NHL trade grades: Did Canucks give up too much for ‘last piece’ Elias Lindholm?

One of the best players believed to be available this NHL trade season is off the board.

The Vancouver Canucks have acquired center Elias Lindholm from the Calgary Flames in exchange for forward Andrei Kuzmenko, defensemen Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo, a 2024 first-round pick and a conditional 2024 fourth-round pick.

How did each team do in this intra-divisional swap? Here are our grades:

“He’s a team guy who gives it everything, every shift.”

That’s Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford’s assessment of Elias Lindholm … from the 2013 NHL draft. That’s when then-Carolina Hurricanes GM Rutherford selected him fifth overall, right before center Sean Monahan was taken by the Flames.

In acquiring Lindholm, the Canucks remove one of the biggest names from the NHL trade deadline board. (Ironically, Monahan, now with Montreal, might currently be the top center available at the deadline.) Lindholm was coveted by teams trying to add an elite two-way player on an expiring contract to their top six. The Colorado Avalanche had inquired about him. There was speculation that Boston was in the mix. But the Canucks jumped the line with an offer the Flames couldn’t refuse.

What does Lindholm bring to the Canucks? Versatility, for one. There’s been a years-long trend in the NHL in which traditional centers are also adept at producing on the wing. Lindholm certainly fits that template. He wins 55.5% of his faceoffs. As a team, Vancouver is 16th in the NHL (50%) in faceoff proficiency. Most importantly, Lindholm gives the Canucks the right-handed faceoff guy they sorely lacked on their depth chart.

Seriously, it’s like Lindholm was made in a lab for this Vancouver team. He can play on a power play that’s already in the top 10 (25%) in the NHL. He can bolster a penalty kill that’s middle of the pack (80%). He’s a tremendous 5-on-5 defender, in particular in puck recovery. He was second for the Selke Trophy in 2021-22, although that might be because he scored 42 goals along with playing stellar defensively. The Selke is funny like that.

He’s also insurance against the Canucks losing one of their vital players to injury at any point down the stretch. The most important number for Vancouver this season is 49, or the number of games J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser have played — in other words, all of them.

What do the Canucks bring to Lindholm? A chance to get back to the offensive force he was two years ago. One of the most desirable attributes in an NHL player is to thrive with high-end talent. Lindholm’s offensive apex came while playing on a line with Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau. His scoring dropped by 18 points after they left Calgary, propped up by his chemistry with Tyler Toffoli. Then Toffoli was traded to New Jersey, and Lindholm’s productivity fell off a cliff this season to under two points per 60 minutes (1.9) in all situations.

Vancouver can slot Lindholm with Miller, who had 67 points through 49 games. Or on a line with Pettersson and Boeser. He can play on their first power-play unit. It’s like going from an offensive boxed lunch in Calgary to a veritable buffet in Vancouver.

Given the Canucks’ cap situation next season, one assumes Lindholm is a rental. If that’s the case, fine: Lindholm is an outstanding acquisition, a nitro boost to a team already cruising at the top of the conference. But it did come at a cost.

There were two trades last season that might have informed this one.

When the Canucks traded center Bo Horvat to the Islanders, they received a roster player (Anthony Beauvillier), a top prospect (Aatu Raty) and a conditional first-round pick in 2023 that they flipped for defenseman Filip Hronek. Horvat ended up signing an eight-year extension with the Islanders a few days later.

The Blues traded center Ryan O’Reilly to the Maple Leafs last season in a complicated three-way trade with Minnesota that included salary retention. In the end, the Leafs gave up two prospects, a first-rounder, a second-rounder, a third-rounder and a fourth-rounder. O’Reilly left as a free agent for Nashville.

So how did the Flames do within that context? Pretty good, actually, especially considering they didn’t retain any salary.

Andrei Kuzmenko needed to get away from Rick Tocchet, who was scratching him like an itch this season. Tocchet wanted him to play “the right way” and wasn’t going to give ice time to a player he believed was a defensive liability during this outstanding season for the Canucks. It didn’t matter that he had 39 goals as a 26-year-old rookie last season. He had to earn his time with the team’s top players and Tocchet felt he hadn’t.

So it’s off to Calgary, where he’s signed through next season at a $5.5 million average annual value. He had the Flames on his no-trade list. GM Craig Conroy and coach Ryan Huska sold him on the promise that Kuzmenko would be placed in offensively advantageous situations. Perhaps he and Jonathan Huberdeau could find some mutually beneficial chemistry.

It would be absolutely shocking if the name Yegor Sharangovich didn’t come up. The Flames acquired him from the Devils in the Toffoli trade, gave him almost three minutes more ice time a game, and watching his offense blossom to the point where Sharangovich (20) has one fewer goal than Toffoli (21) this season.

If Kuzmenko can’t recapture the magic, he’s a free agent in summer 2025.

Of the two prospects, Brzustewicz is more intriguing than Jurmo, although the latter defenseman has improved this season while playing in Finland. Brzustewicz is a puck-moving blue-liner who could top out at 100 points this season with the OHL Kitchener Rangers. There have been lingering questions about his ability to be an all-around player on the NHL level, but it’s hard to ignore that kind of offensive spark.

The Flames pulled a first-rounder for Lindholm too, albeit one that could practically be a high second-rounder given how good the Canucks are. That fourth-rounder turns into a third-rounder if the Canucks make the Western Conference final.

It’s a potentially impressive haul for (yet another) free agent that wasn’t signing back in Calgary. For a franchise that’s still reeling from those defections, it’s another strong step towards whatever the next phase of the Flames ends up being.