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.
