One year ago, Carson Soucy suffered a hand injury that took him out of the lineup for over six weeks.
At the time, it was a tough blow for the Vancouver Canucks, who had come to rely on Soucy to play tough minutes against elite competition. Soucy was a key component of the Canucks’ defence corps, frequently credited for calming things down with his poised defensive game and strong first pass.
A year later, Soucy is on the trade block.
Scratching Soucy despite Hughes injury is a bold move
According to a report from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman — and corroborated by multiple other reports — the Canucks are looking to trade Soucy.
“I’ve heard they’ve made him available,” said Friedman in a radio interview on The Fan Hockey Show. “The way they looked the other night, there’s probably not a lot of room for him. In situations like that, you’re probably willing to work with the team and the player to see if there’s something out there that’s better for him.”
Soucy was a healthy scratch on Sunday night against the Detroit Red Wings despite Quinn Hughes missing the game due to injury. At Tuesday’s morning skate ahead of a game against the Colorado Avalanche, with Hughes still out with an injury, Soucy appeared to be heading for a second healthy scratch.
“We’ve all been through it,” said head coach Rick Tocchet, citing his own experience as a player. “Sometimes, you need, whether it’s a reset or whatever — I hate to say kick in the ass — but to jumpstart yourself. We felt he needed that.”
Soucy has struggled significantly this season and now the Canucks have added a couple of Petterssons on the left side of their defence: Marcus Pettersson via trade and Elias Pettersson promoted from the AHL. With those two added to Hughes and Derek Forbort, the left side is now awfully crowded.
While Soucy can play on his off-side on the right, the preference of Tocchet and assistant coach Adam Foote is to have defencemen on their strong side: lefties on the left, righties on the right.
There’s no guarantee that the Canucks will actually trade Soucy. In an ideal world, he would return to the caliber of play that made him so valuable last season. But it seems that things are moving in that direction.
While Soucy is available for trade, sense is he wants to try and make it work still with Van.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) February 4, 2025
Still, his camp and Canucks have talked about working together on a potential trade if that’s the end result before March 7 https://t.co/GjZvdKmvud
Here’s the trouble: even if the Canucks want to trade Soucy, it won't be easy to do it.
Soucy's contract might complicate a trade
The troubles start with Soucy’s no-trade clause, which gives him the power to veto any potential trade this season. The clause becomes a modified no-trade clause next season that allows him to provide a 12-team no-trade list.
That limits the Canucks’ options in a trade, as they have to find a team that wants Soucy and to which Soucy is willing to go.
It also has to be a team that is willing to take the full freight of Soucy’s contract, as the Canucks likely want to avoid retaining salary.
The Canucks have already used two of their three available retained salary slots, retaining $712,500 of Ilya Mikheyev’s cap hit through next season and $500,000 of Tucker Poolman’s salary this season. If the Canucks retained salary in a Soucy trade, that would mean they couldn’t retain any more salary this season and would only have one more slot available next season.
Soucy has a cap hit of $3.25 million through next season, which is a complicating factor. While not the most expensive contract, it’s still a cap hit befitting a second-pairing defenceman and Soucy has not played like a second-pairing defenceman this season.
That’s the biggest issue when it comes to trading Soucy: his performance.
Soucy's underlying numbers are among the worst in the NHL
Among the 193 NHL defencemen who have played at least 400 minutes at 5-on-5 this season, Soucy ranks 190th in corsi percentage, which is a team-worst 42.5%. The Canucks get badly outshot when Soucy is on the ice at 5-on-5 and, as a result, get outscored as well.
It’s plain to see from the eye test. Soucy has been unable to get the puck out of the defensive zone consistently, leading to long shifts stuck in his own, where he’s struggled to defend the guts of the ice.
It’s clear in the heatmap of shots against the Canucks with Soucy on the ice at 5-on-5 via HockeyViz: the Canucks give up way too many shots from the slot.
Perhaps the most troubling development is on the penalty kill, which was a strength of Soucy’s game last season. This season, Soucy has arguably been the Canucks’ worst penalty killer, with the second-highest rate of unblocked shots against and second-highest rate of goals against, better only than the recently-traded J.T. Miller.
Again, the HockeyViz heatmap tells the story, as the Canucks have given up an obscenely high amount of shots from the most dangerous areas of the ice with Soucy on the penalty kill.
Evolving-Hockey’s all-in-one goals above replacement (GAR) statistic rates Soucy at minus-9.4 this season, meaning he’s cost the Canucks 9.4 goals compared to a replacement-level player. By Evolving-Hockey’s metric, that alone has cost the Canucks 1.5 wins.
That’s a significant impact for a single player. His minus-9.4 GAR is the worst by any NHL defenceman this season and the third-worst of any skater, ahead of only forwards Barclay Goodrow and Robby Fabbri.
With those kinds of numbers backing up the eye test that Soucy is struggling, it’s understandable that Tocchet would scratch Soucy. But it’s that kind of performance that will also make other teams wary of acquiring Soucy.
Still, maybe there is a market out there for Soucy. A team could take a chance on trading for him now, hoping that he’ll bounce back in a new environment and system. But with the no-trade clause, cap hit, and the Canucks unlikely to retain salary, that’s a tough needle to thread.
If the trade can't be found, the Canucks might be better off just hanging on to Soucy and hoping he bounces back without a change of environment.
