Why would an NHL team put its leading goal scorer on the trading block? Ask the Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks appear to be on a bit of a roll, although a bumpy one.

After a putrid start to the season that had fans at Rogers Arena throwing jerseys on the ice in disgust, the Canucks have righted the ship somewhat. On Wednesday they went into Calgary and beat the Flames 4-3 in a shootout. Since the beginning of November, they have 11 wins and eight losses. In that span they have beaten some of the hottest teams in the league while looking like the playoff team many expected them to be.

What better time, in other words, to trade your leading goal scorer.

It wouldn’t be Vancouver and the Canucks if there wasn’t some drama enveloping the team. This year there has been plenty. After a terrible start, there were calls for coach Bruce Boudreau to be fired, the same Boudreau who gained almost cult-like status among Canucks fans for coming in and turning last year’s miserable campaign around with a late-season push that fell just short of the playoffs.

Then there was the benching of Brock Boeser and the news that he was on the trade market – a pure goal scorer who seems to need a change of scenery to reacquaint him with his scoring touch.

But the biggest explosion occurred this week when it was revealed that the Canucks are open to offers on the team’s captain and leading goal scorer, Bo Horvat.

Whether this actually happens remains to be seen, of course. Horvat scored again Wednesday night, to give him 21 goals this season, more than Alexander Ovechkin and Auston Matthews. He also has the top faceoff-win percentage in the league at almost 60 percent.

Hockey fans across North America would be forgiven for asking: What is Vancouver possibly thinking?

The issue, of course, is money. Horvat, 27, and the Canucks captain for four seasons, is on an expiring contract. Vancouver management likely thought they could renew him at something that resembled an average annual salary in the US$6-million range. (Over 70 games last season he had 52 points, including a career-high 31 goals). And then he came into this season and went off; He’s currently on pace to score 59 goals. Now he and his agent are looking for an average annual salary in the US$8-million-plus range. Vancouver is believed to have countered with a number that begins with seven.

It seems the Canucks don’t see a way to keep Horvat into next season, at the price he’s looking for, and remain under the salary cap. But there is also the possibility that team president Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin believe they could get an attractive package of players and/or draft picks in return for Horvat as they look to retool (not rebuild) a team in need of help. especially on the back end.

Yet, the club’s salary-cap bind is real. In the summer, the club chose to extend JT Miller, who is 29, for seven years at US$56-million. Whether it’s the burden of that contract or not, Miller has not had the best first third this season. He’s been moved from center, his preferred position, to the wing on Horvat’s line. His slow start has made his contract virtually untradeable. So the idea of ​​keeping Horvat over him isn’t a realistic option.

Still, you’d think there has to be a way the Canucks could get a contract with their captain done if they wanted to. If they found a dance partner for Boeser that would help. There are a couple of other players the Canucks would likely agree to part company with if there were a willing buyer – someone with a Stanley Cup pedigree such as Tanner Pearson, for instance – that would also help the bottom line. Everyone is expecting the salary cap to go up next year as well.

Again, the bigger question is whether this is really a bottom-line dilemma or does current management believe the team would be better off without Horvat longer term. That superstar-in-the-making, Elias Pettersson, is the next captain and JT Miller is a natural second-line center behind him. If the Canucks could get a good young defenseman in return for Horvat it might be worth parting ways with someone described as the conscience of the hockey team.

Still, parting ways with their leading goal scorer would seem a very odd decision, especially given everything the product of Rodney, Ont., has done for the franchise since being picked ninth overall in the 2013 draft. But as we know, loyalty means very little in professional sports. And these are the Canucks, whose fans seem to feed off crises that are self-generating.