The Vancouver Canucks traded forward Ilya Mikheyev, the rights to forward Sam Lafferty, and a second-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for a fourth-round pick, the clubs announced Wednesday night.

Both the second- and fourth-round selections come in the 2027 draft. The Canucks are also retaining 15% of Mikheyev's salary. His contract ends in 2025-26 and carries a $4.75-million cap hit, per CapFriendly. Lafferty, meanwhile, is a pending unrestricted free agent with a cap hit of $1.15 million.

Mikheyev has a modified no-trade clause enabling him to submit a 12-team no-trade list, but he waived it for the trade to Chicago, according to TSN's Chris Johnston.

On top of that, there was another team on Mikheyev's no-trade list that was also talking to the Canucks about acquiring him, per Johnston.

The swap with the Blackhawks opens up cap space for the Canucks. Vancouver has a number of pending UFAs to re-sign, including forward Elias Lindholm, plus defensemen Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole, not to mention backup goaltender Casey DeSmith. The Canucks' postseason hero in goal, Arturs Silovs, is a pending restricted free agent.

Mikheyev is a defense-first forward who collected 11 goals and 20 assists over 78 games this past season. He was held pointless in 11 postseason contests. The 29-year-old was coming off surgery to repair a torn ACL he suffered in January 2023. Mikheyev played two seasons with the Canucks after spending his first three with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Russian winger notched a career-best 21 goals with the Leafs in 2021-22. The Canucks signed him as a free agent in July 2022.

Vancouver got Lafferty from the Toronto Maple Leafs for a 2024 fifth-round pick in October. The forward, who's also 29, produced 13 goals and 11 assists over 79 games this season. He suited up for parts of two seasons with the Blackhawks in 2021-22 and 2022-23. Chicago traded him to Toronto as part of the Jake McCabe deal in February 2023.

Lafferty started his career playing parts of three campaigns for the Pittsburgh Penguins before they traded him to the Blackhawks for forward Alex Nylander in January 2022.

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Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving knows he can't make a rash decision regarding star forward Mitch Marner despite constant talk about the player's future.

"I'd caution us to not pay too much attention to some of the noise," Treliving told reporters, according to TSN's Chris Johnston. "We can't react to all of the noise. ... Mitch knows how I feel about him as a player."

Marner has been involved in rampant rumors since the Maple Leafs' first-round exit at the hands of the Boston Bruins. After years of unwavering support, president Brendan Shanahan said the team will "look at everything this summer and consider everything this summer" at Toronto's year-end press conference.

The 27-year-old is eligible for a contract extension on July 1 and is set to become an unrestricted free agent after next season.

Marner struggled to produce in the first round after accumulating 85 points in 69 regular-season contests. He managed only one goal and three points in the seven-game series.

Treliving admitted there is "a lot of work to do this summer," according to Johnston. In addition to Marner's undetermined future, Toronto has notable free agents in Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi as well as significant question marks on defense and in the crease.

Talks with the team's free-agent defensemen are ongoing, Treliving said, according to TSN's Pierre LeBrun. That group includes veterans TJ Brodie and Mark Giordano, plus trade-deadline pickups Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin.

Treliving noted the Maple Leafs are likely to keep the 23rd overall pick in this week's draft, according to The Athletic's Joshua Kloke.

The first round of the draft is Friday in Las Vegas, while unrestricted free agency opens on Monday.

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The Vancouver Canucks signed forward Teddy Blueger to a two-year contract with a $1.8-million cap hit, the team announced Wednesday.

Blueger, 29, tallied six goals and 28 points in 68 regular-season games to match his career high in scoring. He played all 13 of Vancouver's contests in the playoffs, recording two assists.

"Teddy was a key addition to our team last year, and we are really excited to have him back for a couple more seasons," general manager Patrik Allvin said in a statement. "His versatility and experience really helped our group in both the regular season and playoffs. He is a strong leader and someone we will count on a lot more moving forward."

