Friday Four: Early-season trade candidates we didn’t expect

It’s beginning to get late in the season for some of the more disappointing teams to start 2022-23. The Vancouver Canucks don’t look anything close to the team that seemed to turn a corner when Bruce Boudreau was hired last December. A .393 points percentage ranks 13th in the Western Conference which will make for a tough, and probably unlikely, road back to the playoffs.

The St. Louis Blues have maybe been the most surprising disappointment so far, languishing in 14th in the West and losers of eight of their past nine.

These starts may force the GMs in Vancouver and St. Louis to make certain rosters decisions perhaps a little earlier than anticipated. And that brings us to the topic of this week’s Friday Four: early-season trade candidates we didn’t expect to be talking about to soon.

It’s not that deals involving these players are imminent, but that it appears the door has been opened to a discussion about it. All four of these players below were central parts of their teams, but now may be better used to acquire other assets to be more helpful in a re-tooling of sorts.

Bo Horvat, Vancouver Canucks

All summer the most likely transactions for the Canucks appeared to be re-signing captain Bo Horvat to an extension and trading J.T. Miller before both entered the final year of their contracts. Instead, Miller was signed long-term and Horvat is the pending UFA.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Miller has been off to the slower start and Horvat’s 12 goals rank second in the league. That may only complicate the salary cap picture now.

“What’s the going rate for a No. 1 or No. 2 centre? It’s eight times eight,” Elliotte Friedman said on The Jeff Marek Show. “Is there a chance he takes less money to go somewhere in a situation where he’s happy? Ya. I don’t want to come right out here and say the number is absolutely eight because you never know what could happen, but it sure is trending that way.”

The Canucks already have $8 million committed to Miller next season and beyond. There is $7.35 million earmarked for Elias Pettersson next year, his last before becoming an RFA. Brock Boeser is counting for $6.65 million another two years.

And, meantime, the president of hockey operations is putting the players on notice.

“There’s certain players you can’t trade because people aren’t interested in them and so maybe we’re going to get to a point where we’re going to have to take a look at trading one or two players that in the off-season we would never consider doing,” Jim Rutherford told Canucks Central. “Now the only way we would do that is to trade that player and get something in return that we can at least stay the same as we are now and get a couple more younger assets.”

And so we circle back to Horvat, who would certainly have qualified as a player the Canucks wouldn’t have been considering trading in the summer. Is he likely to continue at this goal scoring pace? Probably not. Horvat is converting on 25 per cent of his shots now, but his trade value would be notable. Despite the contract situation, it’s not often 30-goal, No. 1 or 2 centres become available for trade — especially when they’re on this kind of heater.

As the Canucks slide, it feels like we’re getting closer to some kind of reaction to it from the front office. The coach has been on the hot seat from the get-go, and now important players could be in play, too. The Canucks play in Toronto and Boston this weekend, and in Buffalo next week before returning home, and that could be a timeline to keep in mind.

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Thatcher Demko, Vancouver Canucks

Look, the Canucks are the team most screaming for a need to change, and with a fan base growing more and more impatient to see some. Are there any sacred cows in the organization anymore who wouldn’t be traded? Quinn Hughes? Elias Pettersson?

Demko may previously have been one of those players, but now there is a reason for pause. His $5 million contract is about the going rate for your average NHL starter these days and he’s just 26 years old. From 2019-20 through last season, Demko held a .913 save percentage and was improving year over year. His performance in the 2020 playoffs led to the nickname ‘Bubble Demko’ as he became a beacon of hope that the new era was here.

Vancouver’s situation is not on Demko — this is a team building issue. But he’s also been part of the drain this season. Where Demko was able to mask some of Vancouver’s defensive issues under Boudreau last season, he hasn’t elevated them yet in 2022-23.

Here’s a look at Demko’s goals saved above average over the past few years, from Hockey Reference, and where he ranked among all goalies:

And, heck, if you decide to throw in the towel on this season, what better way to step back than to sell off the only goalie who could single-handedly lift the team back into the undesired mushy middle.

Ryan O’Reilly, St. Louis Blues

On the one hand, we’ve seen this movie before. The Blues were last in the NHL when the calendar flipped from 2018 to 2019, they didn’t react to it in any major way, and then wound up winning the Stanley Cup.

That path, however, is a road rarely travelled.

With a 4-8-0 record the Blues just snapped an eight-game regulation time losing streak and sit 29th in the league by points percentage. Their GM came out in support of coach Craig Berube and put the challenge to the players, calling the team’s struggles a “competitive issue.”

