Remarkable: Are the Canucks really giving up on the 2025-’26 season with 59 games to play?
Yes, they’re three games below .500 and coming off a humiliating 5-2 loss at home to the bottom dwelling Calgary Flames, but presumably the Canucks injured roster will gradually get healthier. They’re presently missing five players, including two centermen.
So “quit”?”
Elliotte Friedman reported Monday for Sportsnet online that the Canucks “are willing to listen to offers on veteran players.”
When one first hears that concept, one thinks of pending unrestricted free agents. Vancouver has four of any consequence and two of them are on long term injured reserve. Those two would be 33-year-old defenceman Derek Forbort and 31-year-old center Teddy Blueger.
The other two are Kiefer Sherwood, arguably the club’s best all-around player the past season-and-a-half, making a paltry $1.5-million, and hometown lad Evander Kane, who’s making too much at $5.1-million.
Of that group, really only Sherwood would garner a hefty amount of interest and potentially bring back a decent return.
Naturally, Canucks management, GM Patrik Alvin and president of hockey op’s Jim Rutherford, created this apparent crisis on their own; accepting a trade that included a center with chronic concussion issues, Filip Chytil, and re-signing a goalie with recurring lower body injuries in Thatcher Demko. Demmer’s absence is a morale crusher and part of the reason for the club’s recent downfall.
By the way, in the Chytil case, in the deal with the Rangers, “we didn’t have any choice”, doesn’t fly.
Vancouver begins a four-game road trip on Wednesday night with three matches in four nights. They’ll be in California to take on the much improved Ducks and Sharks, and then the perennial playoff-bound Kings. They wrap up the trip against the first-overall Colorado Avalanche next Tuesday night in Denver.
Earlier Canucks:
— Canucks, Kraken, NHL Goalies: Demko’s Deal, Trauma, Records
