Hurricanes Made a Trade Offer to Vancouver for Brock Boeser

The Vancouver Canucks had a dilemma as they entered the NHL Trade Deadline last Friday, March 7th. What was going to happen with winger Brock Boeser? The team ultimately chose not to trade him, citing a lack of solid offers. However, a recent report suggests at least one team made a pitch for the winger.

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Boeser is a pending unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. Vancouver had a couple of options: keep him as a rental, extend him, or trade him. The issue was that they needed Boeser. Vancouver is in a playoff battle with the Calgary Flames, St. Louis Blues, and Utah Hockey Club for the final wild-card spot in the West. 

Having already traded J.T. Miller earlier in the season, the Canucks did not want to appear to be waving the white flag. If they were going to move Boeser, it was going to be for something significant in return. They did not want futures. However, it appears that the Carolina Hurricanes took a shot at Boeser after acquiring two first-round picks from the Dallas Stars for Mikko Rantanen. 

Hurricanes Were Willing to Flip a First-Rounder in Boeser Trade

Rick Dhaliwal earlier in the week on the Donnie and Dhali stated that the Hurricanes made a last-second effort to trade for Boeser, but it was not what the Canucks wanted. 

“They (Canucks) did try to trade him… GM Eric Tulsky said that because the Rantanen deal took so long to get cleared by the NHL, he didn’t have enough time to get other significant deals done. Some say, Tulsky called Vancouver in the last half an hour of the deadline offered up one of the two first one picks from the Rantanen deal for Boeser. But remember this, the Canucks said before the draft they don’t want to get weaker. They don’t want to get worse with a Boeser trade.”

The Canucks needed to be as good or a better team today. A draft pick alone wasn’t going to get it done. Management under Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin still believe this team is a playoff team. Trading Brock Boeser and not getting anything in return would not have helped the Canucks make the playoffs. 

Did the Canucks Lie About the Boeser Offers?

Canucks GM Patrik Allvin did have some interesting comments after the trade deadline when he said, “If I told you where I was offered for Brock Boeser, I think I would have to run out of here, because you would not believe me.” 

It was a seller’s market at the NHL Trade Deadline, and players were going for high prices that normally wouldn’t. It’s hard to believe the Canucks couldn’t get anything they deemed suitable for Boeser. But, if they were adamant about a roster player coming back, their definition of suitable is all about perspective.

As we saw with the Montreal Canadiens, they did not get their asking price on players, so their GM, Kent Hughes, kept his players for a playoff push. That is exactly what Allvin did with Boeser. He is their own rental for the rest of the season. 

We will see how contract talks progress, but there were teams interested in him, and Carolina was not the only one. The New Jersey Devils were interested in him all season but did not want to trade the assets to get him. 

Next: Oilers’ Offseason Decisions Haunting Their 2024-25 Playoff Push