Canucks sign Dakota Joshua to four-year contract with $3.25 million AAV

Scott Maxwell
Scott Maxwell
Canucks sign Dakota Joshua to four-year contract with $3.25 million AAV
Credit: Dec 21, 2023; Dallas, Texas, USA; Vancouver Canucks center Dakota Joshua (81) in action during the game between the Dallas Stars and the Vancouver Canucks at the American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The Vancouver Canucks have signed winger Dakota Joshua to a four-year contract with a $3.25 million cap hit.

Joshua was in the final year of a two-year contract with an $825,000 cap hit and was set to be an unrestricted free agent come July 1st. With this new extension, the Canucks lock him up until he’s 32 years old at 3.69% of the 2024-25 salary cap.

Joshua’s new deal features a salary break down of $2.5, $2, $2.65 and $1.625 million over the course of the four seasons, along with signing bonuses of $2 million in Year 1, $1.5 million in Year 2, and $1 million in Year 4. The deal also includes a 12-team no-trade clause throughout all four seasons.

With his new deal, Joshua is currently tied for the eighth-highest cap hit on the Canucks. He shares a cap hit with forwards Adam Lowry and Radek Faksa, along with a few other defensemen that includes his Canucks’ teammate Carson Soucy.

Joshua is coming off his most successful season in the NHL in 2023-24, where he had 18 goals and 14 assists for 32 points in 63 games with the Canucks. It was a career-high in goals, assists and points for the winger, surpassing his 2022-23 season where he had 11 goals and 12 assists for 23 points in 16 more games, largely in part to a career-high 21.4% shooting percentage.

Joshua also continued that performance in the playoffs, getting 4 goals and 4 assists for 8 points in 13 games, as the Canucks went on to get eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in seven games in the second round.

Joshua is a former second-round pick by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2014 NHL Draft, although the Leafs never signed him to an entry-level contract. Instead, he spent four years with Ohio State University and upon the conclusion of his stint there, signed with the St. Louis Blues in 2019, making his NHL debut with the team in 2021. After three seasons, the Blues let him walk as a Group 6 UFA, where he then signed with the Canucks.

Joshua joins Filip Hronek and Teddy Blueger as the first notable signings that the Canucks have made in their offseason. They currently have five unrestricted free agents and one RFA left to sign on their current roster, including Elias Lindholm, Tyler Myers and Nikita Zadorov, and have just over $15 million in salary cap space after the Joshua extension.

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