannstrom, at the cost of just 20% retention and a fourth round pick, Allvin has essentially fixed any and all cap complications plaguing the current Canucks, and set them up for a bevy of cap-related benefits in the campaign to come.

We’ll let our esteemed colleagues here at CanucksArmy handle the on-ice side of this transaction. We can just play lip service to the fact that trading a player who was not going to play again in Poolman for a player that serves a needed role – puck-moving defender – in Brannstrom is an obvious win.

That aside, this move is all about moving the Canucks firmly and at least semi-permanently below the salary cap.

The basic math of it is easy enough to figure out. Poolman, retained down to a $2 million cap hit, goes out the door, and Brannstrom and his $900K cap hit come in. That’s a positive swing of $1.1 million in cap space for the Canucks, right there.

But it’s actually a little more significant than that. Because, as someone essentially LTIRetired, Poolman was not taking up a spot on the active roster, just on the cap books. Brannstrom, on the other hand, will either take a roster spot or be sent down to the minors, which would result in his cap hit coming entirely off the books…

…which, in the middle of writing this article, it has! Brannstrom has been waived by the Canucks, meaning he’ll either be claimed or be assigned to Abbotsford after clearing. Either way, his entire $900K cap hit is effectively disappeared. So, that’s actually just a clean swing of $2 million in extra cap space for the Canucks.

Which might not sound like a lot, but is an amount that is going to make an enormous difference. With that extra cap space, the Canucks are now able to do all three things they want to do, cap-wise, in the 2024/25 season: they can ice a full active roster, they can provide internal injury coverage for multiple injuries at a time, and they can do so while still staying under the cap and accruing space on a daily basis, which in turn should allow them to eventually make in-season upgrades.

So, when we say this trade fixes the Canucks’ cap issues, we’re not speaking metaphorically or hyperbolically. It quite literally does.

With this trade made, the only issue the Canucks have to sort out prior to setting their opening day roster for October 7 is that of roster space. Currently, the Canucks have 25 players on their active roster, and just Demko and Joshua projected to start the year on IR. The maximum is 23.

If either of Suter or Garland is going to be out to start the season, they, too, could be placed on IR, which would open up an extra roster spot for as long as they’re there. But all indications are that both will be ready to rock as of October 9, so for now we will project that they are on the active roster.

That means that the Canucks will have to make two more cuts before setting their opening day roster. On the blueline, that cut now comes down to one of Brannstrom, Juulsen, and Friedman. And while Friedman has performed well enough in exhibition, his chances of beating out the newly-acquired Brannstrom and the incumbent Juulsen are low…

…is what we would have said, if Brannstrom didn’t get waived right in the middle of writing this article. So, it’s Brannstrom’s $900K off the books, not Friedman’s $775K, resulting in even more cap savings!

Up front, the decision is a little tougher. One more forward will have to be demoted. Both Aatu Räty and Arshdeep Bains could be sent down without requiring waivers. Nils Åman, on the other hand, would need to be waived (and, in fact, would have needed to be waived today, meaning it has to be one of Bains or Räty.)

From where we’re sitting, Bains is the most likely to be cut, as Räty seems to have found a temporary home on a third line with Garland and Nils Höglander, and for those aforementioned waiver-related reasons. Bains also has the lowest cap hit of the three, so he’s the most convenient placeholder for our cap projections. So, he’s who we will demote in our hypothetical roster, but, really, it could be any of the three. (If it’s Räty or Åman instead of Bains, the net result would just be slightly more cap space.)

All that adds up to an opening day (and opening night) roster that looks something like this:

All of which, in turn, adds up to a total cap hit of $87,520,825, which is $479,175 under the cap ceiling of $88 million.

Now, being just $479,175 under the cap isn’t some enormous amount of space. But it is effective. On its own and uninterrupted, that amount would accrue to a bit under $2 million in space by the 2025 Trade Deadline.

But it’s important to recognize what is really happening here, which is that the Canucks are achieving this while a full $8.25 million sits on the injured reserve. That’s a significant amount of internal injury coverage right there, and it’s no longer getting in the way of accruing cap.

Let’s imagine a dream scenario that will probably never come to pass: the Canucks get fully healthy. Well, as Joshua returns to the lineup, a forward is going to have to be demoted to make room for him. Maybe, at that point, Räty’s trial run comes to an end.

Then, Demko gets back in the crease, and at that point maybe it’s Silovs who goes down to spend the rest of the year as Abbotsford’s starter.

That would result in an additional $1,686,667 (Räty and Silovs’ combined cap hits) coming off the daily cap books, and that would put the Canucks at a full $2,165,842 under the cap ceiling.

That amount, if maintained all the way to the Trade Deadline, could balloon to over $8 million in effective cap space.

Which, again, won’t actually happen. Injuries do occur, and they tend to occur more frequently to Vancouver Canucks than they seem to for players of any other franchise.

But it all goes to show the possibilities that have opened up through this trade. The Canucks will accrue cap space, on some days they’ll accrue a lot of it, and over the season they should do so in an amount that compounds to millions of extra spending space by the deadline. They’ll also do so while being able to maintain an active roster of 23 players for the vast majority of the season, and while being able to easily handle and rotate call-ups when injuries inevitably occur.

All that, and (if Brannstrom clears waivers) a potentially-useful puck-moving LHD, for a cost of a fourth round pick and one year of retention.

The business just doesn’t get much tidier than that.