Vancouver rumoured to have a 'legit shot' at landing Ekman-Larsson

The well-documented financial concerns of the Arizona Coyotes may well result in a very different-looking Coyotes squad in 2020-21, with rumours circulating that the Yotes are looking to shed approximately $10M in salary before the start of the season.

As we know, the Coyotes have already been looking to move goaltender Darcy Kuemper and his $4.5M cap hit, which has two seasons remaining. Given Kuemper's performance over the past few seasons, I don't think this will be very difficult to accomplish, especially with multiple teams looking for an upgrade between the pipes.

More recently, however, captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson's name has been coming up more and more frequently. Due to OEL's $8.25M cap hit, a deal for the slick skating blueliner is considerably more complicated. Especially due to the fact that Arizona does not want to take on another sizable contract in return.

Per TSN 1040's Rick Dhaliwal, the Vancouver Canucks have emerged as the favourite to land Ekman-Larsson, who has reportedly listed the Canucks on the very short list of teams he would agree to waive his NMC, with the other being the Boston Bruins. Dhaliwal's source, who is reportedly close with OEL's agent, claims that there's a "legit shot" that OEL is a Canuck next season.

As Dhaliwal points out, OEL may have the desire to play with fellow Swede Elias Pettersson and young phenom Quinn Hughes, who are two very skilled players with a very high ceiling. The other connection here is how many Canucks players that Ekman-Larsson has played with at one point or another during international play.

Obviously, in order to make this happen, the Canucks would have to move around some major money. Dhaliwal speculates that veteran winger Loui Eriksson would likely have be involved in the deal, which would certainly cost the Canucks some valuable picks and/or prospects, though it does not preclude the possibility that Vancouver could use those same assets as sweeteners to unload the Eriksson contract elsewhere.

Ekman-Larsson has played his entire career in Arizona after being drafted 6th overall by the Coyotes in 2009. The 29-yead-old has recorded 364 points in 723 career NHL games.

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