It’s easy to imagine the Canucks six years from now as the kind of team that could lure Macklin Celebrini home.
That’s the dream scenario, anyway: Celebrini finishes his recently signed five-year extension, reaches unrestricted free agency, and chooses Vancouver at a discount after Connor Bedard signed there the summer before. In that version of events, the Canucks’ rebuild is already complete, a true superstar gets dropped onto the top of it, and the whole thing starts looking like the beginning of a dynasty run.
It’s a fun thought. It’s also the kind of thought that can lead to disappointment if anyone treats it like a sure thing. Still, the idea is worth kicking around, because Celebrini’s deal does line him up to hit UFA status at 26, and he may be the best BC-born player to reach the NHL since Joe Sakic - maybe ever.
The calendar matters here. Celebrini still has the upcoming 2026-27 season left on his entry-level deal, carrying a base cap hit of $975,000 plus performance bonuses.
His five-year extension begins July 1, 2027, and runs to July 1, 2032. Unless he signs another extension before then, that’s when he becomes a free agent.
By that summer, the Canucks themselves may look almost completely different. Right now, their three longest-contracted players - Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Filip Hronek - all have deals that expire on the same day Celebrini reaches UFA status. If all three are still around then, their contracts would free up $26.1 million in cap space.
That sounds like a lot. It might not be enough.
The salary landscape keeps climbing, and a player like Celebrini is exactly the kind of name that can reset expectations. The Canucks would need room, yes, but they’d also need a roster worth joining.
One of the clearest pieces of that future puzzle is Zeev Buium. He’s entering the final year of his entry-level deal now, and the Canucks would surely prefer to lock him up for as long as possible.
Before September 15 of this year, that could mean an eight-year contract. After that, the maximum drops to seven.
If Buium signs a long-term deal, he could still be under contract in 2032 and likely on a bargain rate by then. But there’s another possibility too: he could opt for a shorter term, as many RFAs have lately.
A five-year deal would put him right back on the market when Celebrini becomes available, which would create a second major contract decision at the same time. That wouldn’t kill the Canucks’ chances, but it would add another moving part.
Tom Willander is on a different track entirely. His entry-level deal doesn’t expire until 2028, and the expectation is that whatever second contract he lands will still have him under team control in 2032. The same general idea applies to the younger Elias Pettersson, though he carries a little less weight in the bigger picture.
Beyond that, the future gets murkier. Liam Öhgren, Aatu Räty, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Victor Mancini, and Kirill Kudryavtsev all come with their own questions, whether it’s contract length, NHL staying power, or whether they establish themselves full-time.
There are a few names that are easier to place because of where they sit on the timeline. Braeden Cootes, who is skating for Team Canada at the World Junior Summer Showcase, still has all three years left on his entry-level deal after last year’s slide, so his second contract won’t begin until 2029.
Caleb Malhotra is another one to watch. He hasn’t signed his entry-level deal yet, but he could do it late in the upcoming NHL season.
If that contract burns a year, he’d end up on the same extension track as Cootes. If not, his ELC would likely start in 2027-28, making him eligible for his first extension in 2030.
Either way, that’s still two years before Celebrini’s UFA date.
As for the veterans on the current roster, most of them should be long gone by then. Luke Schenn would be 42, Jamie Oleksiak 39, and Jake DeBrusk 35. Maybe one or two players like that hang around in support roles, along the lines of a Linus Karlsson or a Marco Rossi, but that would be the exception.
So the Canucks in 2032 should be younger, deeper, and much more built around the next wave. If the rebuild goes the way the organization wants, Buium, Willander, Cootes, and Malhotra could all be in place and entering their primes. Add enough draft picks and smart acquisitions around them, and there would be both room and reason for Celebrini to consider Vancouver.
Of course, that’s a lot of ifs. But at this stage of a rebuild, that’s exactly the kind of thing teams and fans are left with: time, hope, and a very long runway.
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Elias Pettersson, Marco Rossi and Aatu Rty all figure into the conversation, and their previous-season showings only sharpen the debate over how the forward groups should be arranged. The blue line has its own decisions to make as well, with Oleksiak and Schenn adding size and experience to a defense corps that will need the right pairings to stabilize things from the start. For Malhotra, the challenge is clear: settle the combinations early enough that the Canucks can open the season with some clarity instead of spending October searching for chemistry. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks July Moves Show How This Rebuild Is Really Taking Shape
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The month also showed how much the club is trying to tighten the links between the rink, the front office and the future. Alex Edler has been added as a player development coach, Cammi Granato has been reassigned within hockey operations, the 2026-27 schedule is already out, training camp is headed back to Penticton and the team has signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Vancouver to explore a practice facility at Britannia Community Centre. Put together, those pieces suggest a rebuild that is being shaped as much by structure and planning as by the next roster decision still to come. [Read more 🡒]