Start the clock.
The latest contract domino to fall around the NHL has given Canucks fans a fresh reason to keep daydreaming about two North Vancouver stars ending up back home.
Eleven days after the Chicago Blackhawks signed Connor Bedard to a five-year, $15-million contract, the San Jose Sharks have locked up Macklin Celebrini. His deal is also for five years, and it comes with an $18.8 million annual price tag that makes him the league’s highest-paid player.
That matters for one big reason: it tells us when the Canucks’ hometown hopes could actually hit the open market.
Bedard can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2031. Celebrini, whose new contract begins next year, can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2032.
So yes, the two North Vancouver phenoms are now lined up to reach UFA status a year apart, both in their mid-20s.
For Canucks fans, the math is simple enough to spark the imagination. If both players are still on shorter-term deals instead of the full eight years, the door to a homecoming opens earlier than it otherwise would have. And if their current teams aren’t where they want to be down the road, the timing could get even more interesting.
That’s where the Canucks’ own timeline comes into the picture. If Vancouver’s rebuild stays on track and the team eventually moves into a real contention window, the possibility of adding a superstar centre at age 26 starts to look less like fantasy and more like something to keep an eye on.
It’s still a long shot. Very few NHL stars ever actually reach unrestricted free agency in their prime. But the dream has at least been given a date.
And both players have never exactly hidden where they’re from, or who they rooted for growing up.
“I was pretty hardcore actually,” Bedard said in 2024. “I’d lose my mind whenever [the Canucks] lost. There were a couple of times where my mom kind of gave me a couple suspensions from watching the team, I was getting too fired up.”
Celebrini has been just as open about it. In 2024, he was seen chanting “go Canucks go” at a playoff game, and he’d already made his feelings clear the year before.
“I love the Canucks, growing up watching them every night on TV. They were my favourite team,” Celebrini said in 2023. “That would be pretty special playing for them one day.”
He said one day.
For now, Canucks fans can do what they’ve been doing all along: keep dreaming.
In Other News...
These Canucks Deals Are Starting To Look Really Painful
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For Vancouver, the uncomfortable part is that these are not fringe pieces or easy fixes. Demkos situation is especially delicate because the team cannot simply assume there will be a clean escape hatch, while Boeser remains the kind of player the organization has tended to value even as the contract age starts to matter more. Put together, the three deals are a reminder that the Canucks next few seasons may be shaped as much by what they are already committed to as by anything they add. [Read more 🡒]
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For Vancouver, the appeal is obvious: both are being looked at in their natural spots, and both have already been worked into power-play drills as Canada starts sorting out roles. Cootes is trying to build on what he showed in last years event, and Malhotra is now in the kind of environment where every practice rep matters, with roster decisions still ahead and plenty left to prove. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Rebuild Suddenly Hinges On One Promise Fans Never Fully Trust
The Canucks rebuild has been easy to read in broad strokes, even if the details keep shifting around the edges. Under GM Ryan Johnson, the organization is leaning into a patient approach built around youth, asset accumulation and a cleaner long-term structure, with the kind of discipline that usually sounds better in October than it feels in the middle of a season. It is the sort of plan that invites comparisons to other patient turnarounds around the league, especially when a club is trying to grow into something sturdier without pretending the shortcuts are there.
Vancouver also has to do that while managing a roster still dealing with injuries and the usual stop-and-start rhythm that comes with a team in transition. Filip Chytil, Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Thatcher Demko are among the players coming off injuries and surgeries, which makes the development curve even more delicate as the Canucks try to build structure and competitiveness at the same time. The bigger question is whether this version of patience can hold when the pressure rises, because the franchise has heard promises about the long view before and never fully stopped wondering what happens when the short term gets uncomfortable. [Read more 🡒]