At this point, it might be easier to list those Vancouver Canucks not on the trade block than to list those that are. It would seem that every Canuck not named Filip Hronek or under the age of 25 is for sale, to some extent or another. And, as a result of that, the Canucks are well-represented on the various “Trade Boards” around the internet heading into this Friday’s Trade Deadline.

But if there is one name showing up on said Trade Boards that might be surprising to those in the know, it’s Lukas Reichel.

Our friends at Daily Faceoff included Reichel on their most recent board, under the “Tier 1: Obvious Trade Candidates” category, writing that Reichel “did arguably increase his worth with his two-goal showing for Germany at the Olympics.”

It’s no news that Reichel was on the market at one point. The Canucks acquired Reichel from the Chicago Blackhawks in late October for the price of a fourth-round pick in 2027. Reichel entered the Vancouver lineup right away, and stayed in until the end of that November.

At that point, the Canucks’ experiment with Reichel seemed to be over. With just one point in 14 games despite being gifted ample top-six time, Reichel was first placed on the public trade block. When nothing materialized there over the next couple of weeks, Reichel was placed on waivers in mid-December, and passed through unclaimed.

He’s been down in Abbotsford – or overseas at the Olympics – ever since.

Reichel, for his part, has handled the demotion well. The majority of his salary – save for a $50,000 cap hit – has been effectively buried by the transaction. He’s scored 13 points in 23 games for Abbotsford, which isn’t exactly shooting the lights out, but has helped an AHL-worst offence. He recently extended a point-streak to six games, with a little Olympic intermission in between, where he had two goals and an assist in five Games for Germany.

All of which is fine production, but none of which is anything Reichel hasn’t shown before at these levels. So why, after having passed through waivers unclaimed by any of the 31 other NHL teams – for free, mind you – would someone now pay for Reichel?

Such things do occasionally happen in this league. There’s a semi-regular phenomenon in which a player will be waived first, and then traded for a late round pick, with the logic being that the team trading for the player actually prefers that player being in the minors for now, and is essentially paying up for a pre-stashed asset.

That line of thinking, however, makes less sense the closer one gets to the Trade Deadline. Following the deadline, teams are allowed rosters of essentially unlimited size, so long as they can fit those rosters under the salary cap. In other words, a team looking for depth pieces doesn’t necessarily need those pieces to be stashed in the AHL anymore, they can just acquire them and place them directly on their NHL roster. In fact, with teams limited to just four non-emergency call-ups post-deadline, there’s almost a detriment to having talent assigned to the NHL past that point.

That’s why such trades for pre-waived players tend to happen earlier in the year, not now.

Still, there is at least a slight precedent for depth players currently playing in the minors incurring at least some return at the deadline. Just not all that much of a precedent.

If we go back to the most recent deadline of 2025, we find an old friend in that exact scenario. Daniel Sprong had signed with the Canucks as a free agent, but flamed out after nine games, at which point he was sent to the Seattle Kraken for future considerations. He failed to catch on there, either, and so Sprong was waived down to the Coachella Valley Firebirds. There, he rattled off some 11 goals and 25 points in 19 AHL games.

And at the 2025 deadline, the New Jersey Devils traded for him, giving the Kraken a seventh round pick in 2026. The Devils immediately called Sprong up, and he played in 11 regular season games and one playoff matchup for them, notching two assists. He signed in the KHL this past summer.

So, there we have an example of a player in the minors getting something back at the deadline. Sure, it was only a seventh, but that seventh was still more than the Kraken gave the Canucks in exchange for Sprong in the first place. It was, technically, a profit.

But we should note that is the only example one can find from last year, and that one can find a lot more demoted depth being traded for other, similar pieces, or for those good ol’ future considerations. We should also note that both Sprong’s NHL track record, and his AHL production at the time of that deal, were significantly stronger than Reichel’s.

If we go through the past deadlines, we’ll find sparing other examples. A week after the 2024 deadline, the Ottawa Senators gave the Carolina Hurricanes a sixth round pick for someone named Jamieson Rees, who has still yet to play an NHL game after six years in the minors.

But such trades are very much the exception to the rule.

If Reichel has two things working in his favour, it’s his age – still just 23 until May – and his ability to play centre, though everyone is pretty sure by now that won’t really translate to the NHL. One could imagine a team out there thinking there still might be something interesting to Reichel, and being willing to pay a pittance to find out.

But, that said, it’s tough to see now being the time for that. If a team is heading toward the playoffs, they’ll be spending the next month getting ready for that, and jockeying for position. That is not the ideal time and space to be trying to get Reichel’s career back on the road.

It may be more likely for a middling team to give Reichel a shot here, so as to see if he’s worth bringing back next year in a more expanded role. Or it may be that a team with a more competitive AHL squad – Abbotsford will not be making the playoffs this year – seeks Reichel out for scoring depth for a Calder Cup run.

But those scenarios sound more like a fit for future considerations than they do for a draft pick return.

We’ll leave things with a boring, yet realistic result. The Canucks have an outside chance of getting a seventh back for Reichel, like the Kraken did for Sprong at last year’s deadline, but it’s an outside-outside chance. It seems far more likely that the Canucks either flip him to a better situation for absolutely free, or that they hang on to him for the time being before his contract expires this summer and Reichel seeks out other opportunities on his own.

He’s on the board…but only barely.

The 2026 Trade Deadline Special is going LIVE March 6th. Join the Daily Faceoff crew on Friday, March 6th from 8 AM-12:30 PM PT for wall-to-wall coverage of every single move as it happens. Get instant reaction, expert analysis, and exclusive insights from special guests throughout the day. Tune in LIVE on the Daily Faceoff YouTube channel and don’t miss a second of deadline day chaos.