Canucks offseason centre trade targets: Anthony Cirelli

The Vancouver Canucks aren’t the only NHL franchise with a hankering for change in the 2025 offseason.

By most counts, the Tampa Bay Lightning are one of the most successful organizations in modern league history. They’ve made the playoffs now for eight straight seasons, last missing out in 2017. They’ve won two Stanley Cups, and gone to another finals, in that time.

But hockey is a real ‘what have you done for me lately?’ kind of sport, and what the Lightning have done lately is lose in the first round. Repeatedly.

This most recent 4-1 series loss to the Panthers was Tampa’s third straight first round exit, and their second in three years to their intrastate rival. With some of their most important talent like Victor Hedman (35), Nikita Kucherov (31), and Andrei Vasilevskiy (30) each getting up there in years, the Lightning are short on time to reconfigure and reload for another run or two.

Tampa Bay are also, in some ways, victims of their own success. Their current core has stepped it up before on numerous occasions, and especially in the postseason, and they’ve been rewarded as a result. The roster is laden with big, expensive contracts, and the vast majority of them hold trade or movement protection clauses of some sort. This will, naturally, limit the Lightning’s choices as they set out to make changes this summer.

In fact, of the Lightning’s truly key players, there are just two without any NTCs or NMCs to speak of heading into next year. Those players are Brandon Hagel – coming off a 90-point season at a cap hit of $6.5 million, making him one of the league’s greatest bargains – and Anthony Cirelli.

And with the Canucks on the lookout for centres this summer, it’s Cirelli’s name that catches our eye as most interesting.

Cirelli, too, had a pretty good 2024/25 campaign. His 27 goals and 59 points were each career-highs, and Cirelli joined Hagel in being selected for Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face Off. Always a defensive specialist, Cirelli was nominated for the Selke Trophy this year, the first nomination of his career, but the seventh straight time he’s received votes for the award. That’s each of his full NHL seasons.

But there are some other concerns and circumstances at play here that may make Cirelli a little more available than is the typically Selke nominee. The first is his contract status. He’s in the second of an eight-year deal that takes him to 2031 at a cap hit of $6.25 million. That seems like fair compensation for what he brings now that should only get better as the cap rises.

But Cirelli also has a full no-trade clause that kicks in as of July 1 – and no trade protection at all until then. That makes Cirelli one of the only significant players the Lightning could trade freely this summer, and that sort of automatically puts him on the block, at least for consideration. If Tampa Bay wants a shakeup, trading Cirelli might be one of the most direct ways to achieve it.

There’s also some concern to be had with Cirelli’s playoff production. This past series saw him post just one assist in five games against the Panthers. The year before that, it was two points in five games against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

It should be noted that, the year before that, Cirelli posted six points in six first round games against the Panthers. But that’s literally his only playoff series in which he’s posted anything greater than a half-point-per-game rate. That’s not the best trend for a player who has never missed the playoffs in his career to date.

But while that may raise question marks in Tampa Bay, specifically, it doesn’t do too much to take the shine off of Cirelli as an asset. Which brings us to the biggest reason why he might be available for trade: the massive return the Lightning would be able to demand.

Let’s get to the Canucks side of this. The fit is rather undeniable. The Canucks are looking for a top-six centre, and despite his defensive focus, Cirelli still qualifies on production alone. At age 27, going on 28, he’s right in line with the current Canucks core.

In the quest to return Elias Pettersson to his former glory, we can’t help but notice the level of support that might be offered by a running mate like Cirelli. His Selke-worthy own-zone coverage would take a lot of pressure off Pettersson’s own defensive responsibilities, potentially freeing him up to refocus on his offence. There’s also no denying that a one-two punch of Pettersson and Cirelli, at their best, would be an absolute two-way nightmare for opponents.

In terms of centres that could directly and immediately help the Canucks become a more effective team, there aren’t going to be many better options available.

The issue comes through that aforementioned cost.

Cirelli will not come cheap. At his age, cap hit, and skill level, there would be an enormous market for his services.

Tampa Bay is not looking to rebuild, but more to retool. With just $6 million in cap space available to them this summer, Tampa might be best described as looking to shuffle their talent. Getting a little younger and a little cheaper would be advantageous, but it can’t take away from Tampa’s current competitiveness.

That means that some of the Canucks’ best assets, like their 15OA pick, might be too future-based to make a difference to the Lightning – though it is something they could trade for and then flip for something else.

We have to imagine a starting ask would be Tom Willander. He’s described as NHL-ready, and the right side of the Tampa blueline is a little weak after Erik Cernak. Bringing in someone like Willander to start to be mentored at the NHL level by a senior Swede in Hedman sounds like a great succession plan.

But Willander alone wouldn’t get the deal done.

From there, we’re maybe adding that 15OA on top just as a sweetener. Or, perhaps the deal is best supplemented by younger NHL talent, like a Filip Chytil or a Nils Höglander – a player we could see really thriving in the Tampa Bay system.

Or maybe it’s some variation on all of the above. The bidding war for someone of Cirelli’s stature could easily get out of hand – but if we’re at the point that the ask is Willander, 15OA, Chytil, and Höglander, is that the point at which the Canucks walk away?

We find, in Cirelli, an ideal player for the Canucks, but perhaps not an ideal acquisition target. The cost might reasonably be too high, and consist of those sorts of assets that the Canucks don’t exactly have in abundance, but that other teams do.

Cirelli, in other words, seems like a player for whom the Canucks are likely to get outbid on. But, that’s definitely no reason not to at least make a bid, if and when Cirelli appears on the trade block.

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