Vancouver Canucks Youth on the Secondary Trade Market
By David Joun
It’s time the Vancouver Canucks get their hands dirty.
Signs from all around the NHL point to the Vancouver Canucks to make a trade. It’s not all about the Jonathan Drouins, the Travis Hamonics and the Steven Stamkoses, you know. Here is the first of the many questions going into the trade deadline.
Is any Canuck youth on the market?
In Elliotte Friedman’s 30 Thoughts a couple of weeks ago, it was about Nicklas Jensen, the Canucks’ first-round pick of the 2011 NHL Entry Draft.
"A couple of intriguing AHLers who might move are Nicklas Jensen(Vancouver) and Ty Rattie (St. Louis). Both are closing in on waiver eligibility."
Interesting. Because I was about to suggest the same thing.
The Canucks are teeming with young scoring wingers at nearly every level. At the NHL level, you got a sniper-playmaker hybrid in Sven Baertschi and a power forward in Jake Virtanen. At the NCAA level, you have a Brock Boeser who looks like the next star offensive forward for the Canucks.
But Jensen was a first-round pick, you know. One might forget about that when he is putting up 12 points in 27 games in the AHL — just four goals.
Jensen finds himself buried behind Hunter Shinkaruk (25 points in 27 games), Brendan Gaunce (18 points in 22 games), and even Alex Grenier (19 points in 33 games), a 6-foot-4 grinder. And all of them have been called up to the Canucks.
Except for Jensen.
So with this surplus of kids, and the fact that Jensen is hitting restricted free agency, Jensen is making himself the odd one out from this youth movement. Was Jensen ever liked by GM Jim Benning? The 22-year-old was drafted 27th overall by the former GM, Mike Gillis.
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How could Jensen be traded? Most likely, he is moved for another prospect of his calibre, similar to how the Arizona Coyotes traded F Lucas Lessio to the Montreal Canadiens for F Christian Thomas.
That was before the roster freeze. And with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs swapping prospects Jeremy Morin and Richard Panik just days after the freeze, the NHL trade market shows that it is still wide open for these trades.
Should Jensen fetch a defenceman of his calibre, it would be all smiles in Benning-land. That being said, Jensen is not the only one potentially on the move.
Linden Vey, Ronalds Kenins, Alex Friesen, Alexandre Grenier, Dane Fox, and Ludwig Blomstrand find themselves on the same page as Jensen, as forwards under 25 years of age on expiring contracts.
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Of those six, the first four would certainly bring good value in return.
Considering that Panik and Morin were both 24-year-old AHL forwards producing about .75 points per game, the six above-mentioned Canucks certainly do not live up to Morin’s, or Panik’s, value. But Vey, Kenins, and Grenier all have had NHL experience, and Friesen is close to getting his. They could all fetch nice returns, should Vancouver trade them.
Personally, I would like to see Vancouver give Grenier an extension. Kenins and Vey are best traded at the right value. Fox and Blomstrand are going to be tough to move for anything of worth, as they play in the ECHL. Friesen is best to stay in Utica to shore up AHL depth and to provide leadership while working up to the NHL. He is close.
Next: Trade Deadline Primer: The Future is Now
These kids could get traded for draft picks, for prospects, or be included in a larger package deal as a ‘sweetener’. Don’t expect to get a Drouin for a first rounder, Jensen, Vey, Kenins… no. But as Jim Benning has done last year with Patrick McNally, and with Alexandre Mallet the year before, Vancouver could, and should, flip some youth in case it strikes gold.