Nine unrestricted free agents the Canucks could target to bolster their speed

It was one of the most striking pieces of commentary from Vancouver Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin at locker room cleanout day in May.

Asked directly about his club’s needs this offseason, Allvin name-checked the most glaring one — an additional top-six forward — and then brought up something a bit counterintuitive.

“I think we need to add some speed,” Allvin opined, before noting he’d need to check in with his staff and build consensus in shaping his club’s offseason priorities.

Last season, the Canucks were actually notably fast on a team level — especially up front and on the wings. And with the exception of fourth-line winger Sam Lafferty, most of the Canucks skaters with serious after-burners aren’t among those players who are pending free agents.

Speed, however, was Allvin’s preoccupation in his public commentary following this dream season. It was something he brought up before discussing his blue-line group — which has only three regulars signed for next season — or size, or replacement penalty-killing contributors, or this club’s many pending free agents.

Something is telling in this. It speaks volumes about the style the Canucks general manager wants to play. It might also be a tell about which types of free agents the Canucks may prioritize when the market opens on July 1.

With that in mind, let’s profile nine pending unrestricted free agents the Canucks could target this summer to bolster their team speed.

Acquired from Washington in 2019 for a fifth-round pick, Chandler Stephenson broke out as a jack-of-all-trades top-six forward in Vegas. Stephenson scored at a 59-points-per-82-games clip over four and a half seasons with the Golden Knights. He was a versatile, all-situations workhorse — able to play both wing and centre, kill penalties, help on the power play and win faceoffs at an impressive rate.

This was punctuated during Vegas’ 2023 Stanley Cup win where he scored 10 goals and 20 points in 22 games while ranking third among Vegas forwards, behind only Jack Eichel and Mark Stone, in ice time. He was an unsung hero.

Stephenson’s track record is strong but there are some red flags to be cognizant of. The first question is whether he’s already starting to decline. After back-to-back campaigns in the 65-point range, plus his monster playoff run, Stephenson dropped to 51 points this season. He had a nightmare first-round series against Dallas, producing just one point while his line got pounded at even strength. The 30-year-old’s play-driving results — specifically on the defensive side — fell off a cliff this year. And as colleague Dom Luszczyszyn pointed out, Stephenson’s top skating speed also dipped this season according to NHL Edge data.

Historically, Stephenson has excelled at centre, but it’s almost exclusively been with Mark Stone on his wing. Can Stephenson drive a line without Stone, one of the league’s best wingers, doing the heavy lifting?

On the other hand, maybe all these question marks will result in a soft market for him on July 1. If that’s the case — and if the Canucks are confident he’s not on the cusp of declining — he could provide solid value as either a top-six winger or third-line centre.

Jim Rutherford is very familiar with Kasperi Kapanen. He was Rutherford’s first draft pick as Pittsburgh Penguins general manager in 2014. He was shipped to Toronto as part of the Phil Kessel trade that powered Pittsburgh for back-to-back championships. In 2020, needing a top-six forward, Rutherford paid a package that included a first-round pick to reacquire Kapanen from Toronto.

Kapanen is blessed with extraordinary wheels, good hands and a decent shot. He also has plenty of experience killing penalties. The tools are all there for him to be a terrific complementary piece for an NHL team’s middle six and yet outside of a few seasons earlier in his career, he hasn’t been able to put it all together. Kapanen’s hockey IQ is subpar and his battle level can wane on occasion, which makes him prone to maddeningly invisible stretches.

Kapanen struggled during the end of his Penguins tenure and was picked up off waivers by the Blues near the trade deadline in 2022-23. He immediately went on a heater in St. Louis with eight goals and 14 points in 23 games but followed that up with the worst season of his NHL career, as he scored just six goals and 22 points in 73 games.

That disastrous 2023-24 campaign could create a compelling buy-low opportunity. And even though Kapanen has vacillated from tremendous highs and lows in his career, he is still a player who scored at least 30 points in five consecutive seasons before 2023-24.

On a cheap, short-term contract, Kapanen could inject pace, secondary offence and penalty killing to Vancouver’s bottom six.

A smash-mouth fourth-line type, Ryan Lomberg’s speed is notable enough that it’s earned him the preposterous nickname “The Lombergini.”

Although Lomberg stands only 5-foot-9, he’s listed at nearly 200 pounds and plays a stylistically heavy game. He has the grit and physicality required to be an energy line driver. Lomberg’s speed can cause havoc when he applies pressure down ice as an F1 forechecker, and he’s diligent enough as a two-way player to apply pressure on the backcheck, which would fit in particularly well with the systematic trappings of how Canucks coach Rick Tocchet wants to play.

Lomberg is 29 and hasn’t been a regular for the Florida Panthers on this run to the Stanley Cup Final, appearing in just five postseason games. He’s the sort of player you bring in hoping for 10 goals, not 20.

The Teddy Blueger template is worth bearing in mind here, though. The Canucks have had success signing 13th or 14th forwards off of elite teams and providing them with more regular opportunities in the bottom six.

As a depth add this offseason, Lomberg would certainly fit the mould of what Vancouver got on the wings from Lafferty and Phil Di Giuseppe in bottom-six roles this past season, with the added benefit of playing to his identity and with an edge more consistently.

Ben Meyers isn’t your typical unrestricted free-agent target; he’s a Group VI unrestricted free agent who won’t turn 26 years old until November. The Canucks have had some success targeting project players in this sort of bucket under new management, however, most notably Dakota Joshua in the summer of 2022.

