With the departure of Daniel Rios, the Whitecaps only have one striker over the age of 20. This has led to a more experienced centre-forward being on a lot of people’s offseason wishlists. It’s certainly a position that raises some interesting questions for the Whitecaps, and MLS teams more broadly. Let’s get into it.

We Have Striker Depth at Home

It’s first worth asking if a depth striker is strictly necessary. It all comes down into how much faith you have in youngsters Rayan Elloumi and Nelson Pierre. Elloumi was absolutely cracked in MLSNP, scoring at a level that few if any players his age have in the league’s short history. When he signed a first team deal he picked up right where he left off. Elloumi played a shade under 400 minutes, bagging 2 goals and adding 2 assists. His underlings were also really strong, though obviously this is a tiny sample size. So, for now at least, Elloumi has my confidence. Nelson Pierre is a bit more complicated.

Here is Nelson Pierre’s player radar for the full MLSNP season.

This looks like a perfectly competent 3rd choice striker, especially considering he’s only 20. But here is the radar only taking into account games after the Whitecaps moved him to the first team:

That’s not good! Did he take his foot off the gas? Was he playing hurt? It’s not possible for us in the public to guess. But, it’s clear that Pierre has a little more to prove than Elloumi, despite being the older player.

We also need to consider that the Whitecaps are going to play a lot of games next year. In a disaster scenario where the Whitecaps crash out of every competition they are in and miss the MLS playoffs, they’ll still have 41 games to play next year. At the other end of the scale, if they reach the final of every competition they are in, needing 3 games to get through the first round of the MLS playoffs, winning the CONCACAF Champions Cup to qualify for the Intercontinental Cup and then getting to the final of that, they’d play 63 games. Obviously neither of these extreme examples are that likely, but no matter what ends up happening, that’s a lot of games. When you consider that Brian White will be 30 by the time the season starts and has already struggled with injury, you can see an argument for more cover.

But we are not done considering things yet! The Whitecaps only have two open senior roster spots. They clearly require another centre-midfielder and probably at least one more winger. That means that there needs to be some level of prioritization. Considering that Elloumi looks excellent and that Thomas Müller and Emmanuel Sabbi have both played a number of games in their career at the striker position, striker would be the lowest priority for me.

Of course, space could be created by moving someone out. I’ve talked about JC Ngando making sense as a player to be traded as he’s good but will always be behind Müller, Ryan Gauld, and seemingly now Kenji Cabrera as well. There’s also a bit of a glut at centre-back at the moment. But anybody else probably creates a new chain of problems that would need to be solved.

The Striker Problem:

Every year teams spend millions upon millions of dollars on strikers and almost every single one of them ends up being worse than Brian White, a former NCAA player who the Whitecaps acquired for 400k in GAM. A striker’s success, perhaps more so than any other position on the field, is contingent on a system that allows them to thrive. I would argue that it therefore makes sense to invest most of your money in the system and find a striker who can thrive in it. But apart from a few teams, hardly anybody does this. If you’re a GM and you start the year with all your strikers being corn-fed NCAA grads with decent off-ball movement, and it fails you look like an idiot and an unambitious one at that. Whereas if you drop 10 million on a striker you get fawning coverage for how “ambitious” your team is. If the second strategy fails, it’s only later that it becomes apparent, whereas the former will see you pilloried until it succeeds so unambiguously it cannot be denied.

Who is the Brian White of Now?

What we’re looking for is a player who, if MLS operated a bit more rationally, would probably be playing a lot more. I think looking at internal options makes the most sense. The Whitecaps have limited flexibility as it stands. So, if you’re paying real money for someone who fits under the cap they are probably going to be unproven in some way. I’m not saying it’s impossible there’s a player out there who could make sense but, as I see it, the purpose of adding another striker right now would be to get a known quantity. I see a few potential options who would fit the bill nicely.

Preston Judd/26/San Jose Earthquakes

Preston Judd’s numbers were cracked in USL, and they’ve been equally cracked in MLS. But, despite this, the most MLS minutes he has ever played is 1048 (it was this most recent season, he had 9 goal contributions in that time!). He’s under contract through 2027 with an option for 2028 and made only 234k last season. All of this makes him a very attractive trade target.

Mason Toye/27/Free Agent*

You don’t need to give up any assets to get Mason Toye. Last year Toye put up 0.5 xG+xA per game on the tragically bad Sporting Kansas City. Toye has played for 4 MLS teams, his scoring rate has always been amazing, and yet he’s never even cracked the 1000 minutes barrier in league play. Does he microwave fish in the training centre or something? He only made 392,000 last year and probably wouldn’t command much more than that. Unless he actually does have some kind of personal defect, I don’t see why an MLS team looking for a striker wouldn’t just sign him and play him a bit more.

*Curse of the commentator here. The same day this article was published Florian Pettenberg reported that Mason Toye will be signing with F.C Ingolstadt.

Jacen Russell-Rowe/23/Columbus Crew

Russell-Rowe could be described as a “young veteran.” He is only 23, but this will be his 5th MLS season. He has been a good to great rate scorer in each season. He played 1700 minutes in 2025, which is a lot more than Judd or Toye, so he might be harder to pry away. He also presents some interesting cap questions. He was on the supplemental roster for Columbus last season, so the Whitecaps potentially wouldn’t have to burn a senior roster spot on him. But he’s also in the last year of that contract, so you would either need to re-sign him (for a lot more) or treat him purely as a rental. I have to imagine it would be a challenge for the ‘Caps to re-sign him given their current cap situation, creating greater risk that he would be a one and done.

(Image: Vancouver Whitecaps FC)