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<\/p>\nWhy the Canucks\u2019 offer sheet options will be limited to just the biggest ones this summer<\/p>\n
But if there\u2019s one particular type of transaction that probably won\u2019t occur, it\u2019s an offer sheet.<\/p>\n
On the home front, the Canucks have absolutely nothing to worry about when it comes to incoming offer sheets. Unless they acquire someone new in the interim, they\u2019ve got exactly one pending RFA at the NHL level in Pierre-Olivier Joseph, and with all due respect to Joseph, he\u2019s not the type of RFA to receive any offer sheet interest.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s almost as unlikely that the Canucks send out any offer sheets of their own, too, albeit for different reasons.<\/p>\n
In order to make an offer sheet \u2013 which, for the uninitiated, is a contract offer made from one team to another team\u2019s unsigned restricted free agent, to which said team may respond by matching the contract or accepting pre-determined compensation \u2013 a team needs to have the requisite compensatory draft picks already in place.<\/p>\n
The exact compensation slate for 2026 offer sheets has yet to be released, but it\u2019ll be similar to last year\u2019s, just with slightly higher thresholds on each tier due to the rising cap ceiling:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
2025 Offer Sheet compensation, from Puckpedia<\/p>\n
A couple of things bear mentioning anytime we talk about offer sheet compensation. One is that, although an offer sheet can be for any length of term, any offer over five years is treated as a five-year offer for the purposes of determining compensation. In other words, a seven-year, $35 million has a $5 million AAV in the real world, but would be treated as if it were a five-year, $35 million offer in terms of compensation, meaning it would fall into the $7 million tier.<\/p>\n
None of that is particularly relevant to the Canucks right now, for reasons that will be explained as we go. But what is more relevant is the fact that offer sheets occur during the free agency period, which occurs after the Entry Draft.<\/p>\n
So, it is always a team\u2019s next set of draft picks that must be made available when making offer sheets. For any offer sheets made during the 2026 offseason, it is 2027 draft picks, and perhaps beyond, that must be available.<\/p>\n
For the Canucks, that seriously limits their options. The Canucks already traded their 2027 second round draft pick way back in June 2024 when they attached it to Ilya Mikheyev in order to get Chicago to take him.<\/p>\n
Therefore, unless the Canucks trade with the Blackhawks to get that pick back, they\u2019re unable to make any offer sheets in the third, fifth, and sixth compensation tiers, as each of them require a team to have their own 2027 second round pick in place. That leaves just the bottom two rungs, the middle one, and the uppermost tier.<\/p>\n
We can safely leave those two bottom rungs aside for now. Offer sheets just aren\u2019t made in that range, and so we can forget about the Canucks burning one on someone who makes less than $2.3 million or so \u2013 never mind the unlikelihood of a team letting someone valuable go for such little salary and such little compensation.<\/p>\n
That brings us to the middle tier, in which an offer sheet between the AAVs of about $4.7 million and $7.1 million \u2013 again, these numbers will be slightly inflated by this summer \u2013 comes with compensation of one first round pick and one third round pick, if successful.<\/p>\n
The Canucks would not be barred from making such an offer. They\u2019ve got their own 2027 first and their own 2027 third in place. But finding anyone available at that price who is also worth that compensation is an exercise in futility.<\/p>\n
We can find a number of intriguing pending RFAs who might be able to be pried away for an offer in that range. There are some highly-skilled young forwards out there like Buffalo\u2019s Zach Benson, Winnipeg\u2019s Cole Perfetti, Columbus\u2019s Cole Sillinger, and New Jersey rookie Arseny Gritsyuk, who would absolutely be worth it if a $7 million-ish contract were all it took to nab them.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019d be that contract, plus a 2027 first and a 2027 third. And, by the nature of offer sheets, that first round pick would be an unprotected one.<\/p>\n
So, that more or less wraps up the middle tier of offer sheets for the Canucks. It\u2019s not happening.<\/p>\n
That leaves us with the uppermost tier. That\u2019s the $11.7 million+ tier, which will be a $12 million+ tier by the time we hit the offseason, and that\u2019s the tier that demands four of a team\u2019s next five first round picks.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the most exciting tier, and it\u2019s also the only one the Canucks have any real business considering this offseason.<\/p>\n
