Canucks free-agent targets: 8 UFA centremen who could fix Vancouver’s top six

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It’s no secret that adding a top-six centreman is the greatest challenge facing the Vancouver Canucks this offseason.

Quality centremen come at an extraordinary premium in the NHL. They’re nearly impossible to acquire, and the best ones almost never make it to unrestricted free agency in the first place.

In searching for a centre to boost one of their top two lines, the Canucks will have to explore every possible avenue. That could include the trade market, although the acquisition cost is likely to be prohibitive, and it could even include tendering an offer sheet to a restricted free-agent player.

However, it’s clear the unrestricted free-agent market is the most straightforward route to add the centre help the club urgently requires.

Therein lies the rub. The 2025 free-agent class isn’t loaded with quality top-six centremen, and even among players who could realistically fit the bill, many won’t even make it to July 1. Those who do, however, will prove enormously expensive.

This week, The Athletic’s Vancouver bureau will spotlight some free-agent options to monitor this summer. Let’s begin by spotlighting eight pending UFA centremen who could help fix Vancouver’s top six.

Sam Bennett

Sam Bennett has only surpassed 50 points over a full season once in his NHL career — this past season with the Florida Panthers — and will turn 29 before the UFA market opens on July 1 this summer. That’s the sort of profile that would’ve screamed “buyer beware” several years ago.

We now live in the cap growth era, however, and accordingly, we’d do well to adjust our thinking about risk management in unrestricted free agency.

Do you really want to worry about the risk of signing an elite, hard-nosed competitor and serial winner?

Is it worth getting stressed out about your favourite team committing a max-term deal to a natural centreman who has mastered the dark art of playing winning, scumbag, playoff hockey?

Should we really wring our hands over the wisdom of handing out an inflated annual average value to a clutch goal scorer and a Stanley Cup champion who was a hero for Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off?

Because make no mistake, for the Canucks — or any of about 20 other NHL teams with the requisite level of cap flexibility — adding a player like Bennett to the lineup without any additional acquisition cost would be a home run.

Bennett will likely be the top UFA target this summer, if he even makes it to July 1. Given what Bennett has meant to the texture of how this Panthers team plays (and wins), however, you’d expect Florida to be exceptionally motivated — to the point of being willing to send out salary elsewhere — to work out an extension and retain their second-line centre before any other NHL team even has an opportunity to make a pitch.

And if Bennett makes it to July 1, expect the competition for his services to be fierce and the contractual commitment required to be sizeable.

Brock Nelson is still a top-six-calibre centre, but at 34, there are concerns about age-related decline. (Isaiah J. Downing / Imagn Images)

Brock Nelson

Over the last four seasons, only 26 NHL players have scored more goals than Brock Nelson. The former longtime New York Islanders second-line centre has averaged 33 goals per season during the previous four seasons and is only a year removed from scoring 69 points in 2023-24 and 75 points in 2022-23.

Nelson is 6-foot-4 and skates very well, ranking in the 91st percentile of forwards for speed bursts above 20 miles per hour according to NHL Edge. He’s a reliable two-way player and excels at transporting pucks up the ice in transition. Nelson has scored even-strength points at a bona fide first-line rate over the last few seasons; the 2.31 points per 60 he’s produced at five-on-five since 2022-23 is tied with Aleksander Barkov for 14th-best among all centres. He’s a prolific scoring chance generator and boasts an excellent wrist shot.

The tricky part is evaluating how much gas he realistically has left in the tank as a premium second-line centre. He turns 34 in mid-October and his production slipped to 26 goals and 56 points this season. Part of that drop-off is because he was stuck on an awful, 31st-ranked Islanders power play, while his even-strength production remained a strength.

Nelson’s middling run with the Colorado Avalanche raises further concerns. He scored a respectable 17 points in 26 games for Colorado between the regular season and playoffs, but didn’t muster a single goal during its hard-fought first-round loss to the Dallas Stars.

Nelson is still a bona fide top-six-calibre centre, but it’s fair to have reservations about potential age-related decline, especially given the presumptive cost associated with recruiting an American-born veteran player of Nelson’s stature to join an unsettled team located in a madcap Canadian market.

Matt Duchene

Matt Duchene still has game.

The veteran forward mostly played on the wing for the Stars this season, but still took a lot of faceoffs, won them at an excellent rate and put together another 30-goal, 80-point season — the second time he’s hit those marks since he turned 30. Duchene may not be the straight-line burner he was as a younger forward, but he’s still a powerful skater and has retained his quickness and nearly unrivalled explosiveness down low.

Bought out by the Nashville Predators two seasons ago, Duchene has been a successful contributor for a Dallas team that feels on the brink of breaking through. Clearly Duchene has been invested in remaining a big part of that organization, given that he opted to sign a second straight one-year, $3 million contract last summer despite performing at a level at which he’d be in high demand in free agency.

Perhaps Duchene never makes it to July 1 and opts to take a third team-friendly contract with the Stars this summer. One thing to note, however, is that Duchene recently turned 34, which means this summer is his final opportunity to sign a deal with term before the NHL’s cumbersome 35-plus rule — originally designed to prevent Ilya Kovalchuk-style cap circumvention — applies. Once it does, his opportunity to sign a multi-year, fair market-value extension could be severely limited relative to the bargaining power he will hold this summer.

Even if Duchene opts to explore the market, the demand for his services will be intense, and he’s already bypassed signing long-term with a Canadian team — the Ottawa Senators, previously — while signing three separate UFA deals with low state tax teams in Tennessee and Texas, respectively.

