Patrik Allvin given excellent grade for his off-season work

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Cooper Godin
July 9, 2024 (5:47 PM)

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The Vancouver Canucks were given a high grade by The Athletic for the off-season moves Patrik Allvin has made so far this summer.

Over the last three weeks, Patrik Allvin and the Vancouver Canucks have been busy preparing their roster for the 2024-25 season. Allvin got some in-house work done by re-signing Filip Hronek, Mark Friedman, Cole McWard, Linus Karlsson, Dakota Joshua, Tyler Myers and Jett Woo before turning his attention to the free agent market.

To free up some cap space as well, Allvin managed to trade Ilya Mikheyev (15% of contract retained) to the Chicago Blackhawks, along with the rights to Sam Lafferty and a 2027 second-round pick, for a 2027 fourth-round pick.

Once the free agent market opened on Canada Day, Allvin went spending, inking free agents Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen, Kieffer Sherwood, Derek Forbort, Jiri Patera, Nathan Smith and Vincent Desharnais to contracts that total $14.3 million against the salary cap for the 2024-25 season.

In an article on The Athletic this week, their writers shared their grades for each of the 32 National Hockey League teams based on what they've done in the off-season so far and the Vancouver Canucks were given a solid grade.

Thomas Drance, one of the Canucks writers for The Athletic, gave the team a B+ for their moves this off-season. Drance said that while the Canucks didn't land a star top-line winger, they managed to get a younger and likely cheaper option in Jake DeBrusk. Drance also added that they were able to add some much needed depth to their forward group by signing Heinen and Sherwood, while bringing in big defencemen Derek Forbort and Vincent Desharnais.

One area the Canucks did get a big weaker in is down the middle with the departures of Elias Lindholm and Sam Lafferty, especially the latter who took 356 face-offs last season, winning 42.1% of those draws.

"Vancouver Canucks

B+

The Canucks didn't land a game-changing star top-line winger, preferring the more modestly priced, younger option in Jake DeBrusk. The club was also able to add some forward depth in Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood, and they maintained the identity of their big, bad blueline group by signing Derek Forbort to a value deal and rolling the dice on Vincent Desharnais as a developmental project. Vancouver probably got a bit worse down the middle of their forward group, and their back end took a depth hit with the departures of Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole, but the Canucks were able to at least maintain their level on paper. That's no mean feat given that Elias Pettersson, Filip Hronek and Dakota Joshua combined to earn more than $10 million worth of raises this offseason. � Thomas Drance."

It's going to be interesting to see how all of the Canucks' new additions will fare next season as they need them to fill in key roles left behind by guys like Elias Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole.

Source: The Athletic
NHL free-agency report card: Grades for each team's early offseason moves

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