Signed out of the University of Minnesota as an undrafted free agent by the Colorado Avalanche, Meyers struggled to carve out a consistent role under Jared Bednar and was dealt this past season to the Ducks. To this point, Meyers has only managed to record eight points across 67 NHL games, although he’s young enough and his American League production is solid enough that a team might reasonably hold out hope that Meyers could yet develop into a top-nine contributor at the NHL level in the right situation.

Could Vancouver offer Meyers the right situation this summer?

It’s not a perfect fit. Meyers is listed at 5-11, under 200 pounds and doesn’t play with significant edge. He’s certainly not a potential replacement for Joshua in the Vancouver lineup.

Meyers is a very strong skater, however, and flashes the sort of puck skills and two-way IQ that might permit him to fit in with how the Canucks want to play while potentially offering a skill-level upgrade to Vancouver’s bottom-six forward group.

From 2016 to 2022, Connor Brown was an excellent two-way, third-line-calibre winger. He was outstanding on the forecheck because of his speed and hustle, was an ultra-reliable defensive player, was a quality penalty killer and would consistently chip in with 30-40 points.

Then he tore his ACL in 2022-23 and that changed everything.

Last summer, the Oilers signed him to a one-year deal with $3.225 million of his $4 million salary paid out as an in-season bonus that would roll over as a dead cap charge for 2024-25. Having shared time with Connor McDavid on the Erie Otters, the idea was he’d replace Kailer Yamamoto as an affordable complementary top-six winger on the right side.

Brown was an offensive flop in the regular season, tallying just four goals and 12 points in 71 games. He’s bounced back in the playoffs, though, and there are signs he’s finally shaken the rust off from his ACL injury. He’s gained back his elite speed — NHL Edge data shows his top speed and speed bursts above 20 miles per hour are up significantly compared to the regular season, he’s driving elite results on the penalty kill and he’s even chipping in with secondary offence.

Brown could be a savvy fourth-line addition given his pace, excellent PK chops and improving health.

A speedy, pugnacious bottom-six presence, Kiefer Sherwood played difficult minutes on Michael McCarron’s wing in the Nashville Predators’ first-round loss to Vancouver in the playoffs.

The 29-year-old stands 6 feet tall and just under 200 pounds, so he isn’t a big body in the Lafferty mould, but he’s a more consistent physical presence who has the speed to cause headaches on the forecheck and as an against-the-grain attacker. A genuinely elite American League player, Sherwood has found an NHL foothold the past couple of seasons. It’s hard to think of a better fit for how Tocchet wants his bottom six to play, and Sherwood could be an intriguing depth addition this summer.

Sean Walker, RD/LD, Colorado Avalanche

Sean Walker has been on a roller coaster since tearing his ACL early in the 2021-22 season. He struggled in his first year back and the Los Angeles Kings decided to dump his salary last summer to the Philadelphia Flyers as part of the three-way Ivan Provorov deal.

Walker then knocked all reasonable expectations out of the park in Philadelphia. The speedy right-shot 5-11 defender drove stellar second-pair results, controlling 55.8 percent of expected goals with a plus-10 goal differential at five-on-five. Just when it looked like he’d completely resurrected his stock heading into free agency, Walker struggled in the playoffs as a rental with Colorado.

Walker’s undersized stature would go against Vancouver’s ethos of building a jumbo-sized blue line. It’s hard to see Tocchet trusting him in a top-four role next to Carson Soucy, for example, given the Canucks regularly match their second pair up against the opposition’s best players. However, if Walker ends up priced like a third-pair defender in free agency, there’d be a chance to net significant value given his puck-moving chops, ability to defend the rush and experience stepping into the top four in a pinch.

Oliver Kylington could be an intriguing blend of talent, upside and affordability if he hits the free-agent market. Drafted in the second round in 2015, Kylington broke out as a top-four player next to Chris Tanev in 2021-22. He was elusive and agile on the breakout, assertive joining the rush offensively (nine goals and 31 points in 73 games that season) and less mistake-prone defensively.

Kylington stepped away from hockey to take care of his mental health, missing the entire 2022-23 season. He returned to the Flames lineup in late January this year. Kylington delivered a promising 33-game cameo, especially given his extended absence. The smooth 27-year-old left-shot defender was eased into a third-pair role for his first dozen games and was ramping back into regular top-four duties by the time the season ended.

Kylington doesn’t have a robust physical game, but he isn’t undersized. At the right price point, he could be an effective puck-mover and play driver and add offensive pop from the back end.

Standing 6-3 and over 210 pounds, when you see how well Haydn Fleury skates at that size, it immediately makes sense he was a top-10 pick in the 2014 NHL Draft.

But Fleury hasn’t delivered on that potential in the NHL, and at the age of 27, it’s unlikely he’ll suddenly find a way to morph into a steady top-four contributor. There are, in truth, some gaps in his two-way game and decision-making, but he was a solid depth option in Tampa Bay over the past two seasons and he’s an enormously strong skater capable of adding some speed to the Vancouver blue line while still fitting into the size-on-the-back-end template the organization has built over the past 18 months.

The price point on Fleury will likely be reasonable this summer, and as a seventh or eighth defender who brings some real skating speed to the lineup, the Canucks could do a lot worse.

(Top photo of Chandler Stephenson and Elias Pettersson: Bob Frid / USA Today)