When reports were made earlier in Trade Deadline Week that the Vancouver Canucks were considering a post-deadline extension for pending UFA Teddy Blueger, some read it as a bit of negotiation gamesmanship. It might have been that the Canucks were trying to increase the trade offers coming in for Blueger by suggesting that they were happy to keep him if said offers never got up to snuff.

But if that were the case, it was a game of chicken that GM Patrik Allvin and Co. lost. The 2026 NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone, and Blueger remains a Canuck. That being the case, one has to now assume that the reports were accurate, and that the Canucks are truly considering some sort of extension for Blueger.

Is that a wise idea if so?

Entirely within the vacuum of his performance as a player, it’s hard not to argue that Blueger has earned an extension. Amid one of the most turmoil-laden seasons in franchise history, Blueger has remained a beacon of consistency. In fact, though injuries limited him to just 14 games pre-deadline, Blueger has eight points in those 14 games, good for a 0.57 PPG average. If that holds, it’ll be the most productive season of his career. And how many Canucks are going to call 2025-26 anything close to their best?

Points aside, Blueger continues to do all those little things that many thought would make him an ideal candidate for some contender to add as depth at the deadline. He’s skating 16:14 a night, he’s starting most of his shifts in the defensive end, and he’s killing penalties. The only thing that has slipped at all in Blueger’s game, here at the age of 31, are his faceoffs, down to a near-career-worst 45.8%. One has to assume that is at least partially down to a late start and needing to shake off some rust while facing centres in mid-season form.

Put all that together, and under plenty of circumstances, a Blueger extension might make sense. On the ice, there’s little chance that Blueger’s play is going to hurt the Canucks anytime soon. Of course, if we’re talking impact, then the context of the Trade Deadline has to be applied next. Allvin spoke about a lack of offers for Blueger, but surely there had to be at least something out there at some point along the way. We saw other bottom-six centres like Michael McCarron (second round pick), Scott Laughton (third round pick), Sam Carrick (third and sixth round picks), Nic Dowd (second and third round picks) go for better-than-decent returns. With the Canucks maintaining an unused retention slot, there almost had to be at least a little draft capital theoretically available for Blueger.

Management must be thinking, to some extent, that a Blueger extension is worth more than said draft capital, in both the short and long run. The line of thinking where Blueger gets extended to prevent him from “walking away for nothing” doesn’t really fly if the team had the option to trade him, and is a little too close to a sunk-cost fallacy for comfort, anyway. The motivation to keep Blueger has to go beyond that.

An immediate concern about a potential Blueger extension that will be raised is around roster space. The Canucks’ forward corps already got a little squishy at times this season, and there’s hope of more youth being injected into that mix next year. In the end, it was probably assumed by most that more bodies than just Kiefer Sherwood, Conor Garland, and David Kampf would be shipped out.

If we look just at Blueger’s centre position, he’d be extending to slot somewhere into a depth chart that could still include Elias Pettersson, Marco Rossi, Aatu Räty, and Max Sasson. We’ll count Filip Chytil out of the centre picture for now, but prospects Braeden Cootes and the recently-recalled Ty Mueller will both make a push for a spot in camp.

In a world where Sasson makes an oft-expected transition to the wing, and where both Cootes and Mueller develop further in the AHL next season, there is a theoretical spot left open for Blueger, platooning in the bottom-six with Räty – as he will presumably do for the rest of 2025-26, regardless of an extension.

There seems to be little chance of Blueger truly blocking anyone, at least not for the 2026-27 campaign. If someone like Cootes pushes their way onto the roster, Blueger can be pushed down the depth chart easily enough, or even slide over to the wing himself. The Canucks wish they had more forward prospects gunning for jobs, but they really don’t, at least not yet.

One could talk here about team culture. As those aforementioned prospects spend more time in the NHL with the Canucks, it’s important that they’re receiving the right kind of mentorship. By all accounts, Blueger is a consummate professional with Cup-winning experience who sets a positive example for his teammates. He’s the exact kind of veteran to keep around in the room for that exact purpose.

There is, of course, always the possibility of trading Blueger again at some point in the future, if he does indeed sign a contract extension. There’ll almost certainly be another hot market for centres at the 2026 Trade Deadline, and at the 2027 Trade Deadline, and so on…

Whatever draft or prospect capital may have been made available for Blueger this year may be made available again. There was a lot of talk about the Canucks potentially taking on flippable cap dumps to sell in the future, but it’s always better when the players you’re flipping are players you actually want around in the meantime.

But if we look at all these factors at the same time, it becomes clear that the main and most important mark of whether a Blueger extension makes sense for the Canucks will be the term. The rebuild is on, the draft picks are being acquired, and those forward spots are going to be needed eventually. Blueger may contribute positively on and off the ice right now, and he may not be blocking the progress of anyone yet, but the longer he sticks around, the more likely it is that he starts to get in the way.

Sign Blueger to a one- or maybe even two-year extension at about the same price he’s at now, and most should be able to get on board for that. Plan for him to be a good influence and a bit of a stabilizing force for the youngsters for another partial season or two, and then plan to cash in on him thereafter.

Anything more than that, however, and the Canucks would be best to pursue other, similar options that are available on short-term deals. Simply put, Vancouver’s days of signing veterans to long-term contracts should be at an end here, and at an end for a good long while. That’s as true for Blueger as it is for anyone.