Trade Analysis: What can the Vancouver Canucks expect from Ethan Bear and Jack Studnicka

The Vancouver Canucks entered the 2022-23 season buoyed by the hope that they had just enough on their blue line and down the middle of their lineup to build on last year's playoff push until permanent, long-term fixtures filtered through to their NHL lineup.

Those hopes were ultimately dashed by a 0-5-2 start driven in part by a string of injuries to Tyler Myers, Travis Dermott, Tucker Poolman, Quinn Hughes, and newly acquired Riley Stillman, forcing the Canucks decision-makers to search for answers. To make matters worse, the Canucks have since essentially lost two of their centres – Curtis Lazar to injury and J.T. Miller to the wing, a positional reassignment that became necessary to limit the defensive workload their recently signed forward would be tasked with.

Vancouver’s centre depth quickly atrophied to just Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, career AHLer Sheldon Dries, and first-year forward Nils Åman. On defence, the club was now forced to thrust fringe NHLers into high-leverage minutes.

Something had to give. So, Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin swung a pair of trades to close out the week, first acquiring Jack Studnicka from the Boston Bruins for Jonathan Myrenberg and Michael DiPietro, and then following that up by prying Ethan Bear (with $400,000 retained) and Lane Pederson from the Carolina Hurricanes for a fifth-round pick. 

Now, let's take a look what the Canucks can expect from last week's flurry of activity