Jannik Hansen knows there’s no such thing as a sure thing.

The Vancouver Canucks right winger — often dubbed Mr. Trade Bait because of his versatility and salary cap friendly contract — hasn’t been dealt as the National Hockey League club strives to get its house in order. And general manager Jim Benning has told anyone within earshot he’s not ditching the Dane.

Hansen shouldn’t be traded. Regardless of an easily movable contract that has two years remaining at $2.5 million US annually — and despite what transpires with the wooing of unrestricted free agents in advance of the free-agent frenzy Friday — Hansen is a Swiss Army knife.

He can play on any line and had a career-high 22 goals last season after joining Henrik and Daniel Sedin. He can play any role, is a fleet-footed breakaway threat and low-maintenance voice of reason in the room. For all the question marks surrounding the Canucks, he provides answers and his curiosity about what path the Canucks are travelling to get back to the playoffs is obvious.

He’s 30. His wife is about to give birth and he wants to win — now.

“Hopefully we can turn this ship around and look to add players instead of subtracting and those (trade) rumours will go away,” said Hansen. “As long as we have No. 22 (Daniel) and No. 33 (Henrik), we’re contending. They obviously drive the ship, but they need help — there’s no question about that.

“And that’s where we’ve been lacking for so many years. They need the pressure taken off them so teams can’t just zone in on them.”

That pressure-relief valve can be found in free agency because there’s money to spend.

Dan Hamhuis is expected to join Matt Bartkowski, Yannick Weber and Brandon Prust as UFAs in the open market while Alex Burrows and Chris Higgins are buyout candidates before the Thursday deadline.

The hockey operations department will roll out the welcome mat this week to prize UFAs and attempt to sell them on the team and the city. But they won’t come cheap. They’ll want big money and long term — at least $6 million US annually and six-year deals — and will also want to win. In this current environment, that will be a tough sell.

There’s skill to pursue in Loui Eriksson and a power forward to ponder in Milan Lucic, who also possesses a giant X-factor.

The Canucks were easy to play against. They acquired Erik Gudbranson to get rid of a free-fly zone in their own end and hope Nikita Tryamkin did more than just tease us late last season with a willingness to hit everybody and anybody.

Lucic would also provide a level of pushback that’s simply not there up front. Kyle Okposo is another option with less snarl, but any added offence combined with bark and bite is crucial. Derek Dorsett is willing and Jake Virtanen is young, but in the Pacific Division, the intimidation factor is heightened and the Sedins are always a target. So are others.