Our focus is on Milan and the Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament at the moment, as it should be.

The Vancouver Canucks, however, or at least those players who aren’t participating in the Olympics, will return to the ice for practice on Tuesday afternoon. Five days later, the Olympic trade freeze will thaw, and the NHL trade market will gear up for one last whirl before the trade deadline hits on March 6.

The Canucks enter deadline season as motivated sellers, but with very few assets that are likely to significantly interest contending teams now that both Quinn Hughes and Kiefer Sherwood have been dealt. Perhaps the Canucks surprise us and deal a veteran player with term remaining on their deal, although as we reported prior to the trade freeze, the club isn’t proactively looking to shed those commitments, even as they’re listening on everybody.

There are a few items, however, that we should reasonably expect and which should be top priorities for the Canucks to achieve between now and the deadline. Here are four things in particular that the Canucks should be very motivated to achieve.

1. Get whatever the market will pay for the two expiring unrestricted free agent centres

Vancouver’s most marketable remaining assets are a pair of defensively oriented depth centres in Teddy Blueger and David Kämpf, both of whom are on affordable, expiring contracts.

Blueger and Kämpf have played major roles for Latvia and the Czech Republic, respectively, at the Olympics. Kämpf, in particular, has had a strong showing at the tournament, playing top-six minutes and recording a pair of assists in heavy usage during the round-robin stage. Blueger is likewise averaging over 15 minutes per game for a plucky Latvian side, though he hasn’t been as productive as Kämpf has been offensively.

As challenging as this season has been for the Canucks, Blueger and Kämpf have continued to perform as steady, workmanlike pivots in the Vancouver lineup. Kämpf’s defensive results are genuinely excellent this season, although he offers very little offensively (and less than Blueger) despite his recent run of production at the Olympic tournament. Blueger is the more credible top-nine option of the two forwards, and the more reliable penalty killer and should be expected to have somewhat more trade value.

Ultimately, you’d expect Blueger and Kämpf to appeal to contenders as depth insurance-type centres. Veteran players who have been there before and offer some floor and injury insurance across what you hope is a lengthy playoff run.

At the trade deadline last season, centres with less developed defensive resumes like Luke Kunin and Nico Sturm returned a fourth-round pick for their respective teams. Meanwhile, Mark Jankowski was dealt from Nashville to Carolina for a fifth-round pick.

Perhaps the Canucks can parlay Blueger’s penalty killing chops into a third-round pick, while adding an additional later pick for Kämpf. That’s about all we should expect reasonably from Vancouver in selling their defensive depth centres at this juncture, and it’s critical — especially given that Vancouver isn’t proactively shopping their veteran players with term and some variety of no-move or no-trade protection at the moment — that the club find fair value and monetize both dependable veterans before March 6.

2. Move Evander Kane

By hook or by crook, the Canucks should find a way to unload their commitment to Evander Kane before the trade deadline. In fact, the sooner the club is able to resolve the matter, the better off it’ll be.

The 34-year-old winger has played big minutes for Vancouver this season, producing nine goals and 25 points. The underlying statistics still suggest that Kane can help generate shots and scoring chances in the offensive end of the rink, although his physical, grinding game has been inconsistent over the course of this season.

Put simply, Kane has struggled, and the market to trade for his services on an expiring $5.15 million cap hit is virtually nonexistent. Meanwhile, the market for his services, even if 50 percent of his salary and cap hit is retained, is lukewarm.

Rick Dhaliwal has reported that Kane’s agent, Dan Milstein, has permission to attempt to facilitate a trade on the club’s and his client’s behalf. As we get closer to the deadline, perhaps something will materialize.

Even if it doesn’t, however, it may be in everybody’s best interests to find a creative solution to the issue regardless.

It’s clear that Kane’s interests will be best served by finding his way into a playoff lineup, where he can remind prospective employers of how well-suited his game is to the demands of postseason hockey. Vancouver, obviously, would be best served by accommodating that, while returning a mid-round draft pick.

Even if that isn’t possible, then the club would still be better off clearing Kane’s $5.15 million and having an additional contract slot to play with in NCAA free agency, even if there’s no return forthcoming.

On Monday, Kane’s former Oilers teammate, Jeff Skinner, was on waivers for the purpose of having his contract terminated. Kämpf, meanwhile, effectively agreed to have his contract terminated by the Toronto Maple Leafs this fall for the purposes of remaining on an NHL roster. This is a trend that we’re seeing with increasing frequency around the league, a method for veteran players to choose a new opportunity, unencumbered by the limitations of their contract and resultant trade value.

You’d expect that Kane’s unique physical profile and playoff experience would interest somebody and result in a more straightforward solution. I also want to be clear that I’m just spitballing here, as opposed to reporting anything substantive that is being specifically considered by the Canucks or Kane’s camp.

