The Vancouver Canucks may have lost one of their top centre options for the offseason in Matt Duchene.
Duchene re-signed with the Dallas Stars to a four-year contract with a $4.5 million cap hit earlier on Thursday, but apparently he was high on the Canucks’ list for options to fill out their hole at the top-six centre position, according to Rick Dhaliwal on Donnie and Dhali – the Team.
“[The Canucks] could have hit the market and gone after Duchene, and from what we’re told, what we’re led to believe, Duchene was very high on the Canucks’ radar for July, IF they couldn’t land a top six centre.”-Rick Dhaliwal
As the 2025 NHL Entry Draft approaches, it’s likely that the Canucks are looking for a centre option via a trade, but should they fail to find the right option or be unwilling to pay the prices on the market, they were likely hoping to have Duchene as a backup option. But with Duchene now locked up, the Canucks will have to look elsewhere on the market.
The Canucks have needed a top-six centre ever since the locker room conflict between Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller forced Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin’s hand and made them trade Miller to the New York Rangers earlier in the 2024-25 season. While they did get a centre in Filip Chytil in return, ideally he would be the team’s third-line centre.
With Duchene now off the market, that leaves fewer top-six centre options for the Canucks in free agency, a list that only includes Sam Bennett, John Tavares, Jonathan Toews, Mikael Granlund, Claude Giroux and Pius Suter. On top of that, it’s slim pickings on the trade market, as only Marco Rossi, Charlie Coyle, Pavel Zacha, Morgan Geekie and David Kampf were the only centres not named Elias Pettersson listed as options on Daily Faceoff’s most recent Trade Targets board.
Get ready for wall-to-wall coverage of one of the biggest days in the calendar — the Daily Faceoff Live Free Agency Special goes live on July 1st at 11 AM EST. Host Tyler Yaremchuk is joined by Carter Hutton, Matthew Barnaby, Jeff Marek, Hart Levine, Colby Cohen, Jonny Lazarus, and insiders from across the Network for three hours of in-depth analysis, live reactions, and real-time updates on every major signing and trade. From blockbuster deals to under-the-radar moves, we’re breaking it all down as it happens. Don’t miss a minute — catch the full special live on DailyFaceoff.com and Daily Faceoff’s YouTube.
