“I do want to slowly chip away. I think by even small changes, you add a different energy and an excitement.” – Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson on Thursday
VANCOUVER – For a negligible difference under their salary cap, the Vancouver Canucks on Monday added winger Brendan Gallagher to the bottom of their National Hockey League lineup while subtracting Nils Hoglander.
The Canucks paid nothing to the Montreal Canadiens for Gallagher, who returns home to Vancouver at 50 per cent of his salary and cap hit, and pocketed only a distant, 2029 third-round draft pick from the Nashville Predators for Hoglander.
And yet, these small transactions affect the Canucks’ dynamics.
With Vancouver embarking on a rebuild, Gallagher, 34, is coming for his character and leadership. And if he has a bounce-back season, the Canucks could trade him again at next season’s deadline for another asset.
And Hoglander, 25, gets a fresh start with the Predators after six largely frustrating seasons in Vancouver, where he exasperated four different head coaches and, by the end, couldn’t get out of his own way mentally after failing to make himself consistent, dependable and needed.
One of the best-conditioned Canucks — which actually only highlighted the cultural failings in a dressing room where some of the priciest veterans were not — Hoglander could do in Nashville what former Canuck Vasily Podkolzin did in Edmonton in becoming an everyday, middle-six player.
But doing that in Vancouver still wasn’t going to tweak the group’s culture or identity the way Gallagher’s arrival would.
Given what Johnson told reporters last week on the eve of the NHL entry draft (and with free agency looming on Wednesday), these are the kind of small changes that over several years could reshape the Canucks’ culture and provide a foundation for the rebuild.
The gigantic fireworks display came with December’s blockbuster trade of former captain Quinn Hughes. From now on, we are more likely to see just a series of small sparks from the Canucks’ new management group.
Sure, Elias Pettersson could still be traded if another team, acceptable to the highest-paid Canuck, is willing to surrender legitimate assets to take on the enigmatic centre’s $92.8-million contract.
And maybe the Canucks find an exit ramp on Jake DeBrusk and the final five years of his $38.5-million deal, or even eventually get a trade offer for top defenceman Filip Hronek that forces Johnson to consider it.
But as the organization settles in for a long-haul rebuild, fully understanding the scope and schedule of the reconstruction, transaction days like Monday will be more common than last Dec. 12, when Hughes went to the Minnesota Wild.
Gallagher is certainly equipped to help spur change inside the home dressing room at Rogers Arena, even as he tries to prove on the ice that he is better than he showed during a seven-goal season in Montreal that ended with a series of healthy scratches during the Canadiens’ playoff run to the Eastern Conference Final.
“I’ve got plenty left in the tank,” Gallagher told reporters during a Zoom call. “I’m not too concerned about that. Obviously, here in Montreal, I couldn’t have been happier with my experience, but it just had to come to an end. I had to go to a place where I was going to find an opportunity — an opportunity to be what I need to be as a player. Yeah, I want to play beyond the season. But my focus, like it was Year 1, is just have a good year, have a good season, and the rest will take care of itself.”
Gallagher, who moved to Metro Vancouver from Edmonton as a kid and played junior hockey for the Vancouver Giants, said when the Canadiens’ season ended a month ago that he needed a new team and floated the Canucks as a possibility.
His trade is for “future considerations” and comes after the Canadiens agreed to retain half of the $6.5-million cap charge in the final season of the combative winger’s six-year contract. The Predators are paying all of the $3 million owed to Hoglander for the next two seasons.
Amid injuries, upheaval and a slew of healthy scratches last season, Hoglander scored even less than Gallagher: two goals and three assists in 38 games.
It is the first time either player has been traded.
A fifth-round pick of the Canadiens in 2010, Gallagher has spent his entire 14-season career in Montreal, where he met his wife, Emma, and the couple are expecting the birth of their second child.
Gallagher will bring to the Canucks what he learned about the Canadiens’ rebuild, one of the fastest and potentially most successful the NHL has seen.
“Creating a culture is very important,” he said. “I think that’s Step 1. Aside from that, I think you want good people around; you want people that if you’re going to have a bad day, you know they’re going to show up the next day and be better. You don’t want guys that are going to be pointing fingers and looking around the room for answers.
“You’ve got to find it within, and when you go through that as a group, you’re stronger coming out of it. I saw that here in Montreal. We went through a few tough years together, but for the most part, the core of that group stayed the same. And when you go through that stuff, you become closer as a group, and I think that’s important as well, being able to stick together through adversity.”
One of the players who mentored Gallagher in Montreal was Canucks coach Manny Malhotra, who was 34 when he played his final NHL season with the Canadiens in 2014-15.
“I’m not sure what’s ahead for us in Vancouver, but I know that we’re going to be a group that competes,” Gallagher said. “On any team I’ve played on, that’s all you can ask for. I know what Manny stood for as a player; I’m sure he’ll be the same way as a coach. That’s just part of building a good foundation as a group.”
One or two small transactions at a time.