I think it's a good deal, only time will tell of course. LE, beagle, rooster, jake gets rId of 4 No one here wants. Like VANTEL said I could see this coming, everyone focuses on the picks which are gambles. I figure Benning is just getting started close your eyes and ears folks lol.

i agree with mini on this. without last year's first and the picks given this year, if the team doesn't win soon, there could be a shortage of higher end prospects in 3ish years and those guys are the cap savings guys.
- RealityChecker

I disagree, our core is 25 and under. As long as we keep our 1st next year and aren't wasting them after that we have lots of time to fill our cupboards before the current core declines.

He's a top 6 scoring guy, good possesion numbers, but undersized and can get pushed around a bit. 39 points in 49 games this year.
- NorthNuck

Known for good defence also.

Hahah.

You do know the team is going to be better and far more entertaining next season right?
Sure he sold the future, but cancel the packages when the re-rebuilt begins lol.
- Whiskey-Tango

I was canceling for the summer anyways, but I agree, they potentially will be better next season.
I am obviously one of a few who actually likes OEL and he is now the teams best defenseman, Garland is a 3rd liner, who can help out there.
I am just frustrated about so many seasons of trading picks and having the polaseks and Gaunce and Shinkaruks as your top prospects.

Remember how the Benning slurpers used the excuse that Gillis left Benning no prospects when he first started, thus why it's taken 7+ years..

Look at our cupboards now, with no 1st this year, or no 2nd next year, and the poor bastard GM who takes his place after next season lol
- Codes1087

Core 25 and under vs 30 and over is a BIG difference.

I disagree, our core is 25 and under. As long as we keep our 1st next year and aren't wasting them after that we have lots of time to fill our cupboards before the current core declines.
- Retinalz

Hard to build a cup contender with 13 million tied up until 2023/24 in 2nd pairing Myers and OEL. And 7 million until 2026/2027 in OEL.

Known for good defence also.
- Nighthawk

Excellent moves.

The grades

Sean Gentille: The initial compulsion here, before the totality of the deal was reported, was to write it off as a loss for both teams. Rare, but possible. With a little bit more time and some more information, it’s tilted, at least a bit, for the Coyotes.

Think of it this way: Connor Garland is an RFA. He’s a nice player, as Corey Pronman can particularly attest. He’s also 25 and a bit out of the Coyotes’ rebuild timeline, and the appetite for a long-term deal (on both sides) was questionable. Good player, nice asset, seems to have more to give, but the fit in Arizona was pretty meh.

If that’s what it took to offload Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s contract? So be it. It’s bad already — good as Ekman-Larsson was, he’s been in decline since before he extended. An $8.25 million AAV with almost $45 million in real-world money, spread over the next six (!) seasons is a multi-car pileup, especially for a cap-strapped non-contender. Paying 12 percent of it? Not a huge deal.

Then, by taking on Jay Beagle, Loui Eriksson and Antoine Roussel (all in the final years of their deals, making $8.1 million between them), they buy the ninth-overall pick, a 2022 second-rounder and a seventh-rounder. That … makes sense for Arizona.

As for the Canucks, they’re a bad team that got a little better in the very short term. The whole deal seems predicated on the idea that Ekman-Larsson is the player he was five years ago, and that’s simply not true. Garland? Nice piece. Should work well with Bo Horvat. But man, all that for what? To net less than $4 million in cap space for the Elias Pettersson/Quinn Hughes negotiation? To position themselves a little better for a bottom-seed push next season? They’re still not a contender, their financial situation isn’t any better, and they seem to have tethered themselves to one of the worst contracts in the sport. There’s one loser here, and it’s them.

Coyotes grade: B
Canucks grade: D-

Dom Luszczyszyn: This is the basic gist of what my brain just went through over the last half hour.

So, here’s the way I see it: Garland for the ninth overall pick and a second-rounder is roughly a wash. A lot depends on what Garland signs for, but he’s top line calibre and should fit extremely well in Vancouver’s top six, whether that’s next to Pettersson or Horvat. He was Arizona’s best forward last year, a 60-point player who can drive play well and is especially adept at drawing penalties due to his shiftiness. He’s 25 and over the next seven years, he projects to be worth about 10.5 wins with no guarantee he’s around all seven years. The ninth overall pick is worth 6.3 wins over the first seven years while an average second is worth about two wins. It’s close enough, with a slight lean toward the Canucks getting value back here.

The rest of the deal is where the math completely falls apart for Vancouver with GM Jim Benning very obviously trading the team’s long-term cap health – one he won’t likely survive to see – for short-term benefit. In effect, Benning traded $12 million worth of dead cap space on three contracts that all expire at the end of the season, for a badly overpaid player making $7.25 million (after salary retention) for the next six years. One year of patience would’ve paid off with a much cleaner cap sheet for the Canucks to enter a playoff contention window, but instead, they’re on the hook for six more years of Ekman-Larsson, a defender who is 30 and in severe decline. His on-ice value appears almost non-existent, projecting to be worth exactly zero wins next year while slowly declining further below replacement level for the next six seasons. Vancouver is paying $7.25 million for that.

