Canucks looking to offload Ilya Mikheyev: Paying to trade him an option?
The Vancouver Canucks could get themselves into some cap trouble this summer and may need to find a way to move money to re-sign their free agents and then target ones on the open market.
Among the unrestricted free agents the Canucks are looking to re-sign are Tyler Myers, Dakota Joshua and Nikita Zadorov. Their restricted free agents include Filip Hronek and Arturs Silovs. With the team having $23.6 million in cap space, according to CapFriendly, things could get pretty tricky for Patrik Allvin.
One way the Canucks could create more cap space is by offloading a player such as Ilya Mikheyev, who has an average annual value of $4.75 million for the next two seasons before becoming an unrestricted free agent in 2026.
While on the Canucks Conversation podcast, Harman Dayal of The Athletic shared that if the organization is to find a way to get Ilya Mikheyev's contract off the books, he doesn't want it to be by including a second-round pick and other assets in the trade. Dayal suggests that the Canucks should retain the salary on Mikheyev's contract if they move him, which could land them an additional asset in a trade.
He added, "The picks that went out in the Hronek trade, the Sam Lafferty, the Nikita Zadorov, the Elias Lindholm. You only have so many bullets in your chamber, and that's where I would rather retain and have a scenario where I don't have to give up sweeteners rather than a plan b scenario where you can get the full cap hit off, but you're going to have to pay for it."
While it certainly wouldn't be ideal to give up a second-round pick, for example, for a team to take on Ilya Mikheyev's total cap hit, Patrik Allvin may have to do something like that in the coming weeks. No offence to Ilya Mikheyev, but he did not have a good season at all whatsoever and paying someone nearly $5 million and only having them put up 11 goals in 78 games is not worth it. The Canucks would be better off trying to get rid of his total cap hit than retaining his salary for the next two seasons.
What do you think the Canucks should do - give up an asset to a team to take on Mikheyev's total cap hit or retain salary for the next two seasons and get an additional asset in return? Let us know what you think in the poll below.
| POLL | ||
What should the Canucks do in an Ilya Mikheyev trade? | ||
| Give up an asset to offload his full cap hit | 1384 | 57.4 % |
| Get an asset for retaining salary for next 2 years | 1028 | 42.6 % |
| List of polls | ||
