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After Benning moved to buy out Ryan Spooner on Saturday, Canucks have roughly $18.5 million in cap room as the summer free agency window gets set to open on Canada Day.

So that means a $7-million cap hit for Tyler Myers isn’t as straightforward as it appears.

On top of whatever move(s) he might want to make in free agency, Canucks general manager Jim Benning also has to sign a number of unrestricted free agents. There are three depth forwards who need new deals: Tyler Motte, Josh Leivo and Nikolay Goldobin.

And all this is without taking into consideration Brock Boeser’s new contract, whatever it might be, though it’s a safe bet that Boeser’s deal will not be far off what many expect Myers to get in his contract.

The big-money deals he signed with underachieving forwards Loui Eriksson and Brandon Sutter will continue to hamper him from making other moves as long as they’re in the picture.

Even if he signs Myers, Benning needs to find another defenceman, although he’s said if Olli Juolevi is healthy enough and looks ready to play NHL minutes come training camp, they’ll find a spot for him in the lineup.

If Juolevi isn’t ready, the Canucks will either start the season with Ashton Sautner or Guillaume Brisebois on the third defence pairing. Sautner, by the way, needs to clear waivers to go to the minors, though the odds seem good he’d clear.

And what if there’s somehow a deal done with free-agent defenceman Ben Hutton? That’s a whole other cap challenge. The Canucks were afraid of him winning a $4-million deal in arbitration and that concern makes sense now, since they apparently now see him only as a low-end defenceman after going through a full season of him playing top-four, sometimes top-two minutes.