- Canucks ownership wants to trim around $20 million off the payroll from a year ago
- Vancouver is already down roughly $12 million, with Pettersson and Boeser the last big salaries left
- Read below for the veterans who could get moved before the deadline
The Canucks aren’t finished cutting their payroll down to size.
Ownership is hoping to shave around $20 million off the bill compared to last season, according to Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston. Vancouver is already more than halfway to that number.
Salary drops on deals like Jake DeBrusk and Filip Hronek, plus the departures of a few veterans, have the team down about $12 million from where it finished last year. Finding the other $8 million gets trickier from here.
Only two players left carry a salary big enough to make a real dent. One is Elias Pettersson, whose name has floated in trade talk all summer. The other is Brock Boeser.
New GM Ryan Johnson has already said a Pettersson move won’t be a straight salary dump, even if the Canucks end up taking back less money than they send out.
Boeser won’t be easy to move either. He has full no-trade protection and a $7.25 million cap hit that runs through 2031-32, and he’s cracked the 60-point mark just once in ten NHL seasons. Lately he’s looked more like a 20-goal, 50-point winger, which isn’t a great return on that price.
DeBrusk brings his own baggage. Five years left at $5.5 million after a season with four even-strength goals makes that contract tough to wipe off the books entirely.
The rest of the savings don’t have to land right away. Vancouver has a handful of veterans on expiring deals who could be gone by the March 5 trade deadline:
- Brendan Gallagher
- Drew O’Connor
- Filip Chytil
- Paul Cotter
- Luke Schenn
A long rebuild sits ahead in Vancouver, and the message from ownership is hard to miss. The spending is coming down, one way or another.
