Did the Canucks Do Enough After Trading Marcus Pettersson?

Luke Schenn was a popular player in Vancouver before, playing with the Canucks in 2019 and from 2021 to 2023. He inked a one-year, $2.25 million contract. With 1122 games on his resume, Schenn is also a veteran defenceman.

The Canucks did not sign Ian Cole, who had a strong season here in 2023-24.

Spotrac’s Defensemen Free Agents List Shows That Some Familiar Players Are Available

Why it’s fair to wonder if the Canucks are done is because it’s easy to see the Canucks are a less talented team now.

Thomas Drance shared on the Donnie and Dhali show that “ going from Marcus Petterson to Jaime Oleksiak like that’s a material downgrade, right? So, this team effectively, with what they brought in and what they subtracted, also got materially worse, right? Like they did nothing to prevent them from being at the bottom of the NHL standings this season.”

As Drance has noted, the Canucks do need to acquire other defensemen to compensate for the loss of Pettersson.

Vancouver’s own Troy Stecher was also thought to be coming here, but he signed a two-year deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs on June 29th.

Travis Hamonic is another name out there, too. Do the Canucks take a flyer on anyone? That’s a good question.

Does a Defense by Committee Work to Help Replace Pettersson with the Names Mentioned Above?

Johnson made the moves to acquire Oleksiak and Schenn in order to help bolster a young defence core that includes Elias Pettersson, Tom Willander and Zeev Buium. These three will all need support given their lack of NHL experience. Pettersson has 98 total NHL games, Willander 70, and Buium 76.

Vancouver will have to make further moves here too, given that a long season, with injuries and wear and tear, can take its toll on NHL players.

Filip Hronek is now the team’s best player on defense (and he’s good), but Vancouver needs depth in case of injury. Schenn is at best a third-pairing player while Oleksiak slots in at second or first. Does Ben Hutton come to Vancouver? Hutton’s cap hit was $975,000 with the Vegas Golden Knights last year. Hutton was drafted by Vancouver in 2012 and played here from 2015 to 2019.

Spotrac’s website lists an extensive number of free-agent defencemen, including Carson Soucy, who signed his current three-year deal while with Vancouver in 2023. That deal is now expiring. Soucy is an experiment gone bad from the previous Canuck regime under Rutherford. Soucy is still a free agent according to Offside.