The majority of the Vancouver Canucks’ goals right now are long-term ones, as GM Ryan Johnson and co-POHOs Henrik and Daniel Sedin begin their stint at the head of the long-awaited rebuild. But there are some short-term goals worth considering, too.

We’ve talked plenty about the Canucks’ need to continue to add toughness to their roster as this rebuild continues to commence. They brought in Curtis Douglas last season, and now many would like to see him both re-signed and joined by another tough guy or two. The thinking goes that, if the Canucks are going to be losing and losing a lot over the next couple of years, they had better make sure they’re not getting beat up at the same time. Few would argue that an environment in which the Canucks’ new young core knows they’ll be backed up and stood up for is a more positive environment for development.

We’ve talked specifically about the possibility of the Canucks signing some key free agents this offseason to supplement that truculence. Douglas is one such UFA, and he will assumedly come relatively cheap due to his lack of experience. But other more practiced names we’ve mentioned might not. Names like AJ Greer, Jeffrey Viel, Beck Malenstyn, and Nicolas Deslauriers all fit the bill to various extents, but the UFA market is an empty one this summer. There is far more cap space available than there are players to spend it on, and that’s a recipe for overpayments by both term and salary.

And since the Canucks won’t be the only team seeking additional toughness, that means that the majority of their would-be targets are going to cost more dollars and especially years than the Canucks might want to spend.

So, they may need to explore alternate options to literally punch up the roster. Options like the trade market. Options like Jordan Greenway.

It’d be kind of funny if Greenway ended up a Canuck after all these years. Rumours of Vancouver’s interest in him go back to Greenway’s days with the Minnesota Wild, when Jim Benning was still GM of the Canucks. That interest – or reported interest, anyway – continued through the Rutherford/Allvin regime, only tapering off in the most recent years as Greenway himself tapered off on the ice.

Greenway is an interesting player. He’s one of the biggest in the NHL at 6’6” and 231. And for a minute there, he was trending toward being a rare, true power forward. He got up to 32 points in 56 games in his third NHL season with the Wild, and looked to be on the verge of a true breakout. But instead, it was a high-water mark for Greenway. He got 27 points in 62 games the season after, and then fell all the way off to just seven points through 45 games in 2022-23, leading to his being dealt to Buffalo.

In his first full season with the Sabres, Greenway seemed to rebound, picking up 28 points in 65 games. But then a combination of injuries and more of the same regression saw Greenway fall off the proverbial cliff thereafter. His two most recent regular seasons saw him score just eight and six points, respectively.

That said, scoring points is not the part of Greenway’s game that the Canucks would be interested in. He is, in more ways than one, a heavyweight. A quick glance at HockeyFights.com will show us that Greenway’s six most recent opponents have been Tom Wilson, Nikita Zadorov, Keegan Kolesar, Brady Tkachuk, Tom Wilson again, and Tom Wilson a third time.

Sure, Greenway doesn’t often win bouts against the likes of Wilson. But the fact that he’s been willing to give it a try multiple times is all the Canucks need to know to know that he’d make them a tougher team.

Besides, Greenway is also the kind of tough guy who can impact the game outside of fighting. There is a reason that the Sabres dressed him for all of their 13 playoff games this year. Yes, he added two goals and an assist during those 13 games, which is a higher rate than he scored in the regular season. But on top of that, Greenway contributed consistent physicality and an intimidating presence in the corners and in the scrums.

And now, here’s the best thing: the Canucks probably wouldn’t even have to pay for Greenway. In fact, they might even get paid to take him.

There are precious few true cap dumps around in this cap space-laden era of the NHL. But Greenway is one of the few. In a somewhat bizarre move, now-fired GM Kevyn Adams signed Greenway to a two-year, $4 million AAV extension in March 2025 – just as Greenway was putting the finishing touches on an eight-point season. One more reason to be grateful that Adams did not ace his recent interview with the Canucks. That cap hit obviously makes Greenway overpaid, and potentially consequentially so for the Sabres.

Buffalo heads into the offseason with less than $13 million in cap space. Less than $13 million, and names like Alex Tuch, Zach Benson, Peyton Krebs, and Michael Kesselring all without contracts.

If the Sabres hope to bring back even the duo of Tuch and Benson, that’s going to cost them more space than they have. If the Sabres hope to bring back anything resembling the team that brought them back to the playoffs in 2026, they’re going to need to cut cap space. And Greenway looks like the most obvious dump. There aren’t many others the Sabres would even be willing to part with from their current mix.

At $4 million, Greenway is the Sabres’ sixth-highest-paid forward. He was their 13^th-most productive in 2025-26. The Sabres will be looking to get rid of Greenway this summer, and that’s great news for a team like the Canucks that would love to have him.

Greenway has just the upcoming 2026-27 season left on his deal, then he’s a UFA. The Canucks could try him out for a year, benefit from his added toughness, and then let him go if they’re not interested in extending. It’s a low commitment, it’s just not a commitment that the Buffalo Sabres themselves can afford.

The most we could see the Sabres getting back for Greenway is the good ol’ future considerations. We’re not sure if it will get to the point of them straight up paying the Canucks, via draft picks, to take Greenway away, but it might. There’s plenty of cap space available around the NHL, and there may be other teams willing to take Greenway for free.

But even without a sweetener, this is a move the Canucks should consider making. Greenway should come at the cost of no assets and, perhaps more importantly, without the cost of a long-term contract that would probably have to be attached to any of the current crop of tough guy UFAs.

The Canucks are, and should be, thinking mostly long-term this offseason. But Greenway represents a nice, easy way to address one of the short-term roster concerns, and really only costs a single year of cap space they probably weren’t going to spend anyway.