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How closely is Vancouver Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson keeping his cards to his vest? So closely that his conversations with any reporter are few and far between.
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But if you work for an NHL team, it would seem likely you can get him on the phone.
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The rookie GM remains very much open for business, league sources say.
Want a winger? He’s got one. Got a centre who makes a lot and hasn’t performed but maybe he can find his scoring touch again if he’s in a new environment? He’s got one of those too.
How about a goalie with experience?
The list goes on and on.
The man sitting in the Canucks’ GM seat is no different from his predecessors: He’s out to make a big splash.
The question is, though, talk is one thing, making the deal happen is a whole other thing. And one of those challenges is convincing the player himself.
Take Jake DeBrusk for instance. The veteran winger has a no-movement clause in his contract. It runs for another year, then it becomes a 15-team no trade clause.
But there’s plenty of trade talk about him, going back months now. The veteran winger singed in Vancouver to chase playoff games; there aren’t any now. It’s thought he wouldn’t be opposed to landing somewhere new — but not everywhere.
“Yea I’m pretty sure, along with most others, Jake doesn’t want to go east,” a source told Postmedia News on Tuesday.
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So in other words, the answer seems likely to be ‘no’ if we’re looking at Ottawa as a trade partner.
But there are lots of other options around — what about a place like Seattle? They seem to be willing to move Shane Wright. Is that enough of a player for the Canucks to take on in exchange for the veteran? Wright has played well enough in the NHL, but he’s now 22 and looks to be a low-end second line centre at most.
The Canucks already have one of those in Marco Rossi, but at this point, accumulating quality mid-range players is fine. The Canucks need a youth movement and Wright, even if his ceiling is perhaps a little lower than it was, would still fit the bill.
He would also fit the bill if Johnson is able to find a trade partner for Elias Pettersson. We’ve reported in this space previously that the former star centre has been on the Los Angeles Kings’ radar, more than ever now with Anze Kopitar skating off into retirement.
And, it seems, he’s not the only one that other teams have their eyes on.
“They (Canucks) have a few pieces other teams want,” a league source suggested.
At the end of the day, Johnson and company are very motivated to build their new team of the future. And ownership is very much onboard, since these kinds of forward-looking moves would likely cut millions of dollars off the budget.
And that’s the other part in all this: a rebuild means cutting costs and ownership here does love cutting costs. That’s part of how the rebuild was sold to ownership: they would like to cut millions from expenses and this is an easy way to do it.
Trade talk. You love it.
But actual trades themselves? Pulling the actual trigger? That’s a lot harder.
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