VANCOUVER – It wasn’t entirely crickets and disappointment around the Vancouver Canucks on trade deadline day. On the bright side, at least the Edmonton Oilers didn’t acquire Sidney Crosby.

Protective of the prospects he has developed and with barely enough deadline cap space to make a run to Tim Hortons, Canuck general manager Patrik Allvin was unable to close any deals Friday to further boost a team that has led the Pacific Division for 70 days and been near the top of the National Hockey League all season.

This meant the Canucks, still comfortably ahead of the Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights on points in the division standings with 17 regular-season games remaining, lost ground to their key rivals.

The Oilers this week added Adam Henrique, Sam Carrick and Troy Stecher. The Knights loaded up on Noah Hanifin and Anthony Mantha, and then detonated deadline day when they acquired Tomas Hertl in the final minutes before the trading buzzer.

The defending Stanley Cup champion Knights can also look forward to the return from injury of key defenceman Alec Martinez and, possibly for the playoffs, two-way star Mark Stone.

But their parade-route planning for a championship repeat is complicated by the trifling necessity of qualifying for the playoffs. Since starting the season 11-0-1, the Golden Knights are 22-23-6 and currently cling to the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference. With 73 points, they trail the Oilers by five and the Canucks by 16.

In the wild-card race, Vegas is six points ahead of the Calgary Flames, Seattle Kraken and St. Louis Blues, and two of those teams have a game in hand on the Knights. And just to rain a little more on their projected parade, until Hertl gets healthy and proves otherwise, the most impactful thing he brings to Nevada is the final six seasons of the $65.1-million contract the San Jose Sharks bestowed upon him two years ago.

All this said, the only path for the Canucks in the upcoming playoffs is through their division and the Oilers and Knights (if they wake up) may well be as formidable on the ice in late April as they look on paper today.

So, no, Friday was not a great day for the Canucks, although at least they will be immune from any buyer’s regret.

“I didn’t want to risk (chemistry),” Allvin told reporters at Rogers Arena, “and I feel that the group we have here and the team we have here have played so well together, and they continue to find ways to win games and continue to improve.

“We already parted ways with a lot of draft picks leading up to this point. As I said, we’re sitting here with 89 points and the players that have been on the roster . . . they’ve done a really good job, and they deserve to finish off here.”

Allvin said there was “definitely a big demand” from other teams for the Canucks’ top prospects, including the prized Swedish duo of Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Tom Willander and minor-leaguers like Aatu Raty and Arshdeep Bains.

“Again, I think this is a balance of . . . today’s Vancouver Canucks and next year’s and the following years,” Allvin explained. “I think this is a process that we started getting in here two years ago, and we’re not finished. We’re not satisfied, we’re always trying to get better and improve. Would I like to have another player here today? Yeah, sure.”

And they could have had at least one but chose not to sign three-time Stanley Cup champion and future beer-leaguer Phil Kessel, who played in Pittsburgh for Allvin and Canucks president Jim Rutherford and spent the last three weeks trying to skate himself into shape under the organization’s watch in nearby Abbotsford.

A free agent out of hockey this season and with his last NHL game 10 1/2 months ago – when Vegas started healthy-scratching Kessel on its way to the title – the 36-year-old did not deserve to dislodge a player from the bottom of a Canuck roster that has outperformed all expectations this season.

“I think Phil is a great person and a well-respected player,” Allvin said. “What he has done in the league, a three-time Cup winner. (He) wanted to come back to play and, as I said, with being in LTIR (and) roster complications and how we want to play, unfortunately at this point it wasn’t a fit for us.”

So, that at least was a win for the Canucks.

The way coach Rick Tocchet demands Vancouver plays, with a premium on speed, positioning and aggressive forechecking, Kessel never did make much sense as an option at this stage of his career. He is no longer a top-nine winger.

Unfortunately for Allvin, the Canucks weren’t able to add anyone else to fill that need.

But it should be remembered that the GM made his big roster additions during the winter – long ahead of the deadline rush and bidding wars – acquiring marquee rental Elias Lindholm on Jan. 31 and towering defenceman Nikita Zadorov on Nov. 30.

Had Allvin made those same trades this week, he’d have been lauded for his bold determination in going “all in” to try to win this spring. Teams like the Oilers and Golden Knights, as well as other Western Conference powers like the Colorado Avalanche and Winnipeg Jets, have merely caught up to the Canucks with their own lineup upgrades. Time will tell if some of these teams actually surpassed Vancouver.

The Canucks open a massive nine-game homestand Saturday against the Jets, who on Friday landed the scoring winger, Tyler Toffoli, Vancouver could have used. The Jets acquired Toffoli from the New Jersey Devils in exchange for second- and third-round draft picks – currency the Canucks could not afford.

Allvin has made seven trades since the eve of training camp in September, subtracting a total of five draft picks, including a first-rounder in the Lindholm blockbuster. The Canucks lack first-, second- and fourth-round picks in June, and have already traded their third-round slots in 2025 and 2026.

Allvin acknowledged the Pacific Division got “way harder” this week.

“We have tremendous respect for other teams in our division,” he said. “(But) nothing has really changed. We know how hard it is, we know how they play, we know how we need to play in order to have success, and I know the coaches are working on that to focus on our game and our way of hockey to play to be successful. And again, we’ve shown it up to this point. Are we pleased or satisfied? Not at all. I think there is another level and I think our players are learning that.”