Why the Vancouver Canucks Passed on Bringing Phil Kessel Back to the NHL
The Vancouver Canucks didn't sign three-time Cup champion Phil Kessel despite him practising with their AHL affiliate. The Canucks GM said it wasn't a fit. Here's why.
After weeks of speculation, the match between Phil Kessel and the Vancouver Canucks hit a dead end on Friday.
Needing to be on an NHL roster by Friday’s 3 p.m. ET roster deadline in order to be eligible for the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs, Kessel was not signed by the Vancouver Canucks.
“I think Phil is a great person and a well-respected player,” Canucks GM Patrik Allvin told the media on Friday. “What he has done in the league, a three-time Cup winner, he wanted to come back to play."
But Vancouver’s salary-cap flexibility heading into the deadline was limited. Whether it was acquiring a player through trade or signing a 36-year-old UFA like Kessel, Allvin would have needed to move a roster player out to bring in any new face.
“With being in LTIR and roster complications and how we want to play, unfortunately, at this point it wasn't a fit for us,” Allvin said.
Ironically, Allvin was able to engineer six trades in the first five months of the regular season, more than any other NHL team. In his two biggest deals, a roster player did go out to make room for the new player coming in.
In late November, Allvin applied the cap space he freed up by trading Anthony Beauvillier to Chicago against the acquisition of Nikita Zadorov. And then on Jan. 31, Allvin effectively kick-started trade deadline season when he snagged the top available center, Elias Lindholm, for a package that included a first-round pick and winger Andrei Kuzmenko — and his $5.5 million cap hit.
On Friday, Allvin indicated that many of his potential trade partners were sniffing around the Canucks’ top prospects — including players like world juniors MVP Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Boston College freshman Tom Willander.
“We’re sitting here with 89 points, and the players that have been on their roster leading up to this point have done a really good job,” Allvin said. “They deserve to finish off here, but if there was a chance for us to improve with a reasonable cost and not setting the future back, we definitely would have looked at it.
“Unfortunately, it didn't work this time.”
Technically, Kessel is still free to sign with an NHL team if he chooses and could continue his ironman streak if he did so. But because he wasn’t on an NHL roster by Friday, he can't take part in the playoffs.
Injured left wing Dakota Joshua is expected to return to Vancouver’s lineup in 10 to 14 days, which will help to fill out the forward depth. In recent weeks, the Canucks have also called up wingers Vasily Podkolzin and Arshdeep Bains to give them a look with the big club.
Podkolzin has impressed in his three-game audition and is expected to be back in the lineup when the Canucks host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday at Rogers Arena.