Oliver Ekman-Larsson, the Canuck: Forever overshadowed by Oliver Ekman-Larsson, the trade

From the moment he became a Vancouver Canuck, Oliver Ekman-Larsson was doomed.

When the Canucks announced their decision to buy out the remaining four years of the 31-year-old defenceman’s contract, it was already a nearly foregone conclusion that Ekman-Larsson’s Canucks tenure would end this way. But not many people expected it to end just two years into a potential six-year experiment.

Tasked with building a playoff winner out of a team that finished last in the short-lived North Division in 2021, then-GM Jim Benning made a massive yard sale of a deal that sent Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and three draft picks — including a ninth overall choice in 2021 that became Dylan Guenther — to the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for Ekman-Larsson and winger Conor Garland. The former Coyotes captain had once been the anchor of Arizona’s blue line, but his production had taken a massive drop off while injury issues plagued his effectiveness at both ends.

Rather than suffer through one more season with some rough contracts on the books, Benning bet on Ekman-Larsson to regain his form and his team finding their way into the playoff picture again before the effect of his cap hit would be truly felt.

Now, Benning has been out of the front office for a year and a half, Ekman-Larsson is free to find a new home, and the Canucks will be paying him $2.126 million per year until 2031.

The sad thing is, by inadvertently becoming the centrepiece for arguably the worst trade in franchise history, Ekman-Larsson was set up to fail in Vancouver.

There was always a chance that Ekman-Larsson could be a useful depth piece on a well-constructed, balanced blue line. But thanks to the price of his annual cap hit and the overall cost to acquire him, that was never going to be good enough.

Ekman-Larsson couldn’t just be okay, he had to be GREAT. And almost immediately, it was clear that would be too big a mountain for him to climb.

Despite finishing with the second most points by a Canucks defender in both seasons, 51 points in 133 games was nowhere near enough for someone the previous general manager had pledged was “going to be our number one defenceman”. That honour firmly remained with Quinn Hughes, whose 68-point and 76-point seasons over the same span both surpassed Ekman-Larsson’s career-high 55 in 2015-16.

He certainly had his moments. Ekman-Larsson’s Canucks tenure started off in a promising fashion with a goal in the 2021 season opener against the Oilers. And his reaction to a penalty in Philadelphia will live on as a Canucks meme and the odd Twitter avatar.