Welcome to another edition of NHL rumours, this time starring the Vancouver Canucks. It does appear as though the Canucks want to make some moves to shake things up, although not necessarily anything major. The Canucks just want to identify areas in their lineup that could use some adjustments. One of these areas of adjustments would be in finding a spark for sniper Elias Pettersson. Therefore, one of those players they would want to move, to make room for just such an adjustment, would be Ilya Mikheyev.
Agent Dan Millstein has permission to help facilitate an Ilya Mikheyev trade.#Canucks
— Rick Dhaliwal (@DhaliwalSports) June 20, 2024
NHL Rumours: Looking at the Vancouver Canucks Russian Forward Ilya Mikheyev
Rumour: Rick Dhaliwal of Chek News in BC, suggested that Mikheyev’s agent, Dan Milstein, is able to do what he can to get a trade to happen.
Now there is no deal done, but it does appear that Mikheyev’s time in Vancouver may be coming to an end sooner rather than later. Perhaps this is a ‘writing has been on the wall for a while’ type of scenario. For example, in the regular season, Mikheyev and Pettersson played together a lot. However, Mikheyev had 11 goals and 20 assists for just 31 points in 78 games played. On the other hand, Pettersson is an elite NHL sniper, who recorded 34 goals and 89 points. It’s not hard to see there just wasn’t enough offensive chemistry between the two.
Mikheyev is a solid piece to expect some return value via trade. He has very good speed and isn’t afraid of chasing pucks into the corners. His scoring has been a bit inconsistent throughout his career, but the offensive upside still remains. His career-high was 21 goals in 2021-22 with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Furthermore, the 29-year-old career PPG average is 0.49 and was only 0.40 this year. So, you can expect a rebound in productivity if you are a team receiving Mikheyev in trade.
It Just Wasn’t a Fit for Mikheyev and the Canucks
Furthermore, a couple of Mikheyev and Pettersson’s most frequent wingers were Sam Lafferty and Andrei Kuzmenko. The latter, Kuzmenko, has already been dealt out of town. And the word on Lafferty is that he would like to test free agency, but is open to sticking around the Wet Coast. However, if he did return, he wouldn’t necessarily be expected or even want to play on an offensively-minded line with Pettersson.
Trying to find additional offensive firepower, seems to be where the other journeys are going to land for the Canucks. A name like Jake Guentzel recently popped up in rumours. Moreover, this shows that the Canucks are looking to help find some scoring depth, to help support Pettersson and also J.T. Miller. Overall, this seems to be where we find the Canucks and General Manager Patrik Allvin landing themselves. They want to surround Pettersson with elite scorers, and one part of that process is removing current pieces that don’t fit that description. Mikheyev seems to fit that (the doesn’t fit) part perfectly, as someone the Canucks’ management can use to help save some cap room, in hopes of landing a big fish this summer.
Main photo: Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports
