Three Vancouver Canucks landed on Matt Larkin’s first 2027 NHL Trade Board, giving the club a clear presence across all three tiers of the Daily Faceoff managing editor’s list.
Larkin’s board includes 37 players, and he said his process drew from multiple lanes of information: intel from insiders such as the Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta, the Sheet’s Jeff Marek, DFO contributor Anthony Di Marco and others; his own conversations around the league; public trade chatter already out there; and a few names he is projecting onto the board before they’ve been widely linked.
For Vancouver, the three names are Drew O’Connor, Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson.
O’Connor shows up in Tier 1, labeled “Obvious trade candidates.” The 28-year-old is in the final season of a two-year deal carrying a $2.5 million AAV, signed after the Canucks acquired him from the Pittsburgh Penguins. His season has been uneven, with two goals, five points and a minus-10 rating in 20 games.
He has been used at center at times, but Larkin frames him as a bottom-six winger for a contender. O’Connor also has a 12-team no-trade clause, so he still has a say in where this goes.
Larkin wrote, “There has to be a certain comfort in the Canucks knowing exactly who they are. They’re miles out of a playoff spot already.
Their pending UFAs’ fates feel all but sealed. O’Connor will make plenty of sense to a playoff team as a fourth-line addition.
He’s one of the fastest skaters in the league even at 6-foot-4 and 209 pounds, he kills penalties, and he has a bit of scoring touch, with a respectable career high of 17 goals.”
DeBrusk lands one tier lower, in the “Names to keep an eye on” group. The 30-year-old has been part of trade talk since last year’s deadline, and league sources believe he would prefer a shot with a contender, though he has not formally asked out. If that changes, it could happen during this season, while he still controls the situation.
He is in year three of the seven-year contract he signed with Vancouver in 2025, and this is the last season his deal includes a full no-movement clause. On July 1, 2027, that protection becomes a 15-team no-trade list.
His $5.5 million AAV is manageable for contenders, but his play would need to tick up to speed things along. He has five goals and 10 points in 18 games this season, and two of those goals came in the same game.
Larkin said, “A DeBrusk trade makes more sense now than it did a year ago. The Canucks are in true scorched-earth mode, and DeBrusk is under contract with them until he’s 34.
Does he want to burn the good years he has left on a team that looks years away from the playoffs? Maybe that NMC isn’t so ironclad.
His cap hit relative to his production is now pretty palatable, too. A $5.5-million AAV in 2027-28, when the cap will be $113.5 million, is the same as a $4.26-million cap hit in 2024-25, the year DeBrusk’s deal began.”
Pettersson is the biggest name of the group, appearing in Tier 3: “Big names, blockbuster potential, too soon.” Larkin acknowledged that putting Pettersson on a trade board is easy enough given the chatter around him over the last two seasons, but said his start this year makes him a more interesting name around the league.
The 27-year-old has rebounded to a point-per-game pace with four goals and 20 points in 20 games. He is logging 20:33 per night and being used in every situation, including the power play, penalty kill and a matchup role at 5-on-5.
The contract is the heavy part: five more seasons at an $11.6 million cap hit. And even if Vancouver found a team willing to take on the full number, Pettersson holds a full no-movement clause for the rest of the deal.
Larkin noted that there has been no sign Pettersson wants out, but asked whether the losing eventually changes that. He wrote, “Still a chunky cap hit to move relative to his production, even in the rising-cap world, but he’s having a much better year so far.
At least, the surface numbers say that. The Canucks might be wise to sell high.”
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