The Vancouver Canucks could try to trade Nate Schmidt
Patrick Johnston of The Provence: Again, Nate Schmidt’s name keeps coming up. It has since just before the April 12th trade deadline. It is not going away either. If anything, the smoke may be turning into fire.
Schmidt has a 10 team no-trade list and honestly, it is not a secret he is amenable to a move out of Vancouver. It would likely not be to Arizona as the Coyotes try to dangle Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
One of the biggest reasons is salary cap gymnastics. Think about what it would take to get a declining defenseman on board. Vancouver has enough problems with their blueline. This trade hurts them immensely which is why most believe the source is from the Arizona area.
Vancouver Canucks, the expansion draft, and hard times
Dan Murphy and Satiar Shah of Sportsnet: Everything that could go wrong went wrong for the Vancouver Canucks but then again this could be seen coming. Jim Benning has even more work to do now.
Short-term bridge deals are drawing close for Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson which means Vancouver will have to pay the piper later. There is little choice on that. Vancouver still needs either a first-line left winger or a third-line center depending on what they do with J.T. Miller.
Also, Benning expects to keep their top-ten pick. For all the chatter of a trade, again the real chatter maybe with Nate Schmidt. Unloading the final four years of that deal at $5.95 million AAV will not be easy but divorce seems inevitable.
Benning got the authorization for buyouts and the likely first target is Jake Virtanen. His legal troubles make this too obvious as the 2017 sexual assault investigation may not be the only skeleton in his closet. $2.5 million of cap space is too good to pass up.
Hockey operations must be rebuilt. It is great that the “Sedin Twins” are in the mix but COVID wrecked a lot and any sense of increasing normalcy will help. With their AHL team moving to Abbotsford, Vancouver has 2 1/2 months to do a year’s worth of work.