The 2025 NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone. Not with a bang, as far as the Vancouver Canucks are concerned, but with a whimper.

At various points, fans and media alike had expressed dreams of GM Patrik Allvin and Co. going all-out on not going all-in. Many had convinced themselves that the Canucks, currently on the fringes of playoff contention, would become sellers at the deadline, and ship off their handful of pending UFAs to the highest bidder.

Those same folks then watched the 2025 Trade Deadline develop into one of the hottest sellers’ markets ever. Former Canuck Anthony Beauvillier went for a second, for pete’s sake, and Cody Glass, a player mostly known for Vancouver fans being glad they did not draft him, went for a third.

The prices on rentals were through the roof. And yet, by the day’s end, all of the Canucks’ own pending UFAs were still in Vancouver. Derek Forbort. Pius Suter. And, perhaps most consequential of all, Brock Boeser.

In fact, the only transaction the Canucks made leading up to the deadline was a deal made the day before that sent Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers for a third round pick. Aside from that, the Canucks were entirely idle.

It doesn’t take too much of a traipse around #Canucks social media to learn that many are frustrated with the non-action.

Some folks were downright salivating when they saw the returns being thrown around on Friday. Those same folks no doubt developed fairly advanced fantasies of bringing back multiple first rounders for Brock Boeser, or maybe even a Logan Stankoven. Folks held out hope for Pius Suter bringing in a second and change. Even a Forbort should reasonably bring back a third in this economy, some reasoned. But it was all for naught.

Which leads many, naturally, to a feeling that the Canucks ‘missed out’ on all that future-based capital. Or, slightly differently, that they essentially ‘traded’ those potential returns in exchange for the ability to ‘self-rent’ their own UFAs for the upcoming stretch run and playoff attempt.

That’s a fine line of thinking. So long as it doesn’t go so far as to falling into the classic trap of the sunk-cost fallacy. And especially so long as Canucks’ management doesn’t feel the pinch of the sunk-cost pressure themselves.

Oxford defines the ‘sunk-cost fallacy’ as “the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.”

We see gamblers fall for this all the time, as they lose their money in a game of chance, and reason that they must therefore keep playing the game until they can make those losses up. But they never do.

Government projects constantly fall into this trap. And so, too, do professional sports managers.

You’ve no doubt already heard a bit of this sunk-cost sentiment shared post-deadline. The kinds of opinions that sound something like ‘Well, if they didn’t trade Boeser for a haul of draft picks and prospects, they had BETTER re-sign him then.’

That’s the sunk-cost fallacy right there.

Did the Canucks ‘invest’ in Boeser (and Suter and Forbort) by choosing not to trade them for whatever returns were available at this deadline. Yes. Call it a self-rental, call it what you will, it’s a decision to continue to employ these assets instead of the assets that might have been exchanged for them in a trade.

But what that investment doesn’t do – or shouldn’t do – is change any of the parameters surrounding any contract negotiations.

Put it this way: the Canucks and Boeser’s camp were unable to come to terms on a contract extension prior to the deadline. That means that whatever the Canucks were comfortable offering Boeser, even when it came down to a ‘final offer’, was not good enough for Boeser to sign.

So, what happens now?

Following the impulse of the sunk-cost fallacy might lead the Canucks to increase their offer in some way, so as to ensure that they do eventually get Boeser under contract. Because, again, if they don’t, then they lost out on that trade capital for nothing.

Except, the trick of the sunk-cost fallacy is that there’s always more cost to be paid. And, in this case, that cost could come in the form of an onerous contract that does more to shorten the Canucks’ window of contention that anything to open it wider.

In short, what we’re really saying here is that the fact the Canucks held on to Boeser at this deadline should do nothing to change the contract offers he receives from the Canucks. In fact, chances are that the ‘final offer’ he received from Vancouver was already over and above what they ideally want to sign him to. Anything beyond that runs too much a risk of becoming a problematic contract.

The Canucks’ final offer, then, should remain their final offer, and the deadline should do nothing to change it. If anything, the ongoing extension offer should probably get a little worse, now that the ‘final’ offer wasn’t taken.

The same goes for Suter, who is experiencing a career season and will be one of the few UFA centres available on the market if he makes it there this summer. If Suter is willing to re-up with the Canucks at a reasonable salary and term, then by all means. But if he’s looking to break the bank at an AAV of $4-or-5 million, he needs to be allowed to walk.

Again, not getting a second rounder at the deadline doesn’t do anything to change this. A missed opportunity to trade a player for future assets in the past can’t ever do anything to make a bad contract retroactively better. It just doesn’t work that way.

We could say the same for Forbort, but we have a feeling his negotiations won’t ever break the bank in any scenario.

All we’re really saying here is that Allvin and Co. need to stick to their guns here. Whether sitting on their UFAs at the Trade Deadline was the right or wrong decision is, and should remain, more-or-less irrelevant to ongoing contract negotiations. Their bottom lines must stay the same, regardless of those demanding that something be ‘got’ out of these expiring contracts.

There’s no use crying over spilled draft picks. And nothing makes a missed opportunity in the past more regrettable than using it as a justification to make a worse decision in the future.

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