Vancouver is honestly the worst run team in the NHL. The Vancouver Canucks have bought out the final four years left on Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s contract, costing them $18.5M in dead cap space for the next eight years.
Only in Vancouver do they spend three draft picks, three players, and $8.25M in cap space/season on a defenseman to only buy him out in two years time.
After two miserable years in a Canucks uniform, Oliver Ekman-Larsson has been bought out by the Vancouver Canucks at a whopping $18.5M dead cap hit to their salary cap for the next 8 seasons. And, if you needed any more proof the Canucks are the NHL’s clown show, here it is.
The Canucks are going to be suffering from the Jim Benning GM era for the next decade. Whether it’s bad trades (cough…OEL…cough), trading away much needed draft capital (aka: 2021 1st round pick, 2023 1st round pick, etc.), or signing/acquiring bad contracts (ex: OEL, Tyler Myers, J.T. Miller, Loui Erikson, Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel, etc.), the Canucks are always shooting themselves in the foot whenever they look like they’re about to take a step forward.
And the OEL saga proves it.
Thinking back to the oh so distant summer of…2021, the Vancouver Canucks were sitting on the 9th overall pick in the 2021 draft after a horrific season in which they finished with a 23-29-4 record (this was the post bubble year, so only 56 games were played).
So, with GM Jim Benning being in what would prove to be his final season in charge and having seen just two playoff appearances in 6 years (it would end up being 2 in 7 years), he made a very bold move (putting it nicely) by trading their 9th overall pick, a 2022 2nd round pick, a 2023 7th round pick, Loui Erikson and his bloated contract, Jay Beagle, and Antoine Roussel to the Arizona Coyotes for the equally bloated contract of Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland.
Pretty big move, right?
The Canucks were not only trading away $60M worth of contracts in Erikson (6 years, $36M), Beagle (4 years, $12M), and Roussel (4 years, $12M) that would all expire at the end of the season, but they were also bringing in a defender who had a $8.25M cap hit for six more years (at the time of the trade) and a winger that needed an extension.
Now, I somewhat understand the move given OEL’s reputation as one of the better defenders in the league during the 2010’s and Garland was coming off two 39-point seasons, while the Canucks were crying out for a veteran Top-4 defender and a gritty Top-9 winger for years.
And, to be honest, Garland has fit in pretty well with the Canucks as he scored a career-high 54 points in 2022 and 46 points this past season, though OEL hasn’t had a 30-point season in 3 years and was a -19 in 133 games as a member of the Canucks.
Still, this move probably wouldn’t have been too bad if the Canucks were a playoff hopeful a few points outside the playoff line two years ago.
However, seeing how the Canucks have missed the last two postseason, Vancouver was nowhere near the playoffs in 2021! And they aren’t any closer now!
The Canucks finished dead last in the North Division on 50 points in 2020/21, trailing the 4th placed Montreal Canadiens (who went on to reach the Stanley Cup Finals that year) by 9 points. And, in terms of the entire league, the Canucks finished with the 8th worst record of the 31 teams in the league (Seattle Kraken joined the next year).
That Canucks roster under Benning had a fluky 2020 COVID bubble that saw them knock off the Minnesota Wild 3-1 in the Qualifying Round and the St. Louis Blues 4-2 in the 1st round, yet they weren’t competitive a minute before or after Benning got fired in December of 2021.
And, with that firing, team captain Bo Horvat was also traded away to the New York Islanders, the team has gone through three coaches (Travis Green, Bruce Boudreau, Rick Tocchet), they have missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons, they haven’t finished within the Top-4 of the Pacific Division since the bubble run, and they missed the playoffs by 12 points this past year.
There’s a reason why the Canucks have constantly failed to win the Stanley Cup in their 50+ year history in the NHL, and this OEL debacle encapsulates one of them perfectly…
They can’t get out of their own way!
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