With Martin Necas re-signed in Carolina, could the Vancouver Canucks still trade for him?

The Vancouver Canucks and Martin Necas are two names that have been linked an awful lot over the past calendar year.

Necas-to-Vancouver was probably first raised way back in 2021 as a potential piece of the return in a theoretical JT Miller trade. Those theories apparently turned into genuine negotiations in early 2024, and by that point, it wasn’t Miller on the table, but an as-of-yet-unextended Elias Pettersson.

Of course, Pettersson wound up extending with the Canucks shortly thereafter, and any trade talks were pushed to the backburner. But then, just a few months later and amid some difficult contract negotiations of his own, Necas – or, to be more specific, his father – made a semi-public trade request.

Now, by then, the Canucks were on the lookout for at least one major addition to their top-six forward corps, and Necas was highlighted as an obvious target. Believe it or not, this is the point at which a third unextended Canucks’ name was thrown onto the table in a potential swap. It was Filip Hronek’s turn this time and, like Pettersson and Miller before him, Hronek responded by signing a new contract pretty quickly thereafter.

If nothing else, Martin Necas has proven a one-man balm to any lingering negotiations in Vancouver.

And now, most recently, the saga seems to have come to at least a temporary conclusion, with Necas seemingly putting his trade request aside to sign a two-year, $6.5 million AAV extension with the Hurricanes.

That should also draw to a close all discussion of Necas-to-Vancouver, at least for the time being. Right? We’ll try to investigate that line of thought below.

It’s pretty obvious that, financially speaking, the Canucks can’t really afford Necas anymore. He’s got a shiny new $6.5 million cap hit, and the Canucks ultimately went for a free agent top-six option with a longer term and slightly higher cost in Jake DeBrusk.

Following the addition of Daniel Sprong, the Canucks are probably coming out of training camp with between $200,000 and $10,000 in cap space. Even if they start dipping into Tucker Poolman’s up-to-$2.5 million in relief space, there’s definitely not going to be Necas Money available.

Any trade for Necas within the next year, then, would have to come at the same time as some serious salary being moved out.

It’s not that the Canucks don’t have a need for Necas anymore. Consistent offence still projects to be a bit of a challenge in Vancouver in 2024/25. The forward corps may be deeper overall after some sharp signings, but it did lose a fairly premium talent piece in Elias Lindholm, and this is still a team with only four real-deal top-six pieces in Miller, Pettersson, DeBrusk, and Brock Boeser.

Currently, the likes of Nils Höglander, Pius Suter, and Danton Heinen are expected to compete for the remaining spots. There’s little doubt that, were a trade able to be swung, Necas would look better there.

But it’s a question of balance of need. The Canucks can reasonably look at their roster and see that the forward corps has either improved this offseason or, at worst, stayed level. The defence, meanwhile, seems to have taken a bit of a hit in swapping out Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole for Derek Forbort and Vincent Desharnais.

GM Patrik Allvin and Co. can almost certainly see that, if they were to make a trade to improve the team at some points in the months to come, an additional defender is probably more worth their while than another forward.

At the very least, we can definitively conclude that any sort of defence-for-Necas trade is 110% off the table.

To trade out a forward in exchange for Necas seems distinctly more possible. But even that route is fraught with complications.

First and foremost…who?

The easiest money is some sort of Boeser-for-Necas swap. In doing that, the Canucks gain a smidgen of cap space, an extra year of term, and a player who is a full two years younger. But would they be getting an upgrade?

Prior to last season, one might have suggested that Necas was on the quick path to surpassing Boeser. In 2022/23, Necas put up a career high 28 goals and 71 points in 82 games.

But those numbers were accomplished on a fairly high-octane Carolina roster. And they were beaten out by Boeser’s own career year in 2023/24 of 40 goals and 73 points.

At the same time, Necas dipped down to just 53 points in 2023/24.

The debate can perhaps best be dubbed “ongoing.” But given Boeser’s pre-established chemistry in Vancouver, and his playoff heroics, there’s just no real impulse here to make the trade – nor would there be much on Carolina’s end until Boeser has a new contract of his own, anyway.

Beyond moving out Boeser, though, it becomes hard to find anyone to move out in order to make room for Necas. At least $4 million in additional space is needed, and that’s with LTIR usage.

Would a Conor Garland-for-Necas deal work? Money-wise, sure. Talent-wise, probably. But balance-wise? The Canucks have, in Garland, a player who can produce out of the bottom-six and has amazing chemistry with fellow winger Dakota Joshua. Ditch Garland for Necas and the team ends up more talented, sure, but also more top-heavy, and that’s something worth avoiding.

And that’s pretty much the end of our exploration. Any other forward who might be dealt out to make room for Necas is either a non-starter or doesn’t make enough money to make a difference.

We will throw out there at this point that the Hurricanes don’t necessarily have a permanent, long-term solution in net. Currently, their hope is that young Pyotr Kochetkov grows into the role. But that said, we have to imagine they’d give some serious consideration to a Thatcher Demko-for-Necas trade, were one ever proposed. That would entail Arturs Silovs really making an in-season push to steal Demko’s job, and even then it’d be quite the gamble on Vancouver’s part. Call it a pipe-dream, at best.

As we go further into the future, we’ll end by noting that the aforementioned Boeser is scheduled to become a UFA at the end of the 2024/25 season. Were he to not re-sign or be traded, and were the Canucks in the market for a replacement, we imagine that Necas’ name might once again be raised.

At that point, however, Necas would be a rental contract, with his latest extension walking him right to unrestricted free agency in 2026. And then the Canucks would have to come up with a worthy trade package in order to land him, and then they’d probably feel compelled to extend him, and then we’re on to a whole different, entirely more complicated conversation.

Let’s instead leave it at this: if he ever was a solution for the Canucks, Martin Necas is no longer.

It’s always been a bit of a funny note that Necas’ name, much like the logo on his jersey, roughly translates to “bad weather” in his native Czech.