At this tier, we\u2019re talking about the best of the best, and there are some great names to be talked about. But are there any names that might truly be worth four first round picks, never mind a gargantuan new salary on top of it?<\/p>\n
There may actually be.<\/p>\n
Rookies Cutter Gauthier of Anaheim and Alexander Nikishin of Carolina are very interesting players who might be sitting close to \u201cworth it\u201d at that price. Either way, however, they\u2019re \u201c10.2C RFAs\u201d who do not have the requisite pro experience to receive an offer sheet, and are thus ineligible. So, forget about them.<\/p>\n
Detroit\u2019s Simon Edvinsson is eligible, and is very interesting, but is probably not someone the Canucks would target, and might not be worth four Vancouver first rounders at the end of the day.<\/p>\n
But two names that may be worth it in every sense of the word are Anaheim centre Leo Carlsson and Chicago centre Connor Bedard.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old Carlsson, selected second overall in the 2023 Entry Draft, broke out in a big way in his third NHL season. For a minute there, he was pacing for about 100 points. He\u2019s since slipped back to \u201cmere\u201d PPG status with 64 points in 65 games to date, though a few minor injuries may be to blame there.<\/p>\n
In any case, Carlsson arrived as a franchise centre this season, and looks to remain as such for another decade, at least.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Bedard, the only player selected ahead of Carlsson in that 2023 Draft. We don\u2019t need to waste too much digital ink telling Vancouver fans about their hometown hero. Bedard broke out even harder than Carlsson this year with 71 points in 64 games, and did so on a decidedly non-playoff roster.<\/p>\n
Both players are absolutely elite centres about to enter their full playing primes. Either Carlsson or Bedard are good enough to become figurative and literal centrepieces to the Canucks\u2019 rebuild. Either would be exactly what the franchise is missing, and exactly what it will be looking for elsewhere if not here. But to say that either is truly worth an offer sheet takes a bit more consideration.<\/p>\n
Four first round picks is an awful lot to pay, especially if any of those picks end up being lottery picks. Here, the nature of the top tier might be a boon to the Canucks. They could choose to hold on to their 2027 first rounder, specifically, and instead give up their 2028 through 2031 picks with a top-tier offer sheet. That 2027 pick is the one most likely to be a lottery pick, and maybe the Canucks are thinking they can pull themselves out of the basement by 2028.<\/p>\n
Would four picks in the, say, 10-20 range of the first round be worth a Carlsson or a Bedard? That is starting to sound more realistic. One might ask if the Canucks are likely to draft four players with the cumulative value of a Bedard or a Carlsson with those picks, and the answer to that is \u201cprobably not.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then there\u2019s the salary. Because to succeed in making an offer sheet, a team has to make an offer that the owning team is unwilling to match. And for players as good as Carlsson and Bedard, that brings us to some truly astronomical numbers.<\/p>\n
Think about it. If your team had these players already in hand, what salary amount would be worth walking away from?<\/p>\n
Could the Canucks steal Bedard away for, say, $15 million? Probably not! The Blackhawks might not be happy about it, but they\u2019d still be likely to match that contract and deal with the issues it creates some other way.<\/p>\n
Could the Canucks steal Carlsson away by matching the highest cap hit in the league, as in Kirill Kaprizov\u2019s $17 million? Maybe! The Ducks do have an awful lot of other young talent to get under contract. But we\u2019re still talking about straight-up stealing a 1C here. There is still the possibility that such an offer gets matched.<\/p>\n
What if the Canucks went really off-the-board and made an offer sheet to Bedard at maximum salary, which will be somewhere north of $20 million for the 2026-27 season. At that point, do the Blackhawks walk away and take the compensatory first rounders?<\/p>\n
Yeah, they probably do. But then the Canucks would have almost one-fifth of their salary structure tied to one player for the foreseeable future, they\u2019d be down four first round picks, and they\u2019d have a brand-new organizational enemy out for revenge.<\/p>\n
In other words, there\u2019s probably nothing much to hope for here. The only players truly worth the Canucks\u2019 while when it comes to 2026 offer sheets are the kinds of players who are worth everyone\u2019s while, and that means luxury spending in every sense of the word.<\/p>\n
The safer move, and almost certainly the wiser move, is to take a more patient and measured approach to the rebuild.<\/p>\n
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