It seems like a fine time for a dose of positivity.

At the tail-end of weeks of inconsistent results, the Vancouver Canucks won their most important game in a while, and in dramatic fashion, to boot. The club defeated the Calgary Flames in a shootout on Wednesday night to put themselves back in a playoff spot.

We wouldn’t be selling tickets quite yet. But it was still a meaningful win. For now, the talk of the 2024/25 Canucks’ untimely demise can be put to the side.

There has also been a lot of somewhat negative talk around Canucks contracts of late. Both in the sense of contracts not signed – the trio of pending UFAs that the Canucks held onto at the Trade Deadline – and in discussions of what free agents the team might pursue this summer, and the exorbitant deals said free agents are expected to sign.

It all has something to do with a trio of impending increases to the salary cap ceiling, set for each of the next three offseasons. This summer, the cap will go from $88 million up to $95.5 million, then up to $104 million for 2026, and up to $113.5 million for 2027.

And that, as much as anything, is why negotiating with soon-to-be-UFAs is difficult right now and why landing actual UFAs will be an intense experience in the summer of 2025. There’s more cap space to go around, which means more money to go around, which means a greater demand for a share of that money from the players.

But there’s a positive flip side to all this. A sunny side, or a silver lining, if you will. And that’s the notion that, with so much inevitable leaguewide inflation on the way, those contracts already on the books should, conversely, begin to look better and better in context. In other words, some of the contracts signed prior to the cap increases are set to age particularly well now, and that definitely includes some of the contracts currently on the Canucks’ books.

Like these ones:

We start with a contract that almost feels like cheating to include here because everyone kind of knew Marcus Pettersson’s extension was a bargain the moment it was signed, regardless of any cap increases on the way.

An AAV of $5.5 million sounds perfectly reasonable for what Pettersson brings in the current moment. And it only gets better from here, especially when considering it from the cap percentage perspective. If the cap is at $95.5 million, as it will be next season, a team that spends to the cap should spend some $4.15 million per player on average ($95.5/23 players). That average will continue to go up as the cap rises.

Which means that Pettersson starts out his contract barely making more than the average defender, but by Year 3, he will probably be making quite close to average. Thus, so long as Pettersson remains an above-average defender, he’ll continue to return excellent value on this contract.

Let’s keep those percentages in mind as we move on to Jake DeBrusk, someone with an identical cap hit to Pettersson.

However, there are typically more forwards on an NHL roster, and the distinction between them is greater. An average NHL salary should belong to someone playing somewhere in the middle-six, naturally. Yet, starting as soon as next year, DeBrusk himself will be making not that much more than the average, and – like Pettersson – he’ll work his way closer to league average as the contract ages.

DeBrusk, on pace for close to 30 goals this season, is a borderline first line but definite second line talent. From next year onward, he’ll be making lower-end second line money at best. So long as there is not an enormous drop in production, he’ll continue to return value throughout.

Höglander had a tough start to the career, and one of the all-time great slumps in Canucks history. But outside of that stretch, he’s been producing much the same as he did last year, and that’s a level of production that is definitely worth $3 million.

As we continue to talk averages, Höglander should start next season with a below-league-average contract. By Year 3, he’s down to just a 2.6% share of the cap, which might actually be closer to a league-minimum contract than it is a league-average contract.

In other words, Höglander starts out with bottom-six money and ends up with what might be considered fourth line money by 2027/28. It’s hard to imagine he’s not worth it, slumps and all.

Few players stepped up in Quinn Hughes’s recent absence more than Hronek. Which probably makes Canucks fans feel a lot better about dubbing him their true #2 defender. And if he’s that, he’s definitely worth the $7.25 million AAV he continues to be signed for.

By Year 3 of this deal, Hronek will have slipped all the way down to what will have to be considered second pairing money. His $7.25 million in 2027/28 will be the rough equivalent of a player making $5.5 million today.

The Canucks don’t even need Hronek to be as good as he’s been lately to earn that share of the money – though they probably wouldn’t complain.

Whether Lankinen is considered the starter or the 1A, he’ll start his new contract extension with about a league-average cap hit and a decidedly lower cap hit than the average leading goaltender. Then, it just gets better from there.

To borrow our comparison from the Hronek section, that 4% of the cap that Lankinen is scheduled to take up in 2027/28 is the equivalent of a goalie making $3.5 million today. That’s borderline backup money. As long as Lankinen stays as good as he’s been for his entire career, there will be no issues with his compensation.

Initially, we only wanted to include contracts that lasted at least the next three seasons. But the more we looked at Myers’ contract, the more it belonged.

Starting next year, Myers is making well below league-average money. By the year after, he’s down to what could be considered bottom pairing money, and that’s good because it’s definitely hoped that someone like Tom Willander will have shunted Myers down the depth chart by then.

The fact that Myers’ salary steadily decreases and he has no signing bonuses, along with the shift to a M-NTC of only 12 teams, also gives the Canucks an easy out if Myers’ play were to fall off a cliff.

Lately, it must be noted, he’s done the exact opposite and is playing some of his best hockey ever, which bodes even better for the aging of this deal.