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When teams find themselves in the throes of a rebuild, there often isnt a desire to spend toward the upper end of the salary cap.
With little to no hope of playoff revenue and the challenges associated with filling the home arena up to watch a group that isnt playoff-bound, its understandable that there would be a desire to try to keep costs down.
It appears thats where the Canucks find themselves at the moment.
After rebuilding their coaching staff with whats believed to be well-below-market-value contracts to limit spending, the team is also trying to do the same on the player front.
Postmedias Patrick Johnston reports that ownership is hoping to trim around $20MM off its payroll bill compared to a season ago.
It should be noted that theyre more than halfway to that point at the moment.
Between some salary drops on their existing contracts (such as Jake DeBrusk and Filip Hronek) and the departures of some key veterans, Johnston notes that theyre down around $12MM from the end of last season.
Thats a strong start toward meeting that payroll objective but finding the other $8MM to shave will be trickier.
As things stand, there are only two Vancouver players who have a salary that high for the upcoming season.
One is embattled center Elias Pettersson who continues to be part of trade speculation while the other is winger Brock Boeser.
New GM Ryan Johnson has indicated that theyre not looking to just clear money if they move Pettersson although presumably, theyd take back less money than what they sent out in a trade if they do wind up moving him.
Boeser wouldnt necessarily be an easy player to trade either.
On top of having full no-trade protection, he carries a $7.25MM AAV through the 2031-32 season and has only reached the 60-point mark once in his 10-year NHL career.
He has been more of a 20-goal, 50-point player over the last couple of years and that type of production isnt a great return on that price tag.
DeBrusk has also been subject to trade speculation but with five years at $5.5MM for an AAV left on his deal coming off a season in which he scored four even-strength goals, cutting his money off the books entirely wont be easy.
This isnt a situation where all the savings have to be in place now, either.
Speculatively, some veterans on expiring contracts (including Brendan Gallagher, Drew OConnor, Filip Chytil, and recent signings Paul Cotter and Luke Schenn) will probably be moved before the March 5th trade deadline.
Moving some of those players will yield some cost savings, though certainly not enough to make up the remaining $8MM that theyre hoping to trim.
But it will help.
It will be interesting to see if this goal of a $20MM payroll cut is a guideline or a hard target to meet as that could influence how aggressive Johnson looks to clear salary in the coming weeks and months.
Meanwhile, they will still be cap-compliant to the spending floor if they do as theyre more than $9MM above the $76.9MM floor, per PuckPedia.
Theres room for them to further trim their payroll spending.
Just how fast theyll wind up doing so remains to be seen.
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