Brock Boeser's future with the Vancouver Canucks is genuinely unclear this summer, and the calls are already coming in.
Insider David Pagnotta reported Monday on Sekeres & Price that teams are poking around on a bunch of Vancouver players, and Boeser's name is specifically on that list.
This is not a rumor that came out of nowhere.
The Canucks just finished dead last in the NHL at 25-49-8, ranked 32nd overall with a -100 goal differential and 316 goals allowed.
This organization needs to make hard decisions. Boeser, 29, at a $7.25 million cap hit, is exactly the kind of move that changes a roster's direction.
To be clear, he had a legitimate season. Twenty-two goals, 26 assists, 48 points over 75 games.
His last 10 games were actually his best stretch: 5 goals and 5 assists for 10 points.
But the underlying numbers on a 25-win team are brutal.
He went minus-48 on the season. That's not just a bad number. It's a number that tells you something is broken at every level of that roster, and Boeser was on the ice for a lot of it.
Boeser at $7.25M is a tough sell on a full rebuild
Six power play goals and 13 power play assists show he still produces with the man advantage. He's not finished.
The problem is the word "rebuild" and the number "$7.25M" rarely coexist comfortably. Vancouver already carries Elias Pettersson at $11.6 million and finished 32nd anyway.
Think of it like a homeowner tearing down a house. You don't build the new foundation around the old chandelier, no matter how nice it is.
That dynamic matters. New coaching staff, new front-office direction, massive rebuild underway. Veterans with big cap numbers become trade assets fast in that environment.
Boeser still has real value around the league. A 29-year-old winger who scored 22 goals and posted 10 points in his final 10 games is not a player buyers ignore.
The question is what Vancouver actually gets back for him, and whether this organization knows yet what it's rebuilding toward.
-
That answer probably shapes whether Boeser is still a Canuck when training camp opens.
Should the Canucks trade Brock Boeser this offseason?
Also read on Markerzone.com:
A second-line center has arrived in Montreal and fans can't stop talking about it
