By: Brayden Fengler / December 5, 2024 The Canucks on the whole have had a troubled but respectable start to the season. However not all Canucks players who have laced up for all 24 games have been instrumental in getting the team where they are in this campaign.
Much ink has been spilt about Elias Pettersson and his ghostly presence through most of October and into November.
However, Pettersson has stepped up over recent games, making larger impacts on the ice. This couldn’t have come at a better time for the Canucks given some large-scale personnel absences that the team have been facing.
However, Nils Höglander is not one of the players that has stepped up for the Canucks this season. What do the Canucks do with this player quickly becoming an anchor, if he doesn’t improve to his 2023-24 season form.
Höglander Year Over Year
Höglander had an impressive bounce-back campaign last year, after spending most of the 2022-23 season in the AHL furthering his development. He finished last year’s regular season campaign with 36 points, comprised of 12 assists and 24 goals. With 80 games played, he completed the year at a .45 points per game record.
To put this into perspective with Höglander’s pace this season, at this point in December 2024, the 23-year-old winger currently has 5 total points, with just 3 assists and 2 goals, after playing in all 24 games with the team so far this season.
Höglander’s currently sits with a points-per-game figure of just .21. Should he see no improvement in his rate of production Höglander is on track to finish the season with just over 17 points if he plays all 82 games. Höglander reached 27 points in his inaugural 2020-21 season and 18 points the following year, before going to the AHL the year after that.
Höglander’s Deployment
One concerning element of Höglander’s drop-off from last season is that he has not seen much less deployment. Over the first quarter of this season, he’s seen an average TOI of 12:12, which is actually an increase of just under two minutes from his first-quarter deployment last season.
Last season Höglander was clearly gaining more and more favourability with Rick Tocchet as his average TOI increased by a minute or more at each quarter of the season mile marker.
Höglander finished last season with an average TOI of 13:46 over the last 18 games. This year Höglander appears to be trending in the opposite direction as already in the first 3 games of the second quarter of the season, Höglander’s deployment has dropped to an average of just over 10 minutes a night.
What Do the Canucks Do?
This time last year, and by the end of last season it appeared that the Canucks had caped off the early career development of Nils Höglander. Under GM Jim Benning Höglander never saw proper minor league development time, but that was remedied by Patrik Alvin’s camp. After Höglander returned from the AHL, it looked like his time there was the last piece of the puzzle that would turn him into a full time NHL player.
Now Höglander is on pace for the worst production of his career after just signing a new 3-year extension in October of this year. Höglander, currently 23-years-old, will be 27 by the time his next deal is done after the 2027-28 campaign. He will be bringing in $3m a year, which will be a nice raise over his $1.10m take-home deal that he has right now.
Based on Höglander’s production and his impending raise, the Canucks would be selling from a less ideal position on Höglander if they wanted to move on from the young Canuck.
If Vancouver had opted to move Nils over the summer, or even had they traded him earlier in the season, they would’ve avoided the baggage that his early season drop-off has brought with it. But still this is something the Canucks need to explore.
Trading Höglander
One of the many faults of Jim Benning was his inability to let go of, or buy-out players that stopped making sense for the team. We saw this with Loui Eriksson who played over four unproductive seasons with Vancouver before he was finally moved out. However Patrik Allvin does not seem to have this same hang-up, possessing an ability to move on from players; even recently acquired players if they aren’t working.
A recent example of this is Daniel Sprong, whom the Canucks acquired over the off-season, to only go on to play in nine games with the club before Allvin shipped him off to Seattle for future considerations.
While at the moment it sounds like the Canucks are not looking to the route of trading Nils Höglander, based recent comments by Rick Dhaliwal, this is still something they should be considering heavily.
If we’re looking for compatable trades over recent history the most recent trade that fits the bills is actually the Vasily Podkolzin trade that the Canucks made over the Summer. The Canucks signed Podkolzin in April of 2024 to a two year deal, of which he’s currently on his first year. Yet in August of this year the team sent him to Edmonton for a 4th round pick in the 2025 draft.
This trade was not a block buster but it is unforutatley comparable to Höglander. Hogs has more NHL production and experience to show for than Podkolzin, but Höglander’s current contract also locks him in far beyond Podkolzin’s deal which is ending after the 2025/26 season.
Podkolzin also costs just $1m against the cap, for a rate of production this season that has been higher than Höglander’s, with Pods earning 8pts so far this year in Edmonton.
A more rosey comparission would be that of the Cody Glass trade from August. Where Pittsburgh brought on the 25-year-old winger with a history of modest production in exchange for a 23-year-old developing in the AHL by the name of Jordan Frasca, along with a 3rd-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft and a 6th-round pick in the 2026 draft.
This haul is a little beefier than what the Canucks got in exchange for Podkolzin, and may be more in line with what they could argue for Höglander, despite his slow start to the year. If the Canucks in a prospective deal could get the combined value of the return pieces from the Cody Glass trade, but in the form of just one defensive depth piece, that would be a massive win for the team.
A Likable Guy
It would be sad to see Höglander go. He was just signed to a new deal, and only recently looked to be coming into his own as a real NHL player.
Sometimes though, a move has to be made. If the Canucks didn’t have massive holes to fill elsewhere in their line-up, they may be okay to wait on Höglander and hope he rebounds to either fold back into the fabric of this team, or sell higher at a later date.
But right now, there is more they need elsewhere in their line-up, and if they can leverage Höglander’s still very real potential to an interested party, they should seriously consider taking up such deals.