By: Brayden Fengler / June 26, 2025 With the Abbotsford Canucks impressive triumph over the entire AHL now firmly cemented in history, the next big ticket item on the Canucks’ organizational calendar is Free Agency on July 1st. This year the Vancouver Canucks are not looking to add a few pieces around the edges of a system that works.
The Canucks are instead likely to lose one or more well established NHL players and face the decision of how to replace them. The question to ask now is, how does the new addition of Evander Kane via a trade with the Oilers impact their strategy next week?
Vancouver’s Free Agents Reality
Going into July 1st, the Canucks have Noah Juulsen, Pius Suter, and most notably, Brock Boeser as expiring unrestricted free agents. Much ink has been spilt over Brock Boeser’s situation, as out of the three pending UFAs, Boeser has the longest history with the Canucks and has long been a fan favourite.
Boeser was drafted by Vancouver in 2015, three years before current captain Quinn Hughes was drafted and two years before Elias Pettersson’s draft and one year before… Olli Juolevi was drafted. Remember him? Needless to say, Brock has put on that Vancouver Canucks sweater every year following being. Yet It looks like come October, that streak will be broken.
Elliot Freidman made a remark during a recent “32 Thoughts” Podcast that is relevant to Boeser’s situation when recounting how much Marchand has thrived since his trade to the Florida Panthers.
Freidman remarked to the effect that sometimes you simply don’t know how much a change of scenery can do for you, until you have one. Purhaps this parting of ways is best for Boeser and the Canucks.
Maybe the future would be different for Boeser if J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson squashed their beef last season, the team chemistry was strong, Demko was consistently healthy for the bulk of last year, and the Canucks made the playoffs for a second consecutive spring.
In following that string of events, maybe management has belief in the Canucks core and Tocchet stays on to keep building to success. In that situation, it probably makes sense to keep Boeser, maybe even overpay a bit if he is a part of a winning formula.
Unfortunately, that’s not where we’re at. The Canusk should’ve traded Boeser at this year’s deadline for something. By that time in the season, the writing was on the wall.
Boeser is due for the last big contract of his career, and with the Canucks performing worse than the year prior, what incentive is there for Boeser to stick around at a discount, and potentially never see contention in his NHL career again?
On the bright side, even if there wasn’t a market for Boeser at the trade deadline, or management tried and failed to get a new deal over the finish line, the Canucks do gain something when Boeser leaves, cap space.
Even after adding Kane’s $5.1M cap hit, Boeser’s cap hit in his last deal was $6.65M and it wouldn’t no doubt be higher than that with a new contract. The Canucks now have that room to work with this off season.
Pius Suter and Noah Juulsen are players that the Canucks might actually be able to strike a deal with after July 1st. It was reported earlier this month by Rick Dhaliwal that the Canucks declined requests from Juulsen’s team to allow him to speak with other teams before free agency.
As Dhaliwal cites, this is because the Canucks may still have a place for him on the team depending on the rest of their off season moves.
With Pius Suter being a more proven NHL asset, being the third highest scoring Canuck on last year’s team (higher than Elias Pettersson mind you) there is likely interest from other teams. However the Canucks are seemingly hoping to bet that when the dust settles, they can approach Suter with a number a bit lower than he could probably ask for now.
The Big Fish on the Market
Mitch Marner is the top prize in this free agency class, and it’s little wonder why. Marner scored 102 points last season, one of only six players to crack the 100-point threshold, and the only one on his soon to be former Toronto Maple Leafs team to do so. As a Right-winger himself, if you squint just right, it almost looks like Marner could fill Boeser’s shoes.
Yet it’s far more likely that the flip side of that may transpire. From Toronto’s perspective, Boeser is a positional fit for the hole that Marner will be leaving, and while Boeser earned half as many points as Marner did last year, that will also have Brock come in at around half the cost.
Boeser and Marner are also the same age, which is another factor that makes this a potential plug-and-play solution for Toronto. The Maple Leafs might be looking at Boeser’s 73 point season two years ago, and betting that they can get that player back.
Additionally, as stated above, even though acquiring Evander Kane is cheaper than retaining Boeser, Kane’s current deal does still take a big chunk out of the money needed for a pipedream get like Marner.
Boeser going east also puts him closer the his home state of Minnesota. Whereas Marner, although he has reportedly been looking west, a move to Vancouver would be a transplant from one wacko Canadian market to another. One can only assume that if Marner wants some distance from the trappings of his old environment, he might be more likely to find that if he goes a bit further south.
So What Do They Do
Instead of going for the biggest fish in the sea, should the Canucks sit tight now that they have Kane? Or are players like Mikael Granlund or Nikolaj Ehlers even (two other wingers up for grabs) something they might still be interested in?
The Canucks should of course inquire about both players on or before July 1st if possible, but this year specifically they should be confident in their ability to walk way, even excluding what they think they have in Evander Kane. Granlund is 33 and Ehlers is 29.
A Granlund deal would be for a shorter term than something for Ehlers would be, but in the end, a potential Ehlers deal would likely be something similar to what they would’ve paid Boeser anyway. If the Canucks sign Ehlers to a lengthy contract, it wouldn’t be a little different than if they just kept Boeser.
They would just be bettering on the devil they don’t know instead of the one they do. I don’t think that’s a good bet for the Canucks right now, given the rising talent elsewhere in their system.
The Canucks will be much better off waiting out free agency, taking the cap room that all of their UFA’s are giving them and going home.
The Canucks should take the rest of the summer to evaluate the amazing players from this generational Abbotsford team and decide who may be able to help next year, and better yet potentially use some of those individuals as assets to make deals and a much more buyer friendly time than July 1st.
On July 1st the Canucks need to be the guy at the auction that has a budget, and maybe gets a little sad and says “aw shucks” when someone out bids him. They do not want to be the guy who gets swept up in the spectacle of it all and mortgages the house to make a deal happen.