Important dates and deadlines for Patrik Allvin and the Vancouver Canucks’ 2024 offseason

We here in the Vancouver market have got pretty accustomed to seeing the offseason coming. The past few years, we’ve known exactly when it would begin and were able to anticipate it weeks, and sometimes even months, in advance.

Not so with the 2024 offseason. A few days ago, the Vancouver Canucks had hopes and dreams of making it to the Western Conference Final. One Victoria Day Game 7 later, and it was all over.

Playoffs one day, offseason the next. It’s quite the turnaround.

Thankfully, we here at CanucksArmy are all too well-practiced in the art of offseason coverage. Most years, we get/have to extend that coverage out for much longer than we will this year. The regular season ended back on April 18, and we got more than a month of extra Canucks hockey thereafter.

With Training Camp 2025 still scheduled to kick off in September, that means it’s just a four-month offseason this year. And speaking of schedules, we at CanucksArmy are starting our offseason coverage with a schedule of the important dates and deadlines for the compressed summer to come.

Right Now: Extension Negotiations

The offseason technically began the second the Canucks were eliminated. But for other teams, the offseason began back in April, and transactionally-speaking, there are many things that GM Patrik Allvin and Co. can start doing immediately.

All pending free agents are eligible for extension negotiations, and have been for quite some time – since July 1, 2023 for most, and since January 1, 2024 for those on one-year deals.

The Canucks’ front office made it clear that they were not keen to conduct any negotiations while the team was still active in the playoffs. With that out of the way, negotiations can begin in earnest.

What the Canucks really have right now is exclusive negotiating rights with their various free agents. But those exclusive rights only last, in most cases, until July 1, at which point all pending UFAs hit the open market, and even RFAs like Filip Hronek (if qualified) become eligible for offer sheets.

That gives Allvin and Co. approximately six weeks of dedicated contract talk time, and with a dozen free agents on the active roster right now, they’re probably good to need them.

 

June 15ish, 2024-June 30, 2024: The Buyout Window

Those wondering if the Canucks might use a buyout on someone like Ilya Mikheyev won’t have to wait long to find out. The NHL buyout window opens up on either June 15 OR 48 hours after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals, whichever comes later. This year, the latest that the finals can go is June 19, so June 21 is the latest the window can open.

The window then stays open until June 30, regardless of when it started.

Usually, all buyouts must be completed within this window. However, a second buyout window opens up later in the summer for any team with an arbitration case, and lasts for 48 hours after the final arbitration case is settled or awarded.

Hronek is arbitration-eligible, as are Linus Karlsson, Nick Cicek, Jett Woo, and the recently-departed Filip Johansson.

June 26, 2024: The NHL Awards

Few care all that much about the NHL Awards. But it is worth mentioning that at least four Canucks will make appearances as nominees: Rick Tocchet for the Jack Adams, Quinn Hughes for the Norris, Thatcher Demko for the Vezina, and Elias Pettersson for the Lady Byng.

 

June 28, 2024: The 2024 NHL Entry Draft

At the Vegas Sphere!

With no picks in the first two rounds as of now, the Entry Draft is perhaps of less importance to the Canucks than it is most franchises.

That said, the draft also tends to be the busiest trade day on the offseason calendar, and the Canucks could be particularly busy in such regards, depending on how extension negotiations are going.

There’s also no telling what draft picks the Canucks acquire between now and then.

This close to the open of free agency, the Canucks should at least enter draft day with a good idea of the general shape of their roster and their major needs, which should help Allvin and Co. in selecting trade targets and making the most of a crowded market.

 

July 1, 2024: Free Agent Frenzy

The Free Agent Frenzy is back to being locked onto Canada Day, and we couldn’t be happier to continue the tradition.

How this day looks from a Canucks’ perspective depends entirely on what has happened in the six weeks prior. No matter what, we suspect that a number of Vancouver UFAs will hit the open market on this day and sign elsewhere.

Given the success the Canucks had with UFAs like Ian Cole, Carson Soucy, Teddy Blueger, and Pius Suter this past year, we’d have to imagine that the front office will be on the hunt for some low-cost free agent replacements for anyone leaving.

It will be a day of players who want too much out, and players willing to sign for less in.

The free agent market remains open thereafter, of course, but the vast majority of the action happens on July 1 and the roughly 48 hours following.

 

July 1, 2024: Extension Negotiations Open Up For 2025-Expiring Contracts

Also on July 1, negotiations can officially open up for anyone on a non-one-year contract that expires in the summer of 2025.

For the Canucks, this means, primarily, Brock Boeser. There are others, too, but the Boeser negotiations should take up the majority of the airspace once the rest of the free agent frenzy dies down.

Given Boeser’s performance these past playoffs, we have to expect that negotiations will begin sooner rather than later.

 

July 1, 2024: Oliver Ekman-Larsson Gets A Raise

Ah, we had to stick this in somewhere. Amidst all the negotiations and extensions, one player automatically gets a raise this summer, and that player is the buyout penalty formally known as Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

His dead money cap hit rises from the scant $146,667 of 2023/24 to $2,346,667 for the 2024/25 season (and the one after.) At $2.2 million, it’s not quite as big a raise as Elias Pettersson got on his extension, or as Dakota Joshua and Nikita Zadorov might get on their new deals, but it’s a pretty considerable raise all the same, especially considering it goes to a player now plying their trade in Florida.

 

July 3, 2024: RFA Qualifying Offers Due

In order for a restricted free agent to avoid becoming an unrestricted free agents, teams must make them a qualifying offer to retain somewhat exclusive negotiating rights (offer sheets notwithstanding.)

Qualifying offers are for one-year only, and right now, the QO breakdown looks like this:

Most Recent NHL Salary	Required Qualifying Offer Value
$750K-$999K	105% of salary, to max of $1 mil
$1 mil or more (Contract signed before July 2020)	100% of base salary
$1 mil or more (Contract signed after July 2020)	The lesser of: a) 100% of most recent salary, or b) 120% of most recent cap hit.

Source: Puckpedia

RFAs don’t have to sign qualifying offers, but they can accept them instantly if they so choose. Otherwise, negotiations continue into the summer.

The Canucks have a number of pending RFAs, but two that are clearly more important than others, and those two are Hronek and goaltending heir-apparent Arturs Silovs.

For Hronek, who signed his expiring contract in September of 2021, the required qualifying offer is for one-year at his 2023/24 base salary of $5.28 million, which is 120% of his $4.4 million cap hit.

He won’t sign that offer, but the Canucks will make it all the same to retain his rights, even if they plan on ultimately trading him.

Silovs, wrapping up an entry-level contract, needs to receive an offer of 105% of his 2023/24 base salary of $775K. That’s just $813,750, though we suspect Silovs will sign for slightly more and, ideally, a little longer than just the one year.