Canucks still ‘in the mix’ for Lukas Reichel; agent hopeful a trade happens soon: report

As the Vancouver Canucks‘ search for a centre continues, we were given an update on one player — albeit a winger, not a centre — that the club was linked to earlier this month.

Speaking on Sportsnet 650’s Halford and Brough in the morning, Rick Dhaliwal gave the following update on Chicago Blackhawks winger Lukas Reichel:

“I checked in with the agent of Lukas Reichel yesterday,” said Dhaliwal. “The Blackhawks are trying to trade him. The agent is hopeful a trade can happen soon. Yes, the Canucks are in the mix for Reichel. He’s a winger, but he’s got a history of playing centre. He’s a winger slash centre type guy.”

Reichel has gotten off to a fine start this season, potting two goals and adding two assists through his first five games of the season. The 23-year-old winger showed plenty of promise in his age 20 season back in 2022-23, as he scored 20 goals and tallied a total of 51 points through 55 AHL games.

The rumour mill has begun to heat up, as the injury bug has hit the Canucks in a big way. For the past two games, both of which were losses, the Canucks have been without Filip Chytil, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Teddy and Blueger. Nils Höglander has been on the shelf since the start of the season and isn’t expected to be coming back anytime soon, so it’s no surprise that the Canucks are leaving no stone unturned as they attempt to keep things on the rails amidst some early-season adversity.

More recently, the Canucks were connected to San Jose Sharks centre Alex Wennberg. Wennberg is in the final year of his contract and carries a cap hit of $5 million, but as we went over earlier today, the Canucks could get creative to give themselves a refund policy of sorts on a Wennberg trade.