Canucks Shopping Lukas Reichel After Rocky Start and Recent Signing

The Lukas Reichel experiment in Vancouver appears to be nearing its end. According to CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal on Sportsnet 650, the Canucks have made the 23-year-old forward available for trade, just weeks after acquiring him from Chicago. The team is “okay with trying to move him,” Dhaliwal reported, signaling that patience has run out.

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And the numbers pretty much tell the story. Reichel has just one point in 13 games, carries a -5 rating, and hasn’t registered a single shot on goal in his last six outings. Thursday night’s healthy scratch against the Dallas Stars was the clearest indication yet that he’s slipped out of the lineup picture entirely.

Vancouver tried to make it work. With injuries down the middle, they shifted Reichel to center, hoping he could fill a second-line role in the short term. Instead, the fit never materialized. Before the Canucks even picked up David Kampf this week, Reichel had already been bumped from 2C to fourth-line wing. The slide was fast, and now the exit door is open.

Canucks Realizing Riechel Isn’t A Fit

Depth reinforcements are also pushing him out. Teddy Blueger and Nils Höglander are close to returning, and top prospect Jonathan Lekkerimäki is inching toward a call-up. That logjam makes Reichel the odd man out.

As Patrick Johnston of The Province noted, the Canucks are trying to build with players in their early 20s, and Reichel was part of that experiment—“a look-see,” as he put it. But it hasn’t clicked. Acquired for a fourth-round pick, it’s unclear whether another team would part with even a mid-rounder now, especially to stash him in their own press box.

With Vancouver sitting below .500 and struggling at home, the team isn’t in a position to wait on passengers. Reichel was brought in as a stopgap and didn’t deliver. Now the Canucks seem ready to move on and see if someone else wants to take a chance.

Next: Canucks Have Discussed Major Quinn Hughes Trade Decision for This Season