The expectation for a defender at that cap hit is a high-end No. 2 defenceman, one who can average 1.5 wins per season. Ekman-Larsson is not that anymore, he’s very far from it and his age makes it very difficult to imagine he’ll ever return to that level. His chances of being worth his deal are just 11 percent. It does help that Arizona retained some salary, but it’s not nearly enough for the player Ekman-Larsson is now. Even after seeing his usage drop last season due to ineffective play, he still struggled mightily with the Coyotes, putting up some of the worst numbers of his career. Despite facing the fifth-toughest competition on Arizona’s blue line last year, Ekman-Larsson put up a 41 percent expected goals percentage and 38 percent actual goals percentage. Relative to teammates, he hasn’t been positive in either regard in any of the last three seasons and last year ranked third last in expected goals and 10th last in actual goals. There is a chance a change of scenery might help as you can sense a level of apathy in Ekman-Larsson’s game playing for a team going nowhere. Perhaps there’s a short-term resurgence on the horizon, but that will very likely wear off well before the deal is over. Ekman-Larsson looks very washed, and Vancouver made a terrible gamble here without getting nearly enough value back to take his poisonous contract on. And that’s if you’re generous enough to equate a first and second to Garland, an unlikely price for the small-statured winger on the open market no matter how much the analytics like him.

This is an unmitigated disaster for the Canucks’ long-term outlook, which is a consistent trend for this brain trust that is always putting band-aids on problems they themselves created. This band-aid is a whole new problem and while Garland is a nice reward for it, he’s nowhere near enough compensation to take on the deal considering the draft picks Vancouver gave up.

Giving up Garland stings for the Coyotes, but they did well here given the circumstances. The Ekman-Larsson contract really was that bad. Last year, I rated it as the fifth-worst contract in hockey. It only looks worse in the year since.

Coyotes grade: B+
Canucks grade: D-

Roasted on the athletic

Excellent moves.
- VANTEL

Garland will fit like a glove. 3rd line just hit the AWESOME level.

4th line who knows but less TOI.

Renaud Lavoie
@renlavoietva
·
30s
Taylor Hall officially signed his deal. 4 years / $24M total
@NHLBruins

Core 25 and under vs 30 and over is a BIG difference.
- Retinalz

Benning has this draft to restock the cupboards without a 1st round pick. This draft, and malone, McDonough, Truscott, dipietro and gadjovich are our prospects. So our core is better than what Gillis left, but we will have two 36 year old defenseman on 6 and 7 mill aav contracts that will accompany this core.

Garland will fit like a globe. 3rd line just hit the AWESOME level.

4th line who knows but less TOI.
- Nighthawk

Still time for more moves.

Well, that was certainly a bold move. If this is part of some dominoes falling, I'll wait to see the rest of it. Dumping those contracts was sold with some of OEL retained especially, but that 9OA hurts. Hopefully Benning gets more picks from somewhere.

I'm also not ready to write OEL off after a few bad years. Hopefully he can get healthy and rebound. The covid years are a tough time to truly measure performance.

I disagree, our core is 25 and under. As long as we keep our 1st next year and aren't wasting them after that we have lots of time to fill our cupboards before the current core declines.
- Retinalz

There's quite a bit more to it than that.

Roasted on the athletic
- NewYorkNuck

And why I don’t pay for & read it. Lol

There's quite a bit more to it than that.
- manvanfan

If OEL and Myers weren't under contract past this season, it would more accurate. Myers and OEL are now essentially core pieces now

Hard to build a cup contender with 13 million tied up until 2023/24 in 2nd pairing Myers and OEL. And 7 million until 2026/2027 in OEL.
- Codes1087

Top whiner award Codes! Congrats 🎉🎉

Roasted on the athletic
- NewYorkNuck

But really? What do they know?

All they've done is poop on the Canucks for years and we've proven them wrong most of those seasons by not actually finishing last.

Top whiner award Codes! Congrats 🎉🎉
- CanuckDon

Remove the pom poms from your rear and maybe I'll give you a small Benning cheer.

Roasted on the athletic
- NewYorkNuck

"putting band-aids on problems they themselves created."

So seriously in this draft what is realistic what 9th would turn into?

Top 6 F ceiling? So Garland cancels that.

But really? What do they know?

All they've done is poop on the Canucks for years and we've proven them wrong most of those seasons by not actually finishing last.
- golfingsince

Golfing, ASL, RC, Marwood, carso and mini fighting for 2nd place whiner award.

I was canceling for the summer anyways, but I agree, they potentially will be better next season.
I am obviously one of a few who actually likes OEL and he is now the teams best defenseman, Garland is a 3rd liner, who can help out there.
I am just frustrated about so many seasons of trading picks and having the polaseks and Gaunce and Shinkaruks as your top prospects.
- Reubenkincade

I hear yah, but who's to say the 9th doesn't turn into a Shinakruk, Gaunce, Jensen, Virtanen, McCann, O.J. etc.

Atleast we have known assets. Don't think I could stomach another top 10 bust.

I'm extremely curious what the cap situation looks like now though.
Again, we now need new contracts for Pett, Hughes, D!ckerson and Garland...

So seriously in this draft what is realistic what 9th would turn into?

Top 6 F ceiling? So Garland cancels that.
- Nighthawk

What did boeser project as? What did horvat project as? What did podkolzin project as? What did barzal, Connor, pastrnak project into? What about hoglander?

Dangerous game you are playing nighty

So seriously in this draft what is realistic what 9th would turn into?

Top 6 F ceiling? So Garland cancels that.
- Nighthawk

The guys we were likely to select at 9OA would be lucky to develop into Garland IMO. I wanted Lysell & Garland brings immediately what I was hoping Lysell would bring in the future.