Vancouver now has a similar feel as the Flames from 2022 where all of a sudden after some unexpected success it seems like everyone wants out. When the Flames had their homegrown franchise players walk/demand a trade they had the option to enter a rebuild the year before a highly touted draft. Florida offered them some very high end vets in need of a new contract for their then 24 year old superstar and they made that move, and traded a future first to dump an often injured but beloved player to sign a 32 year old to a 7x7 deal. The result is the Flames had 2 seasons of 93 and 96pts that resulted in the 16th pick and one season where things went poorly and they picked 9th.
Vancouver has the option to pull the pin on this team and trade Hughes, Pettersson and Demko for futures in hopes of getting some high picks and futures to start over. Like Calgary the Canucks owner hates rebuilding and they are not far removed from top 10 picks and have only made the playoffs 2x in the last decade with one of those runs happening in the Covid bubble.
Vancouver is a very interesting team to watch this summer
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