{"id":558286,"date":"2026-04-22T22:51:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/558286\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:51:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:51:14","slug":"which-canucks-lose-their-waivers-exemption-next-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/558286\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Canucks lose their waivers exemption next season?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Vancouver Canucks<\/a>\u2018 search for a new general manager is dominating most headlines these days, and for good reason. It\u2019s one of the most important hires in the history of the franchise, and we\u2019ll be right on top of it as more and more names emerge<\/a>.But we thought we\u2019d interrupt that programming to take care of a piece of business we try to address every April<\/a>: which Canucks are going to lose their waivers exemption next season?First, a reminder on waiver eligibility rules, courtesy of our friends over at Puck Pedia<\/a>:\"\"<\/p>\n

Note that only one of these criteria need to be met for a player to lose their exemption status, not all four.<\/p>\n

Last season, seven Canucks lost their waiver eligibility. Aatu R\u00e4ty, Arshdeep Bains, Linus Karlsson, and Arturs Silovs were the most notable ones. R\u00e4ty and Karlsson spent the entire season on the Canucks\u2019 NHL roster, Bains passed through waivers without being claimed, and the Canucks elected to trade Silovs to the Pittsburgh Penguins ahead of the season starting to avoid placing him on waivers.<\/p>\n

In addition to those four players, Akito Hirose, Ty Glover, and Cole McWard were all set to lose waiver eligibility. Hirose and Glover both signed in Europe last offseason, while McWard signed with the New York Islanders in free agency, spending most of his season in the AHL and passing through waivers without any issues.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s crop: Tolopilo, Klimovich, Stillman, Grubbe, and Clayton<\/p>\n

The Canucks have just one player losing their exemption that we think is at risk of a) being placed on waivers and b) being claimed off waivers. That player is goaltender Nikita Tolopilo.<\/p>\n

Obviously, these aren\u2019t unfamiliar waters for the Canucks, as they traded Arturs Silovs just last offseason. But what the Canucks soon found out once again is that you can\u2019t comfortably rely on Thatcher Demko to stay healthy. Of course, the Canucks said the same thing about Demko\u2019s health\u00a0last\u00a0offseason, only instead of citing surgery as the reason, Rutherford talked about Demko\u2019s new trainer and training program as the reason.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake about it: nothing would be better than all of Demko\u2019s health issues finally being put in the rearview mirror for good. But the Canucks can\u2019t really plan for that with confidence, and as a result, they likely need to think long and hard about carrying three goaltenders on their roster to begin next season.<\/p>\n

After Tolopilo, the Canucks have pending RFAs Danila Klimovich, Chase Stillman, Jayden Grubbe, Jack Thompson, and Cole Clayton who will all gain waiver eligibility beginning next season. We\u2019re not sure how many of these players will be back (like Hirose, Glover, and McWard a season ago), so we won\u2019t spend much time focusing on them.<\/p>\n

It is also worth noting that\u00a0Max Sasson\u00a0played in his 60th NHL game this past season, which made him eligible for waivers in the middle of the season. Had he not reached that threshold, he would have still been on this list because he\u2019s heading into his third season.<\/p>\n

Two young Canucks close to losing exemption status<\/p>\n

Finally, it\u2019s worth noting that there are two young Canucks who will lose their waiver exemption status next season.<\/p>\n

Victor Mancini will lose his waiver exemption status after he plays in 15 more NHL games. This will be an interesting one to keep an eye on, as Mancini, originally acquired in the JT Miller trade, spent most of this past season in the AHL and didn\u2019t exactly stand out in the 24 NHL games he got into. Could the Canucks start him out in the AHL next season? That depends largely on how the Canucks choose to flesh out their depth chart this offseason, and of course, how Mancini fares in training camp.<\/p>\n

On top of Mancini, defenceman\u00a0Elias Pettersson\u00a0will lose his waiver exemption status after playing in 62 more NHL games, as he\u2019s currently sitting at 98 out of 160. This one likely won\u2019t matter, as Pettersson should be an NHL regular next season, but it\u2019s still good to make note of.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s crop doesn\u2019t represent many players that the Canucks need to worry about, but it will be interesting to see how they navigate the situation with Tolopilo this offseason.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by bet365<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vancouver Canucks\u2018 search for a new general manager is dominating most headlines these days, and for good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-558286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116450812962015054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}