The Vancouver Canucks may be in the midst of a “rebuild”, but it never hurts to trade for veterans that can make the team better. As a number of teams head to arbitration hearings with their top players, general manager Jim Benning has a golden opportunity to take advantage of them.
Vancouver is fortunate in having plenty of salary cap space — $8.812 million according to CapFriendly.com. Assuming the Sedins either re-sign for much less or don’t return after 2018, then the Canucks will have more significant money coming off the books.
So this is where Benning can afford to add one or two solid veterans from other teams who will need to create cap space if they are to sign long-term deals with their top RFAs.