With the 2025 Trade Deadline in the rearview mirror, the Canucks will now focus their attention on the final twenty-one games of the season.
General Manager Patrik Allvin spoke about his team’s situation at the deadline on Friday and how the market developed for the Canucks.
“It definitely was an interesting market, and some of the moves here, the biggest reason I felt that we didn’t [make] many moves here today was that there was not a whole lot of market return for players. Unfortunately, [trades] didn’t really make sense for us.”
On Thursday, the team moved defenceman Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers for a third-round pick that belongs to the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks’ third-round pick is currently set to be the first pick of the third round. While moving Soucy wasn’t an easy decision, it made sense for both parties.
“The improvement here of some of our younger defencemen in D-Petey, [Victor] Mancini coming on board, [Kirill] Kudryavtsev’s play down in Abbotsford, Sawyer Mynio is coming in next year, and potentially Tom Willander in here as well,” said Allvin. “We felt the competition that we have created here was not [going to] guarantee Carson [a spot] in the lineup every day, and conversation with his agent over a couple of weeks led up to this decision for us yesterday.”
Allvin spoke on Marcus Pettersson, Drew O’Connor, and Filip Chytil, who have played 10 games with the Canucks after Allvin traded for them on January 31st.
“I think they are starting to fit in really well on and off the ice. [They are] starting to understand how [Rick] Tocchet wants [them] to play and what their roles are,” said Allvin. “[They are] continuing to build chemistry. I do like the chemistry of Marcus and Tyler [Myers in] heavy matchups against the top lines. And I do like the speed with Chytil and Drew O’Connor.”
With the stretch drive starting and the team currently holding onto the second wild card spot, Allvin discussed what he needs to see from his team over the season’s final quarter.
“I feel like both Rick and I have repeated ourselves with consistency,” said Allvin. “I do think that this group is talented enough and has shown in different games against different opponents, good ones and bad ones, that we are capable of playing really good hockey. I do like that the underlying numbers are indicating we’re playing the right way. There’s no secret that goal scoring has been a challenge for us, but I think in terms of defending, in terms of the details, that hopefully will pay off down the stretch here is coming along really well, and hopefully we can be little bit more creative and get some puck luck too.”
Since January 24th, the Canucks are fifth in the league for goals against per 60 minutes played. They are allowing 2.4 goals against per 60 minutes.
While no moves were made on deadline day, this one day is just a season marker for the team in its continued quest to improve the group.
“I think you guys know us. I don’t think I use this day as the defining day of how you build a team for us,” said Allvin. “It’s a continuation from day one. I believe I can still take a trade tomorrow; if I do tomorrow, that player can’t play in the playoffs, but I’m happy with the players we have. If there wasn’t any market value, I think that’s up to the other teams [and] how they view our players.”
Allvin spoke about the young players like Victor Mancini and Elias Pettersson (D-Petey) are impressive and how he was happy to see that the Canucks’ roster was the fifth youngest in the league last week.