“Doug Armstrong is not a guy to let this sit,” Friedman said earlier this week on Marek’s show. “I think everybody’s looking at it here saying ‘alright what’s he going to do’ and probably even some people on the team are thinking that.”

Vladimir Tarasenko could be one to move. He’s in the final year of his contract anyway and regained his value by scoring 34 goals last season. But, trading a player who has previously asked to be dealt isn’t one that would have surprised us to begin with.

Would Jordan Kyrou or Robert Thomas be considered for trade? That might be unlikely, given both just signed max-term extensions that don’t even start until next season. Jordan Binnington has had a couple years of uneven play now, but if he’s a candidate to go, it would leave behind questions in the crease. And these losses haven’t all been on him.

It gets interesting when you consider that captain Ryan O’Reilly, like Tarasenko, is in the final season of his contract. A key cog and Conn Smythe winner for the 2019 run, O’Reilly will turn 32 in February and be in line for a hefty new deal. The fact now is that St. Louis has just two playoff game wins beyond the first round since winning that Cup, and are transitioning to a new, younger core. If they want to shake up this season and the future, moving O’Reilly would do it.

A one-time Selke Trophy winner, O’Reilly is struggling to just two points this season and the Blues have been outscored 12-4 when he’s been on the ice at 5-on-5 so far. He’s bound to improve on that, and would be a great pickup for a Cup contender. But if the Blues feel they need to change direction, O’Reilly would appear to be a candidate to move on from.

“I think Doug over the years has shown to be pretty realistic,” The Athletic’s Jeremy Rutherford said this week. “If we go back to the year he traded Paul Stastny (2017-18) when the team was right there in playoff contention because he didn’t think the team was good enough to make a playoff run. So he’s been really realistic about the situation. And I think as he looks at it now he probably knows that this isn’t the team and yes he needs to make decisions like that.

“If this is a team that is looking like it’s not going to make the playoffs they probably would move on from Ryan O’Reilly,” Rutherford continued. “If I had my guess and things are going the way they’re going right now, I’d think Doug Armstrong is going to explore. And we’re still in November so it’s probably going to be a bit, but at some point the Blues will probably entertain the idea of moving on from Ryan O’Reilly.”

Erik Karlsson, San Jose Sharks

The Sharks have missed the playoff the past three years and they’re off to a 3-8-3 start to this season, so they might extend that to four. New GM Mike Grier has insisted he won’t take this team into an Arizona-type of rebuild, but rather try and adjust on the fly.

“For us, there might be a few bumps in the road ahead, and maybe we got to step back a little bit to go forward. But we’re going to try and get better and try and make the roster better every day,” Grier said at his introductory press conference.

Grier has since moved Brent Burns off the roster, retaining $2.72 million of his cap hit for three years. And while you might want to be careful with how much cap space you’re committing to players who aren’t on your team, that may be the sort of “step back” to consider, especially with the cap expected to begin rising again. The Minnesota Wild have taken a similar approach — handcuffing themselves against the cap for a couple years, to allow more flexibility in the nearer future.

Erik Karlsson makes $11.5 million against the cap, an amount that is never going to be easy to move in-season, let alone while the salary cap has stalled. So, the Sharks might have to eat some of this if a move were to be made, which could help return them the kind of asset(s) they need.

And, in theory, if moving Karlsson were ever in the cards it might be a decent time to explore it. The 32-year-old has already matched his full-season total of 10 goals from 2021-22 and leads all defencemen with 21 points — that’s good for fourth in overall league scoring. He’s averaging over 25 minutes of ice time, and at 5-on-5 is highly ranked in key offensive categories — as an able Karlsson should.

A key factor to note here, though, is that Karlsson has a no-movement clause and complete control of the situation. In speaking to The Athletic before the regular season, Karlsson noted that he wasn’t intending on asking Grier for a trade, and seemed generally optimistic about sticking it out in San Jose.

“No, I committed here a long time ago. It didn’t work out the way we wanted it to early on. There’s a lot of things that probably played into that,” Karlsson said. “I’m not going to get into details about that. But I am excited for the future here now. I hope we can move in the direction to be successful again. Is that going to be this year? I mean, who knows? But I do think something good can come out of here.”

Still, as long as he’s playing this well and is this healthy, and with the Sharks remaining stuck well outside the playoff bubble, perhaps Karlsson’s trade value has been somewhat renewed.

“It’s a difficult trade to pull off this year, but I think you have to consider it moving forward if you can knock him down to $8 million AAV or $7.5,” Frank Servalli said this week on The Fan Morning Show.