Nils Höglander isn’t exactly locked in to any specific spot in the Vancouver Canucks’ lineup. As it stands heading into Wednesday’s season opener, he’s a winger on the third line alongside Aatu Räty and Conor Garland. But that’s probably just a placeholder spot until Dakota Joshua returns to action. After that, Höglander could reasonably find himself on any other forward line, from a scoring line with either Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk or JT Miller and Brock Boeser, all the way down to the fourth line with whoever else is left.

But while Höglander’s exact place in the depth chart isn’t quite locked into place, the same can’t be said about Höglander’s place on the team itself. That’s because GM Patrik Allvin announced on Sunday that Höglander had signed a three-year, $3 million AAV contract extension that carries him through from next year’s 2025/26 to the 2027/28 season.

It’s a sizeable commitment to a player with just 221 NHL games under his belt to this point. More than that, however, it’s a further commitment to the current set of forwards that the Canucks already have on hand – and to that set of forwards being good enough to run with as the Canucks attempt to make the most of their current competitive window.

Most folks will tell you that the Canucks’ blueline needs some work before they can call themselves true contenders. Beyond the top pairing of Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek, there’s probably a need for at least a strong 3D to join the mix before anyone is truly satisfied with the situation.

Goaltending, meanwhile, has become an enormous question mark, what with Thatcher Demko’s uncertain health and Arturs Silovs’ uncertain timeline as Demko’s successor.

But the forward corps? The forward corps are doing just fine, and with this latest extension, one almost begins to wonder if they might already be approaching a complete unit.

Based on the contracts, the Canucks seem to think so.

Höglander joins a not-insignificant group of Canucks forwards now signed through 2028. That list includes Elias Pettersson, JT Miller, Jake DeBrusk, and Dakota Joshua. Throw in Brock Boeser’s own presumed and pending extension, which is almost guaranteed to be longer than three seasons, and suddenly you’ve got what could be the team’s top-six all signed, sealed, and delivered for the next four years running.

It’s a sign of commitment. In signing DeBrusk this past summer to a lengthy UFA contract, the Canucks made a bet on his being the ‘missing piece’ in their top-six; the missing partner that Pettersson so badly needed. In extending Höglander now, they’re essentially making a bet on only needing to staff out the rest of the forward corps with somewhat complementary pieces, for one, and complementary pieces that they’ve already got on hand, at that.

They’re showing a willingness to move forward through the competitive window with just the forwards they’ve got on hand.

Over the next two seasons, other forwards will inevitably depart. Pius Suter and Daniel Sprong are UFAs after this upcoming campaign. Garland, Danton Heinen, Teddy Blueger, and Kiefer Sherwood will join them the summer after.

But even there, the Canucks are already sort of covered.

Räty enters the 2024/25 season as, for the time being anyway, a part of the top-nine, currently dressing as 3C. If he’s not considered a permanent part of the top-nine yet, he will be soon enough.

And then there’s Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who made a decent enough run at winning a top-six spot in training camp despite the odds being decidedly against him following the offseason signings of Heinen and Sprong.

Given Lekkerimäki’s progress and development, he’s one or two years away from permanent NHL minutes in a scoring role at most.

Räty becomes an RFA after this season, at which point he’ll presumably sign a reasonably-priced and -lengthed bridge deal. Lekkerimäki is only in year one of his three-year ELC. They, too, are locked in for the long haul, with the long haul being defined as the competitive window of the next three or four NHL seasons.

Put Räty and Lekkerimäki together with the signed or soon-to-be-signed set of Pettersson, Miller, Boeser, DeBrusk, Joshua, and Höglander, and suddenly you’ve got a set of eight forwards who the Canucks are committed to, and vice versa, through what project to be the most significant years for this current core of players.

That’s 8/9ths of a top-nine. And, from where we’re sitting, a pretty darn good one. All under contract (Boeser excepted) or team control until the year 2028. At which point, the competitive window may well be closing anyway.

Whether this group winds up being good enough or not remains to be seen. In many ways, the bet is already made.

With so much of the forward corps locked into place both effectively and financially, more dedicated focus can be placed on fixing those other holes remaining on the roster, namely, the need for improvement on the blueline. But in looking at that set of forwards and the lack of many or any additions in the near future, one can easily imagine Allvin and Co. now being able to put all resources, including draft picks and whatever spare cap space they happen upon, into the search for defensive upgrades.

The forward corps, Höglander now included, appears to largely be already in the shape they’re going to be in for the next little while. And that’s a shape that these Canucks clearly believe they can win with. These contracts wouldn’t have been signed if that wasn’t the case. More wiggle room would have been left open for reconfiguration.

Commitments have been made. Only time will tell if they were the right ones.