after less than a season in st. louis and at the trade deadline, courtnall, along with robert dirk, sergio momesso, cliff ronning, and future considerations, was traded to the vancouver canucks in exchange for garth butcher and dan quinn. this trade marked a major turning point for the canucks as these players were among the core that would lead the canucks on their run to the 1994 stanley cup finals. courtnall then played one more season in vancouver after the cup run of 1994 and went back to the st. louis for the start of the 1995–96 season. courtnall, in his second tenure with the blues, scored almost 80 goals over five seasons, but only played 30 games over his final two seasons as the result of several concussions, but reached the 1,000 game mark during the 1997–98 season in which he scored 31 goals in his last full season. after sitting out the last half of the 1998–99 season with a concussion he returned to the lineup the next season. few games into the 1999–2000 season, he suffered another concussion, which forced courtnall's retirement as a result of post-concussion syndrome.