Canucks trade Rathbone to Penguins in four-player deal
Rathbone #Rathbone
Jack Rathbone’s tenure with the Vancouver Canucks is officially over.
The 24-year-old defenceman has been traded, alongside Karel Plasek, to the Pittsburgh Penguins for defenceman Mark Friedman and forward Ty Glover.
“I would like to thank Jack for all the time he spent with our organization and always pushing hard when competing for a spot,” said Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin in a statement. “It has been a tough couple of years for him and this will give him a fresh start. The two players coming back in this trade will add to our depth as we continue to look at ways to improve our organization.”
The 27-year-old Friedman is a 5-foot-11 right-shot defenceman who played 23 NHL games last season, recording one goal and two assists. The Toronto native has 65 games of NHL experience, split between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia since being drafted in the third round of the 2014 NHL Draft.
Glover is a 6-foot-3 forward who scored 12 points in 49 AHL games last season. The 23-year-old made his pro debut in 2021-22 after two years of college hockey with Western Michigan University, where he scored 32 points in 63 games.
In trading Plasek, the Canucks are giving up their sixth-round pick from the 2019 draft. The 23-year-old Czech winger had 15 points (6-9-15) in 31 games played in his home country last season.
The writing was on the wall for Rathbone during preseason, when the Canucks didn’t give him much of a look before sending him to the AHL. He went unclaimed on waivers.
The Canucks had high hopes for Rathbone, a dynamic defenceman who scored 53 points in 61 NCAA games with Harvard in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Rathbone followed that up with 40 points in 39 games with the Abbotsford Canucks in 2021-22, during his first full AHL season.
But the Boston native has only been given limited looks at the NHL level, appearing in just 28 games with Vancouver over the past three seasons. The knock on Rathbone has been his defensive play, though perhaps a change of scenery will do him good.