{"id":461510,"date":"2025-01-25T21:45:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T02:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=461510"},"modified":"2025-01-25T21:45:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T02:45:44","slug":"why-vancouver-wasnt-in-three-team-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/01\/25\/why-vancouver-wasnt-in-three-team-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Vancouver Wasn’t in Three-Team Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The massive, <\/span>three-team trade<\/span><\/a> sending <\/span>Mikko Rantanen<\/a> to Carolina could have been very different. Both <\/span>J.T. Miller<\/a> and <\/span>Elias Pettersson<\/a> were in rumours involving the Hurricanes leading up to this week. Why didn’t either of those go through?<\/span><\/p>\n

Guessing Names<\/span><\/h2>\n

No one will say anything beyond “we felt like this was the best deal.” However, looking at the result, we can speculate what each team wanted and why those desires couldn’t be met. Or at least not as well as what happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

First off, the deal itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carolina Hurricanes<\/span><\/a> get Mikko Rantanen and <\/span>Taylor Hall<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Colorado Avalanche<\/span><\/a> gets <\/span>Martin Ne\u010das<\/a>, <\/span>Jack Drury<\/a>, Carolina’s 2025 second-round pick, and<\/span> Carolina’s 2026 fourth-round pick.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chicago Blackhawks<\/span><\/a> get their formerly-traded 2025 third-round pick, $4.625 million of Rantanen’s salary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three Team Trade Totals<\/span><\/h3>\n

Carolina<\/span><\/h4>\n

Carolina has been shopping for big-name talent in the past two seasons. Last season, they broke their old habit of preferring pre-signed players, landing the biggest UFA target in <\/span>Jake Guentzel<\/a>. Their worst fears came true when they couldn’t re-sign him, but that <\/span>hasn’t stopped new general manager<\/span><\/a> Eric Tulsky.<\/span><\/p>\n

This year, the most significant target was Rantanen, and they decided to act early. Rantanen has been one of the league’s best forwards for a few years. That consistency has him set for a significant payout with his next contract, and Carolina knows it. That even the ordinarily reticent team thinks he’s worth it speaks volumes.<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point in his career, Hall is a decent third-line winger. He’s creative and understands the game well, but he is also on his sixth team in his 15-year career. The support Hall was supposed to bring <\/span>Connor Bedard<\/a> didn’t quite materialize, and with the team sputtering, he was expendable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Colorado<\/span><\/h4>\n

The internal salary cap that Colorado has is a serious one. Despite Rantanen signing later in a higher salary cap era, the team wasn’t going beyond Nathan McKinnon’s $12.6 million. Ne\u010das is signed for another year, and while he’s very good, he’s not at Rantanen’s level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack Drury is acceptable as a fourth-line centre, if a touch expensive at $1.725 million this year and next. The draft picks will be late in their rounds, but that’s the price of success.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chicago<\/span><\/h4>\n

Uh. They owed Hall a favour, we guess? Or perhaps they’re just glad to get Rantanen out of their division and were willing to pay for it. Understandable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three Team Trade… and Vancouver?<\/span><\/h3>\n

These players don’t fill Carolina’s need for a centre behind <\/span>Sebastian Aho<\/a>. While Ne\u010das was used as one in 2022-23, it’s considered a failed experiment, or he might still be a Hurricane.<\/span><\/p>\n

Colorado likewise needs a centre, given what can be politely termed “modest results” from <\/span>Casey Mittelstadt<\/a>. He is a good way behind MacKinnon, and Drury isn’t going to solve that.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, after all of this, Vancouver still has two high-calibre centres that management has shown they are willing to trade. Both have long-term contracts signed – normally catnip for Carolina – and bucket-loads of talent.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Do You Want From Us?!?<\/span><\/h4>\n

There are things about the Canucks that make them a more difficult trade partner, though. For one thing, trading either player will leave a talent gap at centre without a suitable replacement. <\/span>Pius Suter<\/a> has been fine this year but not in the top six.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vancouver’s drop this season exposed several weaknesses, not just the one on the blue line. Moving a top-line talent will need to address them, but at what cost to their strength at centre? As seen in Friday’s three-team trade, good centres are hard to come by.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there are the players themselves. Neither Pettersson nor Miller have reached anything like their capable heights. Pettersson’s 11 goals and 30 points after 41 games is the lowest points-per-game rate of his career.<\/span><\/p>\n

Miller’s eight goals and 33 points in 37 games are his worst since joining Vancouver six seasons ago. Add his emotional volatility\u2014often a bonus when things are going well\u2014and he’s seen as a risk. His 10-game absence earlier this year is hard to feature as a selling point.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sell Low or Hold On<\/span><\/h3>\n

The hard truth is that the Canucks are talented but in a deep, deep funk. The free agent signings have had hits and misses, especially compared to last season. The goaltending hasn’t been as good as last season. The defence hasn’t been as good as – Oh, wait!<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, having a season where everything went right has led to far higher expectations this year. That’s not a fault, but it makes for a stark reflection of how to judge success. And despite all appearances, some things have gone reasonably well for the Canucks. It’s just hard to see them in the mirror’s glare.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sticking to hard numbers, another difficult point to circumvent is an increase in <\/span>Oliver Ekman-Larsson<\/a>‘s buyout cost. That will cost approximately $2.5 million in each of the next two seasons and has to be considered.<\/span><\/p>\n

The salary cap overall is increasing, but that’s no advantage when it’s for every team in the league. They signed long-term deals with Miller and Pettersson expressly to avoid significant negotiations. They don’t want to bring in an expiring contract.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the Other Other Hand<\/span><\/h4>\n

Off-ice stuff is never fun to write about. Gigantic, three-team trades is. But it is off-ice stuff until the latter – or something like it – happens in Vancouver. No one who covers the team thinks this is excellent material, even with the play on the ice as miserable as it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, holding on to the players involved in the drama is an option. Management may simply say, “We aren’t getting our price, so figure it out.” This makes it an enduring question for several more months. And it might even work.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the team does nothing and starts finding its game again, then all the nonsense could go away. A four-game win streak would do a considerable amount to ease the turmoil. But how likely is one of those just now? And how much would anyone trust it as a sign that things were “turning around?”<\/span><\/p>\n

So, holding on to assets until the market for them rises makes sense. But these aren’t “assets;” they’re people. Everyone in the room is affected by what goes on in there, and it’s showing on the ice. Fans are affected by the results on the ice.<\/span><\/p>\n

The clock’s ticking, folks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo: Bob Frid- Imagn-Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The massive, three-team trade sending Mikko Rantanen to Carolina could have been very different. Both J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson were in rumours involving the Hurricanes leading up to this week. Why didn’t either of those go through? Guessing Names No one will say anything beyond “we felt like this was the best deal.” However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3171,"featured_media":461541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,4548],"tags":[136,932,5373,5746,158],"class_list":["post-461510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-nhl","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-elias-pettersson","tag-jt-miller","tag-nhl-trade","tag-vancouver-canucks"],"modified_by":"Andrew Willis","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461510"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461542,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461510\/revisions\/461542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}