If a motivated buyer for Kane doesn’t emerge between now and March 6, however, it would be silly to ignore that a contract termination could be a solution for all sides.

3. Clear some contract slots for the purpose of recruiting NCAA free agents

Typically speaking, you’re not landing difference-making future superstars in NCAA free agency. There are a few outlier stories — Martin St. Louis and Chris Kunitz would be prominent historical examples — you’re generally talking about NCAA free agency as a method of adding relatively youthful depth to an organization. And there’s an additional benefit for a rebuilding team like Vancouver in that NCAA free agents, if they hit, are generally ready to contribute and play a role at the NHL level far more quickly than draft picks are.

For a rebuilding team, the opportunity to add a Colin Graf, or a Drew O’Connor, or a Troy Stecher, or a Sam Malinski, and have that player compete credibly to make your lineup immediately, is a free method of creating organizational value of the variety that the Canucks are desperate for.

Additionally, there are all sorts of advantages that teams well out of the playoff race typically have in recruiting such players. If you’re well outside the playoff picture late in the season, a rebuilding team can offer NCAA free agents the opportunity to play NHL games right off the hop, and an NHL salary over the duration of the season plus the ability to toll the first year of the NCAA free agent’s entry-level contract, in a way that teams in a playoff race aren’t usually as comfortable leaning into.

There looks to be an especially interesting crop of NCAA free agent talent that could be available this spring. In addition to the usual dozen NCAA free agent players worth signing to entry-level deals, there are a small handful of projected NCAA free agents like dynamic offensive forward Jack Musa out of UMass, productive speedster Dylan Hryckowian out of Northeastern, two-way defender Jake Livanavage out of North Dakota and right-handed puck mover Ben Dexheimer out of Wisconsin who have legitimately interesting statistical profiles. These are high enough quality players that are young enough to still have developmental runway and would immediately rank among Vancouver’s 10 best prospects, and could be added for zero hard acquisition cost.

As it stands, the Canucks have only two open contract slots available beneath the 50-contract limit. Opening up an additional contract slot or two so that the club might push seriously to sign a small handful of NCAA free agents in March is something Vancouver should be motivated and able to achieve prior to the trade deadline.

4. Find a way to buy some future assets

Until this year, the NHL permitted rebuilding teams to effectively buy surplus draft capital at the trade deadline by agreeing to launder cap hits in three-way, retained salary transactions. The way these deals functioned, a third NHL team would become a party to a trade by agreeing to serve as a middleman, retaining a small portion of a player’s contract in exchange for a mid-round pick.

The staggered rollout of the new NHL/NHLPA CBA, however, has closed this avenue for the Canucks. And this new era of cap growth has made it more difficult than ever for a rebuilding team to get paid for taking on inefficient or problematic contracts.

That dynamic is unlikely to change over the course of the next two weeks. In 2026, there just aren’t that many contender-tier teams pressed up against the salary cap upper limit that we’d expect them to be willing to pay to get off any specific, onerous contracts. Most teams have at least some measure of wiggle room, with only a few exceptions.

This is a challenging dynamic for Canucks management to navigate, but it’s not an impossible one necessarily. There will likely be at least a couple of teams motivated to move some cap commitments prior to the deadline, especially if they’ve got their eyes focused on setting up a larger deal. The Montreal Canadiens and Patrik Laine, for example.

There are also some teams that may want to begin to shed some salary with an eye toward next season. Andrew Mangiapane and the Edmonton Oilers would be an obvious one, but that’s not the only such situation that’s easy to identify around the league.

The Buffalo Sabres have Jordan Greenway signed for this season and next at $4 million per, and have typically used the heavy, veteran winger in a peripheral fourth-line role. With the recent emergence of Konsta Helenius, it’s possible that Greenway could enter the playoffs as Buffalo’s 13th forward — and that’s before the surging Sabres even consider buying at the deadline to bolster their lineup.

With Jeff Skinner’s buyout cap hit spiking to $6.44 million next season, winger Alex Tuch a pending unrestricted free agent and due a raise, and young forwards Zach Benson and Peyton Krebs in need of second and third contracts, respectively (the former of which could be expensive, depending on term), could the Sabres be motivated to shed Greenway’s 2026-27 commitment at the cost of sending a mid-round pick Vancouver’s way? And if the answer is “no,” would that change if the opportunity to acquire a difference-making forward presented itself before the deadline?

It’s going to take more creativity than usual for the Canucks to find a clever way to monetize their cap space and complete lack of competitive urgency at the 2026 NHL trade deadline. At this nascent stage of their rebuilding effort, however, it’s incumbent on Canucks management to find a way to leverage the club’s status as a higher revenue rebuilding team to create future value in some fashion.