Nils Höglander is about to return to the Vancouver Canucks’ dressing room, much like Troy from Community returning to the housewarming party with pizza. Everything’s on fire, and the darkest timeline has truly taken hold.

Nobody is expecting Höglander to come in and right the ship. But make a positive impact? That’s something that’s well within Höglander’s range of abilities after having missed the entirety of the season thus far.

With that length of an absence, it might take a little while before Höglander can make his full impact felt on the ice. But a more immediate impact of his return will be felt on the roster. Assuming that no one else is injured between now and Höglander’s expected return on Thursday against Buffalo – and apologies if we’ve just jinxed that – someone is going to have to be sent down to Abbotsford to make room for him.

Thatcher Demko is expected to return at the same time, but his roster manoeuvring is a lot simpler to figure out. Demko gets activated, Nikita Tolopilo goes back down to Abbotsford, and the Canucks gain a little extra space and get closer to accruing cap again. Easy does it.

But Höglander’s return takes a little more figuring.

As it stands, the Canucks have 14 forwards and seven defencemen on their active roster. They also have Höglander and Derek Forbort on LTIR, and Teddy Blueger and Filip Chytil on regular IR.

Active rosters are capped out at 23, and that includes goalies. So, when Höglander comes back, someone has to go to make room for him. And that someone will not be a defender, because there’s just no way that the team is going to run without an extra D. So, one of those 14 forwards will have to lose their spot. Who will it be?

It won’t be any of the seven most experienced forwards on the roster, meaning not Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk, Conor Garland, Evander Kane, Drew O’Connor, or Kiefer Sherwood. David Kämpf’s new, but he was signed for a very specific purpose that he’s still doing his best to fulfill. He’s not going anywhere yet.

We can also safely write off a demotion for Linus Karlsson, who was just promoted to the top line and has played by far the best of any Abbotsford graduate up front this year.

After already reassigning Jonathan Lekkerimäki, the next easiest thing to do would be to demote one of their two forwards who do not require waivers: Max Sasson. Realistically, the Canucks can’t afford to part with any centre and certainly not one who has shown as many positive signs as Sasson. And Lekkerimäki being sent down made sense. He’s the most Höglander-like of the current forwards offensively, and has averaged under 12 minutes since his last recall. They could definitely use his offence down in Abbotsford.

But, hey, they could also definitely use his offence in Vancouver. The team did indeed reassign Lekkerimäki on Sunday, but it’s as yet unknown whether that’s the long-term plan or just a short-term chance to get some minutes in, as was recently done with Elias Pettersson the Younger.

In the long term, it might make sense to get ready to part with someone via waivers. If not now, then at the very least when Teddy Blueger returns in the near-ish future. For that, the candidates would seem to be Aatu Räty, Arshdeep Bains, and Lukas Reichel.

Except, as we’ve already stated, centres can’t be parted with. Despite a few scratches, Räty has played well enough in limited minutes and has shown some signs that he could do more with more. He’s also still the leading faceoff-winner at 57.8%. There’s no chance Räty is waived at this juncture.

Bains has faced perhaps an inordinate amount of criticism in this market, as a hot start turned into middling returns. That eventually led to Bains losing his spot in the lineup for a while, but he has looked a lot better since being reinserted. He’s got a goal and an assist in his three most recent outings, and has, in general, looked more comfortable and more ready to contribute with those limited fourth-line minutes.

You can probably tell who we really think should go, based on the fact that we’ve left him for last, and that’s Lukas Reichel.

Like Bains, Reichel, too, experienced a hotter start with the Canucks before losing his spot in the lineup. Unlike Bains, that ‘hotter start’ never actually translated into on-ice results, but was instead a case of Reichel looking decent out there, or at least better than some previous centre options. In any case, he’s still sitting on just one assist through 14 games with the Canucks, and as a result, he’s mostly lost his spot in the lineup, too. He’s played just one of Vancouver’s past seven games, and he only played 4:59 in that one.

On Saturday night, the Canucks chose to dress just three centres instead of putting Reichel back in, with Drew O’Connor auditioning as a temporary fourth-line pivot. It’s safe to say the Reichel-as-2C experiment is over.

It was already known that the Canucks had put Reichel back on the trade market, and nothing has happened since, which is a fine indicator that no one else is particularly interested in him. A trip through waivers seems unlikely to result in a claim at this point, and if it does, is it really that big of a deal?

There are some other benefits to consider here. If Reichel does make it through waivers, he might end up being an enormous help to a struggling Abbotsford team. Despite his inability to get it going at the NHL level, Reichel has been essentially point-per-game in the AHL since his rookie season. Whether at centre or on the wing, Abbotsford could really use him right now.

But there are also some potential cap benefits to consider. Of all the players we’ve discussed today, Reichel has by far the largest cap hit at $1.2 million. That’s still relatively small potatoes, but it could make a difference if removed from the roster.

The Canucks can ‘bury’ almost all of Reichel’s cap hit – or $1.15 million of his $1.2 million, to be exact. Right now, the Canucks are about $2.27 million over the cap, made possible by both Höglander and Forbort being on LTIR, which gives them some relief space. But being ‘in LTIR’ also prevents the Canucks from accruing cap space to use later.

Send Tolopilo down, and the Canucks gain $775,000 in space. Send Reichel down, and that adds up to $1,900,000 gained. That gets the Canucks closer to being under the cap again, and if they can manage to get Blueger back (and demote someone else) before any further injuries occur, that would be all they need to become solvent again.

So, when it comes to a demotion to make room for Höglander, Lekkerimäki might be the easiest call, but sending down Reichel is probably the better call, overall, and in the long term.