Duchene might be an ideal fit for a team with Vancouver’s needs up front, but it’s unlikely to be a straightforward pitch for the Canucks to make — if they even get the opportunity to do so.

Mikael Granlund

Two years ago, it looked like Mikael Granlund’s days as an impact top-six player were over.

The slick playmaking Finn was on pace for just 50 points and had ugly play-driving numbers for the Predators in 2022-23. He was even worse for the Pittsburgh Penguins that year as a deadline pickup to plug the club’s third-line centre woes, slumping to just five points in 21 games. It was such a bad fit that the Penguins shipped him that summer to the San Jose Sharks as a cap dump in the Erik Karlsson trade.

Since then, Granlund has authored a shockingly impressive bounce back. He led the Sharks with 60 points in 69 games as their de facto first-line centre in 2023-24 and continued that torrid pace this season. He’s a talented, slippery, pass-first creator. There were some concerns about whether his production was significantly inflated because of the excess ice time and first-unit power-play opportunities he received on a weak Sharks team, but he’s eased those worries by fitting in solidly with the Stars as a skilled, versatile middle-six player.

However, Granlund’s profile still has a couple of red flags. Firstly, his two-way underlying metrics are weak despite playing on a strong Dallas team. He drove just 40.9 percent of five-on-five expected goals down the stretch, meaning the Stars were outshot and outchanced by wide margins during his shifts. Dallas has struggled across the board to control play because Miro Heiskanen’s departure left the blue line shaky, so this isn’t entirely on Granlund, but stellar goaltending has propped up some of his poor defensive numbers.

Age is a concern, too, as Granlund is 33. And his undersized 5-foot-10 frame isn’t ideal for a Canucks forward group that already lacks size.

Ryan Donato

Coming off of a 31-g0al campaign with the Chicago Blackhawks, Ryan Donato is the sixth-highest-scoring pending unrestricted free agent heading into the summer.

Though Donato has been more frequently used on the wing, he’s a capable NHL centreman who can log minutes there, even if he struggles to win draws. There’s no question he’s extremely skilled, and he’s also gritty and competitive. That said, while Donato can win with his skill level, hockey IQ and under-the-radar pugnacity, he’s both undersized and not the strongest overall skater.

In truth, on a winning team, Donato would probably be best served as a versatile, middle-six sparkplug — like an offensive-minded version of Pius Suter — instead of a full-time second-line centre.

Yanni Gourde could be a reliable Swiss Army knife for the Canucks. (Steven Bisig / Imagn Images)

Yanni Gourde

At this stage in his career, Yanni Gourde profiles as more of a potential Suter replacement than a bona fide second-line centre. There’s no denying, however, that he’d be an interesting upgrade to the Canucks’ top nine.

Gourde is a fiery, max-energy, two-way centre who always drags his team into the fight. He’s strong defensively, has experience playing matchup minutes, kills penalties and delivers reliable secondary offence at even strength. Gourde’s days of flirting with 50 points are over, but he scored a respectable 31 points in 57 games this season, which translates to a 45-point pace.

The 33-year-old’s reunion with the Tampa Bay Lightning, during which he consistently produced and drove excellent two-way numbers, also proved he still has plenty of game left. He’s also an outstanding leader, which would be meaningful for a Vancouver dressing room that has sometimes been dysfunctional. And as he proved in Tampa, he’s versatile in playing wing or centre and moving up and down the lineup.

The Canucks would, of course, be mistaken if they target Gourde as a 2C. He almost certainly doesn’t have the offensive juice to excel in a role that high-leverage. That said, he would still carry significant value as a versatile, reliable, highly competitive middle-six Swiss Army knife.

Jack Roslovic

Outside of the top names on this list, Jack Roslovic is probably the most intriguing overall fit from a Vancouver perspective.

The 28-year-old forward has mostly been deployed as a winger since leaving the Columbus Blue Jackets, but he took 350 or so draws this past season and showed signs of meaningful improvement as a faceoff man, winning well north of 50 percent of draws. He also scored over 20 goals for the Carolina Hurricanes for the second time.

Right-handed with plus skating ability, Roslovic has often been held back by a lack of defensive reliability in his game. That he’s managed to carve out a productive role, however, as a mainstay with Rod Brind’Amour’s Hurricanes — even if he’s deployed in the bottom six — would seem to answer any lingering questions about Roslovic’s two-way reliability, even if he shouldn’t be expected to be a defensive driver.

This Canucks management team has kicked the tires on Roslovic in the past, back when he was with Columbus. And his various traits — that he’s a high-end skater, a right-handed shooter and is only 28 — would seem like a match with what Vancouver’s hockey operations prioritizes in player recruitment.

Christian Dvorak

Christian Dvorak is in a similar boat as Gourde, where he’d be a more realistic potential Suter replacement rather than a true second-line centre option. The 29-year-old had a solid year playing on a line with Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher, with all three players enjoying bounce-back seasons.

Dvorak is trustworthy defensively and a strong penalty killer. That, coupled with his strength in the faceoff circle (he won nearly 56 percent of faceoffs this season), would make him a go-to option for defensive zone starts and late-game situations protecting leads. The Montreal Canadiens leaned on him for the second-most defensive zone starts of all their forwards in the playoffs this year. He’s far from a prolific offensive player but has crossed the 30-point mark five times in his career.

Overall, he’s a smart, savvy centre who could solidify the Canucks’ depth down the middle.

(Photo of Sam Bennett and Arshdeep Bains: Sam Navarro / Imagn Images)

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