The 2025 NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone, and the Vancouver Canucks are what they are.

March 7, 2025, passed without much in the way of Canucks business being done. The day prior, they dealt Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers for a third round pick. That was it, however. Beyond that, GM Patrik Allvin and Co. chose to hang on to all three of their pending UFAs – Brock Boeser, Pius  Suter, and Derek Forbort – and to hold off on adding any outside reinforcements to the roster.

In other words, they went the ‘self-rental’ route. Now, whatever the Canucks accomplish in 2024/25, they’ll have to do with the players they already had on hand.

There are many, of course, who have already given up on this season being a significant one. Sure, the Canucks are (as of this writing, anyway) still in a playoff position, but few are expecting them to make any noise if and when they make it there. Much of the focus of fans and media alike has already shifted to the 2025/26 campaign.

And now that Trade Deadline Day has passed by without any new acquisitions or contract extensions to talk about, we’ve at least got a decent idea of what the next edition of the Canucks might look like.

Enough for a brief preview of the 2025/26 Canucks roster and cap situation, anyhow.

The Canucks have a good chunk of their roster established already, with a full 15 veteran NHLers on the books with a signed contract.

That list includes nine forwards (Elias Pettersson, Jake DeBrusk, Conor Garland, Filip Chytil, Dakota Joshua, Nils Höglander, Drew O’Connor, Teddy Blueger, and Kiefer Sherwood), four defenders (Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Marcus Pettersson, and Tyler Myers) and two goaltenders (Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen).

Laid out in rough lineup format, this portion of the roster looks something like this:

DeBrusk ($5.5m) – Pettersson ($11.6m) – Garland ($4.95m)

Joshua ($3.25m) – Chytil ($4.44m) – Höglander ($3m)

O’Connor ($2.5m) – Blueger ($1.8m) – Sherwood ($1.5m)

Hughes ($7.85m) – Hronek ($7.25m)

Pettersson ($5.5m) – Myers ($3m)

Demko ($5m)

Lankinen ($4.5m)

That is most of a full NHL lineup, with 15 of 23 maximum spots already spoken for. It’s not entirely complete, nor is it a particularly impressive lineup, but it is the foundation of the 2025/26 Canucks all the same. Especially given that one can look at that collection of 15 and reasonably deem that only one of them (Demko) is particularly likely to be traded anytime soon.

For those keeping track of the cap at home, this bunch adds up to a rough annual cap hit of $71.64 million.

While we’re talking cap, we might as well mention the dead cap already on the books for 2025/26, in the form of the last year of retention on Ilya Mikheyev ($713k) and an increased buyout penalty for Oliver Ekman-Larsson ($4.77m).

That gives this partial roster a total cap hit of about $77.12 million. That’s about $18.38 million under the newly-lifted cap ceiling of $95.5 million.
But, of course, this roster isn’t anywhere near finished.

There hasn’t been a time in recent memory with more young talent ready to burst onto the scene.

It’s got to the point where there are now several prospects that we can all but pencil in to the Cnaucks’ 2025/26 roster.

The first and foremost is probably the other Elias Pettersson, who neatly passed both the departed Soucy and the pending UFA Forbort on the LHD depth chart mid-season. He’ll slot in nicely behind Hughes and the other blueline Pettersson.

The next most likely is Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who is currently dominating the AHL, from a goal-scoring perspective. He seems destined to play a role in the Canucks’ top-six next season, especially if Boeser departs.

Now, he’s yet to skate a single NHL minute, or even to have signed an NHL contract, but most are expecting RHD Tom Willander to stick with the Canucks right away, too. Chances are good he’ll get an advanced preview of NHL hockey late in this regular season, and then most are hoping he’s ready to at least slot behind Hronek and Myers as of 2025/26.

The last name we’ll bring up as a more-than-likely addition to the roster is Aatu Räty. With Miller gone, the Canucks are low on centre depth, and especially the kind of centre depth that has the potential to be productive. Enter, Räty, the only young centre with even middle-six potential currently in the organization.

(For the purposes of this roster projection, we’ve estimated Räty, a pending RFA, at a nice, round $1 million salary, and giving Willander the same ELC as Lekkerimäki.)

Add these four into the mix – and their cheap contracts – and we’ve suddenly got a much fuller NHL roster that isn’t too much more expensive than the one we listed in the previous section.

DeBrusk ($5.5m) – Pettersson ($11.6m) – Garland ($4.95m)

Joshua ($3.25m) – Chytil ($4.44m) – Lekkerimäki ($918k)

O’Connor ($2.5m) – Blueger ($1.8m) – Höglander ($3m)

Räty ($1m) – Sherwood ($1.5m)

Hughes ($7.85m) – Hronek ($7.25m)

Pettersson ($5.5m) – Myers ($3m)

Pettersson ($838k) – Willander ($918k)

Demko ($5m)

Lankinen ($4.5m)

In adding these four prospects, the roster fill goes up to 19 of 23 spaces spoken for, and less than $4 million is added in salary, resulting in a total of $80.8 million.

By the rough math, that leaves about $14.7 million in cap space to fill out the rest of the roster.

Assuming the Canucks run with a full roster of 23, they’ll need to add at least four players to the group listed above. They’ll have about $14.7 million to do so, or an average of about $3.675 million per player.

Which might sound like a lot, but isn’t, really. For example, were the Canucks to extend Boeser at that reported $8 million cap hit, they’re suddenly down to just $6.7 million to spend on their other three additions.

One also looks at that roster and sees several holes. If the four young prospects can immediately step into major roles, that’s one thing, but that might be a lot to ask for, and supportive depth will be required all the same.

We look at this roster, and we see a need for a another top-six forward, first and foremost, and maybe two. We see a need for additional depth at centre. The defense can probably be filled out with a couple of cheap veterans, sure, but the rest of what this roster will need will cost money, and that’s already in short supply despite the cap increase. (One ‘easy’ way to affect more space? Trade Demko and replace him with a cheaper backup.)

The 2025/26 Canucks are, thus, still very much a work in progress. Allvin and Co. might not be facing the busiest summer of their lives, but it will be a difficult one all the same as they attempt to make small-scale changes to their roster with a small-scale budget – all the while hoping for large-scale improvements.

Easier said than done, to be sure.

This article is a presentation of Pacific Toyota Dealers who want to send one lucky winner and a friend to check out the Canucks and Golden Knights in the Konica Minolta Champions Club at Rogers Arena on April 6th.  The winner will also get 2 Canucks jerseys! Retail value of the grand prize is $1200.00 CDN. To enter, click this link https://bit.ly/4jG6xNj.

Must be a resident of BC and the Yukon of age of majority. Visit ShopToyota.ca today and check out the 2025 BZ4X! Plug In, Power Up and Drive On!