Blueger won 53.1% of his faceoffs last year. He was also a key part of the Canucks' penalty kill, as he led all Vancouver forwards in shorthanded minutes in the playoffs, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Vancouver signed Blueger to a one-year contract worth $1.9 million last summer as an unrestricted free agent.

The Latvian has 41 goals and 126 points in 336 NHL games. He played the first five seasons of his career with the Pittsburgh Penguins before being traded to the Vegas Golden Knights in 2022-23, where he won the Stanley Cup.

Vancouver has just over $14 million in cap space after the signing, according to CapFriendly.

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The NHL is adopting four new changes to its rules for 2024-25, the league announced Wednesday.

The board of governors, general managers, and competition committee unanimously approved the changes.

Here are the adjustments:

Rule 38.2 (Situations Subject to Coach's Challenge)

• A coach's challenge is now permitted in order to nullify a penalty for puck out of play. This only applies to delay of game infractions when the puck is determined to have gone off a player, stick, the glass, or the boards. It doesn't apply to judgment calls on how the puck left the defensive zone (batted pucks or if a player shoots the puck out of their own zone).
  
  In the case of a failed challenge, the officials will issue an additional two-minute minor on top of the delay of game call.

Rule 63.8 (Line Change Following Dislodged Net)

• There will be a tweak to Rule 63.8 so that the defensive team can't make a line change in the event its goaltender accidentally dislodges the net. The old language regarding this rule applied only to skaters.

Rule 76.4 (Faceoff Procedure - Centers)

• After an icing, the offensive center will now also receive one warning (just like the defensive player) for a faceoff violation.

Rule 75.3 (Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Player Sitting on Boards)

• The referee will now provide the offending team's head coach and players with one warning regarding players sitting on the boards and will also advise the other team. After one warning in a game, the team that drew the warning will be issued a bench minor penalty for future violations.

Back in March, it was reported the competition committee and the board of governors (the owners) would review six proposed rule changes, with an additional one taking immediate effect. The latter was the last of the four tweaks revealed Wednesday.

The other three that will take effect next season were among those proposed in the spring.

Here are the three proposed rule changes that weren't adopted:

• A team could've asked to review a high-sticking penalty if it believed there wasn't an offense committed by its player. Just as in the case of the first amended rule above regarding pucks out of play, the officials would've issued a second minor penalty to the offending team if the call on the ice was upheld upon review.
• In a situation where the goaltender loses his mask and the officials blow a play dead, the opposing team would've gotten an offensive-zone faceoff with its choice of side, regardless of where the puck was at the time of the whistle.
• If players refuse to play the puck after a high stick or a hand pass, the non-offending team would've gotten a faceoff positioned one zone better than where the play occurred. For example, a defensive-zone infraction would've resulted in a neutral-zone draw.

The rules that are changing haven't been added to the official rule book, but the NHL's hockey operations department will finalize that language in the near future.

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Question marks aplenty for the Canucks as free agency nears for many of their players and still only Hronek and Friedman have signed on the dotted line. Matt and Blake also take a look at a handful of former Canucks that will likely be available on July 1st, and whether any would make sense in a return.

It seems quiet now, but Rink Wide: Vancouver’s Irfaan Gaffar stops by (58:00) and tells us what he’s hearing around the Canucks, and whether he believes they’re still in on Jake Guentzel. Plus, we get Irf’s take on the players that might actually move the needle for the Canucks to improve upon last season.

Then it’s former Canuck Frankie Corrado (1:41:00) paying a visit, fresh off the celebration in South Florida and the Stanley Cup Final. He gives us the lessons learned in the playoffs and the Final, and where the Canucks can improve in key areas to take the next step. All that, plus a recap of Canada’s historic win over Peru in the Copa America, and the latest from the BC Lions as they get set for Thursday! Follow us on social. Thank you to our sponsors:

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