Can the Canucks still sign Bear after Zadorov trade?

The Vancouver Canucks added a big, mean, smooth-skating defenceman on Thursday when they traded for Nikita Zadorov. However, the acquisition seemingly hasn’t settled the organization’s desire to upgrade its defence corps.

The chatter linking Ethan Bear to the Canucks has been a constant this season as the 26-year-old recovers from a shoulder injury.

Despite trading for Zadorov, the Canucks are still interested in signing Bear as per CHEK Media’s Rick Dhaliwal.

Bear is right-handed and would help the Canucks balance things on the backend. In addition, the 5-foot-11 player showed great chemistry with Quinn Hughes last season and could allow the Canucks to spread their talent more evenly across their pairings.

While being interested is one thing, does the team even have the cap space available to make the transaction happen?

The Canucks currently have a tad over $2 million in cap space, according to CapFriendly.

Bear’s cap hit last season was $2.2 million. Since he would be signing near the midseason mark and thus available for about half the games, a one-year contract worth around half of that would make sense.

If Bear signs a one-year contract worth $1 million, he would be an easy fit for the Canucks. The team could send Mark Friedman or Noah Juulsen down through waivers, absorbing a difference of just $225,000 in salary cap commitment.

With the right-shot player in the mix, the Canucks would have seven legitimate NHL defencemen including Bear, Hughes, Zadorov, Ian Cole, Carson Soucy, Tyler Myers, and Filip Hronek. This would be the team’s deepest group of blueliners in years.

When all seven are healthy, Rick Tocchet and his staff would have a difficult decision. This being the NHL, injuries are a way of life and thus the coaching staff might not be forced to make that decision. Having too many NHL-quality players is never a bad problem to have.

Management made a tidy piece of business when they didn’t retain any salary in the recent Anthony Beauvillier trade. A reunion with Bear is still very possible for the Canucks and would result in the team boasting some impressive defence depth.