Iain McIntyre of Sportsnet recently wrote an article saying he’s spoken with the Vancouver Canucks and gotten a bit more clarification on the plans for forward Brock Boeser. While it’s not clear what will ultimately happen there and if Boeser and the team will work out a long-term extension, one thing is clear; the team will not let him become an unrestricted free agent.
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While letting Boeser walk as a free agent would free up a ton of cap space and allow the Canucks to do other things and spend money in other places, the team has no intention of letting that happen. That means either qualifying him at the $7.5 million offer he’s scheduled to receive or working out something else. President Jim Rutherford said that, if necessary, the team can carry the winger at that price on a one-year deal next season, but it isn’t ideal. They’d rather come to some other sort of agreement.
“No, we’re not going to let him walk,” Rutherford said. “We recognize he’s a good player. We can figure out a way to fit him in next season with him taking his qualifying offer. Everything gets tricky and difficult, but we can figure it out.”
Boeser’s situation is going to be an interesting one to watch, as will the Canucks’. The forward had one of his poorer seasons with just 23 goals and 46 points in 71 games, but much of that can be attributed to him having other, more important things on his mind: his father passed away on May 27 of this year.
Outside of Boeser, the Canucks are working on some fairly big contracts. They have to decide what to do with J.T. Miller who has one more season left on his deal, figure out where to go with Bo Horvat and how to work him into the future of the team and so on.
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