Jake Guentzel? Chris Tanev? How the Canucks can spend over $15 million in salary cap space

Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin has been extremely busy over the past 48 hours.

Signing Teddy Blueger to a two-year, team-friendly $1.8 million AAV to solidify the shorthanded and center depth in the bottom six was a big win. The salary cap-busting Ilya Mikheyev deal was a no-brainer because it cost almost nothing. $13 million to add four years to Dakota Joshua’s contract is a fair price, and probably less than what he could have fetched on July 1, for a player with unique all-around value for Vancouver’s third line. Allvin capped off the flurry of transfers by signing Tyler Myers to a three-year, $3 million AAV deal.

Where do the Canucks stand now after all this activity? Let’s look at the club’s remaining roster needs and salary cap.

Here’s a snapshot of what the Canucks currently look like, courtesy of CapFriendly:

Vancouver has $15.49 million in salary cap space with 18 players under contract. This is how the Canucks could rank their roster needs in order of how much money they are willing to invest in each position.

• A top-6 star winger for Elias Pettersson to play alongside.
• A defender in the middle of the lineup (type no. 3/4/5).
• A reserve goalkeeper.
• A deep striker with upside potential.
• A No. 6/7 defenseman who will battle with Noah Juulsen and Mark Friedman for reserve positions.

The obvious gap in the top six next to Pettersson is an obvious need that we’ve written about extensively, and if there’s one position Vancouver should be willing to spend money on, it’s this one.

Next, the Canucks need to find a good defenseman who can play the No. 3/4/5 role. In the 2023-24 season, Vancouver’s second and third pairs shared relatively equal minutes. We’ll analyze whether Nikita Zadorov would fit that role later in this article.

The situation with the substitute goalkeeper is exciting. The athleteRick Dhaliwal and Thomas Drance reported that Vancouver is now considering bringing back Casey DeSmith. DeSmith, who just signed a $1.8 million AAV contract, would cost more against the salary cap than RFA Arturs Silovs.

After that, Vancouver could use a forward with potential, even after re-signing Joshua. The reason for that is that the club has yet to fill Mikheyev’s spot in the lineup. In this roster, we’ve used Pius Suter as a third-line centre, meaning his previous spot is up for grabs alongside JT Miller and Brock Boeser. The Canucks could move Suter back to the wing and promote Blueger to the 3C position, where he’s had success with Joshua and Garland, but that would leave the club’s centre depth vulnerable. And even if you went that route, you’d still have to sign an additional forward, as you’d need to get to 13 forwards.

Finally, it would be nice for the Canucks to sign a cheap defenseman for depth to compete with Juulsen and Friedman for the 6/7/8 positions.

There are countless different avenues Vancouver could explore in constructing its roster. Let’s walk through a few hypothetical paths. The point of this exercise isn’t to predict targets or give the Canucks advice on how they should spend their salary cap. These are just hypothetical examples meant to illustrate how far the club’s salary cap flexibility could go this offseason.

Hypothetical scenario 1: Winning the Guentzel competition

Jake Guentzel is the dream target of Canucks fans and the organization is expected to be strong on him as well. He will have a lot of attractive suitors and Vancouver will need some luck to get the best offer, but let’s outline the prospects if the club gets the former Penguins star for, say, an AAV of $9.5 million. The Canucks would be left with $5.99 million if 19 players were signed.

The next question many will be asking: Can they afford to re-sign Zadorov in this scenario? It’s not impossible, but it would be a contortion that may not be practical. Vancouver would have to make compromises in terms of depth. And Zadorov would have to accept a significant price reduction.

For example, the Canucks could sign a forward at the league minimum, negotiate Silovs down to around $800,000 on a one-year deal and make him a reserve player (he has no arbitration rights, so the Canucks have all the power), and forego signing a No. 6/7 defenseman altogether and opt for a lean 22-man roster. That would leave Vancouver with $4.41 million in salary cap space to extend Zadorov’s contract:

Not only is it far-fetched to think they can sign Zadorov for just under $4.5 million AAV, the Canucks would skimp on the depth of the forward they sign, they wouldn’t be able to bolster the goalie position, and in this hypothetical case, there is no signing at No. 6/7, so Vancouver would be one injury away from making Friedman a regular.

The Canucks can effectively fill out the rest of their roster after signing Guentzel, but they would likely have to resort to a cheaper back-end option like Brenden Dillon instead of Zadorov.

Hypothetical Scenario 2: The Balanced Approach

If the Canucks are unsuccessful with Guentzel (or Sam Reinhart), it will be interesting to see how they find a winger to replace Pettersson. Will they work hard on the transfer market to get a star, or will they settle for a less expensive free agent option like Tyler Toffoli? That’s impossible to predict, but to show how Vancouver can spend its money, let’s run some hypothetical numbers again.

In the following lineup, we added a winger for $6.5 million and a defenseman for $5 million, re-signed DeSmith at the same salary cap as in 2023-24, signed a forward for $1 million, and paid $1 million for another No. 6/7 defenseman:

Several of the top six UFA forwards could land in the $5-7 million AAV range: Toffoli, Jonathan Marchessault, Chandler Stephenson, Jake DeBrusk, Viktor Arvidsson and Teuvo Teravainen. And for reference, here are some of the top four UFA defensemen who could land in the $4-6 million AAV range: Zadorov, Chris Tanev, Brett Pesce, Matt Roy, Sean Walker and Alexandre Carrier. That doesn’t even include players who could be available on the transfer market at those salary cap numbers.

Hypothetically, you could select a winger and a defenseman from these pools for around $10-12.5 million total. You may not be able to afford the most expensive combinations (e.g., you probably can’t sign Marchessault for a $7 million AAV). And Roy with an AAV of $6 million) unless you cut corners elsewhere, but the club can definitely land some impact players.

The Canucks have plenty of cap space to make a splash next week, so let’s see what areas of the roster they splurge on and where they think they can get bargains.

(Photo of Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford: Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)