Do you think Willander gets the same type of deal next offseason? Obviously only 7 years though.
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JPat’s Monday Mailbag: Would you do the Quinn Hughes trade today?
Sep 7, 2026, 11:32 EDT
Hopefully you have made the most of the final long weekend of summer. The days are getting shorter, but the trade-off is that hockey is drawing nearer. And two weeks from now, the Vancouver Canucks will have completed their training camp and already opened their National Hockey League preseason.
There will be plenty to digest over the remainder of the month. And hopefully we’ll all have a better sense of the product the Canucks will put on the ice for their September 29th season opener. In the meantime, we’ve got questions to answer in this week’s Monday mailbag. Let’s get down to business.
Yes. In fact, with an escalating salary cap, there is a world in which Tom Willander stands to get a better deal than Zeev Buium on an annual basis. I think we all have to start looking at these sizable contracts as a percentage of the cap rather than the total overall value. With the additional year, Buium’s $75.04M total compensation will outpace whatever Willander signs for. But a year from now, it’s certainly possible that Willander could sign for more on a per-season basis if he backs up his rookie season with a solid sophomore campaign. Whatever the final number, it’s safe to assume that Willander’s camp will be looking for a seven-year maximum contract next summer using Buium’s deal as a comparable. And the Canucks will have to be prepared to play ball. This is simply the way things are in the new NHL economy.
If you could do it all over again would you exercise the Quinn Hughes trade with the same return or wait and look for a better deal?
Honestly, I’m not sure a better deal would have materialized. The Canucks got four legitimate pieces for Quinn Hughes, and if there was a better offer at the time, they surely would have taken it. I don’t know that playing the waiting game was ever going to benefit them. Certainly, holding on to Hughes until the summer would have reduced the opportunity for acquiring teams to have him for multiple playoff runs. I think Minnesota was prepared to pay a premium for that. Now we’ll all have to wait and see if the Wild get a second postseason with Hughes on the roster. But that’s not really a concern for the Canucks. Trading star-level players is always tough in that you’re pedalling away the best player in the deal and trying to recoup value through volume. None of the pieces the Canucks acquired from the Wild will ever replace what Quinn Hughes accomplished in Vancouver. But they landed a quality young defenceman with star potential in Zeev Buium, addressed their centre-ice issues with Marco Rossi, added a promising middle-six winger in Liam Öhgren and turned the 24th overall pick into Adam Novotný. It will be a while before we see the finished products that Buium, Öhgren, and Novotný become in the NHL, but at this early stage, I think the Canucks did about as well as they could, knowing they had a player on their hands who wanted out.
Will the time change of games to 8pm due to the province doing away with daylight savings affect the players game prep or the game itself?
It shouldn’t. Games are played at all times of the day over the course of a long NHL season. It’s part of life in the league, and players simply have to adjust. For years, the late game on Hockey Night in Canada started at 8 pm local time in Alberta, and the Canucks have been involved in a bunch of those. So they’ve been there and done that. I think those noon and 1 pm Eastern games are a lot tougher on the body clock for Western teams heading out on the road. I don’t think a lack of daylight saving time will have any impact on things.
Is there a path for the Canucks to be a true contender down the line without a 1st overall pick for a potential superstar? Can they have ultimate success with guys like Cootes and Malhotra without a Celibrini type superstar?
Without knowing how the draft lottery balls are going to bounce for the next couple of seasons, the Canucks have to be prepared to push on without a first overall pick in the draft. That’s certainly no guarantee. But it does seem likely they’ll land high draft picks for the next couple of years after drafting third overall in June and selecting Caleb Malhotra. A team like Carolina just proved it’s possible to win the Cup without drafting first overall (although the Hurricanes did have former number one Taylor Hall on the roster, Conn Smyth winner Jordan Staal was the second overall pick in his draft year and Andrei Svechnikov was a second overall selection, too). Whether first overall or not, the Canucks need game breakers, and I think that’s the path to success. So whether drafted at the top of the heap or somewhere else in the pack, the Canucks need to unearth a few players that can take over hockey games. Braeden Cootes and Caleb Malhotra can certainly be a part of what the Canucks are trying to put together here, but it does feel like they’ll need to find a couple of players that can dominate. It’s not going to be easy, but unless their lottery luck changes, they have no choice but to figure out a way to get to the top without picking first overall.
Is the pacific division strong enough to keep the Canucks out of playoff contention for the next 3 years?
Clearly, the best way to make up ground on division rivals is to find a way to beat them in regulation time. But as the Canucks set out on their rebuild, will they have what it takes to pilfer points from Pacific foes? That’s a legitimate question. Last season, the Canucks won just eight of 26 games against the other Pacific Division teams (8-16-2). But Seattle went 16-9-1 within the division and still missed the playoffs by a wide margin. So divisional games matter, but the Kraken can tell you firsthand that they’re not a guarantee to nail down a playoff berth. With Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl around, the Oilers will be tough for the foreseeable future. Anaheim and San Jose both look like they’re making strides year over year. At some point, Vegas will suffer a drop-off, but I’m not sure that point is in the next couple of seasons. And then you’ve got Los Angeles, Calgary and Seattle to contend with as well. I know the Pacific was the only division in the league without a 100-point team last season, but I think that was an anomaly. So I can’t say the division is the only reason the Canucks won’t be in the playoffs in the next three years, but it definitely will play a part simply because the bulk of their games are against Pacific opponents.
Do u think sport radio in Vancouver ever returns?
To borrow a phrase, I think it could very well return after a retool with a hybrid form. I don’t know that we’ll see or hear a full sports radio format on terrestrial radio again in this market. It’s a labour-intensive and expensive format to operate, and I’m just not sure there is an investor out there that’s ready to take the risk. However, I could easily see programming blocks on existing frequencies devoted to sports, whether that’s an afternoon drive show focused entirely on sports or perhaps a fledgling station turning its evening hours over to the format. With the proliferation of podcasts and live streams in the market, I just don’t see a way a radio station could field an all-day lineup of qualified sports talkers that would both generate an audience and attract advertisers. You can put people in the chairs and allow them to turn on the microphones, but they have to be engaging and compelling enough to make the business model work. And not just in one part of the day, but at the very least from 6 am until 6 pm. The market once had duelling sports radio stations, and now it has none. And unfortunately, I think it’s likely to stay that way. But maybe the Canucks’ experiment on FM radio this season will pave the way for a sports radio comeback. Maybe.
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