The process of rebuilding is supposed to be a slow one, and the Vancouver Canucks seem poised to employ the patience one requires. The most important part of a rebuild is acquiring premium young talent, and that’s almost exclusively done through the draft, an event that comes but once a year.

It’s only very rarely that such talent becomes available through trade, and usually only in very specific circumstances. The Canucks had to trade their captain and best player to get back someone as high- quality as the 20-year-old Zeev Buium, for example.

It’s only in the rarest of circumstances that a talented young player gets truly put on the trade block, and anytime that happens, it’s worth looking into. For the Canucks, it could represent an opportunity to not necessarily ‘skip ahead’ in the stages of the rebuild, but to ‘speed up’ the talent acquisition without having to wait for another Entry Draft.

So long, of course, as the price is right.

Well, a talented young player has been put to market. Shane Wright, the 22-year-old former expected first-overall pick and actual fourth-overall pick in 2022, and the Seattle Kraken have reportedly agreed to part ways, and both sides are now actively seeking a trade.

A player with Wright’s lingering availability is obviously an interesting opportunity for the Canucks. But when it comes to the price on this acquisition, we worry it’s going to be more Shane Wrong than Wright.

In fact, we might know that already, if the latest scuttlebutt is accurate. The Canucks reportedly already looked into acquiring Wright, and were told by the Kraken that the asking price was either Buium or Tom Willander. If that’s anything other than a strong opening bid, it’s enough to end the conversation right then and there. Buium and Willander are, at this point, of an entirely different calibre of NHL potential, and each has arguably enjoyed more success as rookies already than Wright has in parts of four NHL seasons.

If Seattle were willing to come down off that ridiculous ask, maybe something else could be arranged. But it’s obvious enough that the price on Wright would be some sort of high, which raises a question about reasonable asset management.

The centre position will always be important. And Wright, despite his struggles to open up his offensive game fully, does appear to be a bona fide NHL centre. He’s mostly played at that position in his professional career to date, and has scored as many as 19 goals and 44 points in a single season. He’s also a right-handed centre, too, which is always some added value.

But it’s a position of far less need for the Canucks than was previously the case. They’ve just drafted Caleb Malhotra to be their leading centre in the near future, and they’ve got Braeden Cootes waiting in the wings, too, after making the team out of camp last season. Both, at this point, seem like better candidates for long-term top-six deployment than does Wright.

The Canucks also have Elias Pettersson still on hand, and as long as he’s here, he’ll be deployed in the top six, too.

The name that might be most important to bring up here, however, is Marco Rossi. Really, Rossi and Wright are somewhat similar assets. Rossi was drafted ninth overall two years before Wright in 2020, but then missed an entire year of development due to a COVID infection. Rossi has three full NHL seasons under his belt to Wright’s two. And, between the two, Rossi has been significantly more successful.

Rossi already has two 20+ goal seasons on his record, as well as a 60-point effort. Even last season, dealing with injuries and a mid-season trade, Rossi managed 35 points in 50 games, a much higher rate than Wright’s best to date.

Look, we get where some of the excitement surrounding Wright has come from. The possibility of unlocking that potential that made him the presumed first overall selection in 2022 is tempting, especially if he can be acquired for some sort of discounted price. But there’s no guarantee that Wright is ever unlocked. He hasn’t exactly displayed the greatest attitude since arriving in the NHL, whether it be the infamous death glare at the Montreal draft table or this latest trade-request kerfuffle.

And we really doubt the price will ultimately be all that discounted, especially not if the Kraken’s first ask was in the Buium/Willander territory. The centre market is incredibly dry right now, and the Kraken have no real time-based pressure to deal Wright. They can wait until someone gets close to their asking price.

Plus, given the geographical rivalry, Seattle especially has no reason to ask anything but the utmost from Vancouver. The last thing they’d want to see is Wright having success directly across the border from them.

To even get the Kraken talking about Wright to the Canucks, it’d have to involve a piece the Canucks aren’t interested in moving. If not a Buium or Willander, then certainly something like a future first-round pick, or one of their few top prospects.

If the Kraken were open to something like a Jonathan Lekkerimäki-for-Wright swap, well, then, sure, maybe the Canucks take a look at that. But that feels unlikely.

The reality here is that the Canucks are still best to take a patient approach. They’ve got some fine young centres incoming, and they’ve already got a fairly similar asset to Wright on-hand in the form of Rossi, who can continue to be assessed as either a mid-range piece of the rebuild or a potential trade chip down the road.

Paying a high price for an ultimately redundant player is not a move the Canucks should make at this time, even if that player has untapped potential.

The time to pay high costs to supplement this roster will come, but not for a few years yet, and probably not from the Seattle Kraken.