How Hronek's Extension Impacts The Canucks Ability To Re-Sign Free Agents This Offseason
After a career year, Filip Hronek signed an eight-year, $58 million extension with the Vancouver Canucks.
Photo by Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports - How Hronek's Extension Impacts The Canucks Ability To Re-Sign Free Agents This OffseasonThe Vancouver Canucks made headlines on Tuesday, signing defenceman Filip Hronek to an eight-year extension worth $58 million. Now that the contract is signed, GM Patrik Allvin and his team know exactly how much money will be available to sign the rest of Vancouver's free agents. Despite wanting to bring players back, it has become apparent that some of the Canucks top free agents will be moving on as there is not enough cap space to re-sign everyone while also signing unrestricted free agents to help improve the team.
At the moment, Vancouver enters the offseason with just over $19.3 million in cap space. This number includes the just over $2.3 million cap hit from the Oliver Ekman-Larsson buyout, as well as the $2.5 million in cap relief which comes from placing Tucker Poolman on LTIR. As for the Canucks player breakdown, the organization has 19 free agents that need new contracts, with 12 set to hit the open market on July 1.
To get a better sense of what these free agents might be receiving, here are the projected contracts for Vancouver's top five unrestricted free agents according to AFPAnalytics:
If the Canucks signed all five of these players at their projected contract price, it would cost over $20 million, which would put Vancouver over the salary cap. It would also leave no money for Linus Karlsson and Artūrs Šilovs, who are restricted free agents, as well as any unrestricted free agents the Canucks want to sign. Simply put, there isn't enough room to bring back every key free agent, meaning some will be testing the open market on July 1.
Vancouver's cap situation gets even more complicated as it is rumoured that the organization is ready to offer Jake Guentzel a massive deal this offseason. Using AFPAnalytics projections, that would be a seven-year deal with a cap hit of just over $9.2 million. If these reports are correct, it would drop the Canucks projected cap space to around $10 million, which would even further limit Vancouver's ability to re-sign their pending unrestricted free agents.
The last piece of this complicated puzzle is ensuring the Canucks roster doesn't suffer from a chemistry perspective. Essentially, Vancouver needs to ensure that a repeat of the 2020 offseason, where the organization lost key pieces to free agency and subsequently missed the playoffs for the next three seasons, does not happen again. While it will be difficult to lose some of the leadership and personality that comes with this year's free agency group, the organization needs to ensure the players replacing them can help not just on the ice but in the locker room as well.
Based on the amount of cap space available, it is clear that the Canucks roster is going to look different next season. While Vancouver will be losing some key free agents, it presents an excellent opportunity for younger players in the organization to fight for roster spots. Once again, the Canucks are expected to be a team that is pushed up against the cap in 2024-25 but have enough pieces already in place to help them replicate their success from last season.
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