Pair of Vancouver Canucks Restricted Free Agents Make Major Decision Early in Free-Agency

The Vancouver Canucks may have got the majority of their offseason work done last week, but there are still two players in the organization that remain without a contract as of Sunday morning.

Before the 2 pm PT deadline on June 30th, the Vancouver Canucks the Vancouver Canucks issued qualifying offers to defenseman Jett Woo and goaltender Nikita Tolopilo, which ensured that the team would retain their rights and that they wouldn't become unrestricted free agents the next day.

As mentioned, last Monday marked the deadline for restricted free agents to be issued a qualifying offer and for some of those players, they had a pretty big decision to make before 2 pm on Saturday.

For some restricted free agents, they had to inform the league on Saturday if they were planning on electing to go to arbitration this summer or not and we got some big news when it comes to what Jett Woo and Nikita Tolopilo decided to do.

According to Rick Dhaliwal of Donnie & Dhali, Jett Woo and Nikita Tolopilo have decided NOT to elect salary arbitration this summer.

The fact that Woo and Tolopilo decided not to file for arbitration likely suggests that the two players are possibly getting closer to agreeing to new contract with the Vancouver Canucks for the 2025-26 season.

Going to arbitration can be a rewarding experience for some players as they end up getting more than what the team was looking to pay them, but for others, it's something they don't want to go through at all during the early part of their respective careers.

During an arbitration hearing, players have to listen to their team's management group pick apart their game, say what they're bad at and doing wrong in order to justify the number that they've filed at, which in turn could strain the relationship between both parties.

Thankfully for Jett Woo, Nikita Tolopilo and the Vancouver Canucks, they won't have to go through that later this month, but 11 other players around the league have chosen to including Kaapo Kakko of the Seattle Kraken, Gabriel Vilardi of the Winnipeg Jets and Nicholas Robertson of the Toronto Maple Leafs.