Vancouver Canucks Should Avoid Long-Term Contract for UFA

The Vancouver Canucks want to make a splash in July 1 free acency, but they need to be careful in the process.

For the Vancouver Canucks, the 2016 offseason is an interesting one. Not only because they had a terrible season that resulted in a high draft pick, but also because they want to make the playoffs next year. Despite the terrible 2015-16 season.

General manager Jim Benning started things off with a blockbuster trade. He sent blue-chip prospect Jared McCann, a second and a fourth-round pick to the Florida Panthers in exchange for defenseman Erik Gudbranson and a fifth-rounder. But, he is not close to being done.

As Benning stated in a recent interview, he wants to acquire two forwards in free agency:

1. A 20 to 30-goal scorer
2. A two-way forward

It is not 100 percent clear whether he indeed wants those traits in two separate forwards or combined in one. St. Louis Blues forward and Vancouver native Troy Brouwer, for example, is a middle-six two-way forward who had three 20-goal seasons in his career. The most recent was the 2014-15 campaign with 21 tallies.

However, for a long time it has been rumored that Benning wants two players, one scorer and one two-way guy for the bottom six. Most of that stems from the belief that Milan Lucic would like to return to Vancouver and that Swede Loui Eriksson wouldn’t mind playing with his Team Sweden linemates Henrik and Daniel Sedin. Plus, guys like Brouwer or Andrew Ladd have had 20-goal seasons, but they are steadily declining and likely wouldn’t score 20 or 30 on the Canucks next season.

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With that, the focus seems to have turned to the aforementioned Lucic and Eriksson. The problem: their contract demands.

Milan Lucic is 28, Loui Eriksson is 30. At that stage, players are just slightly past their peak. But, Lucic still has 20-plus-goal potential while Eriksson had 30 this year. Playing on a line with the Sedins, that is definitely repeatable.

With that, both players likely demand and, in today’s NHL, deserve upward of $5 million annually. There is nothing wrong with that, because that is the price you have to pay if you want a top-six player in free agency. The annual salary really isn’t the issue here. The real problem is the term.

Lucic and Eriksson are top-six players today. But what about next year? What about two years from now? Will they still deserve to be in the top six in 2020?

The answer to that could certainly be ‘no’. Teams know that, but the players know it, too. They want to sign a last big, long-term contract, as long as they still can. If we trust reports and use our logic, six years sound like reasonable demands for both players. In addition, players often like no-trade or even no-movement clauses with those contracts.

Don’t do it, Benning. 

Six years with an annual average of $5-6 million is tempting. You don’t find 30-goal scorers or 20-goal power forwards in free agency very often. If that is the price you need to pay, so be it, no? No.

The Columbus Blue Jackets currently have two comparable players on their roster: Scott Hartnell and David Clarksson.

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Clarksson signed a seven-year deal in 2013, Hartnell signed his six-year contract in 2014. For seven years, Clarksson has an average salary of $5.25 million while Hartnell’s is $4.75 million. At the time, they were 29 and 31, respectively, and deserved their contracts as potential 30-goal scorers. Today, things are different.

While Clarksson was a big-time mistake that was obvious of the time of his signing, Hartnell still scored 23 goals and 49 points last season. But, he, too, is on the decline.

Once players hit 30, it is impossible to predict how they develop. Some keep playing like age is just a number — ever heard of this Jaromir Jagr guy? — while others perform much worse than in their late 20s. Once players decline but still have long-term contracts, teams are in trouble.

In the Canucks’ case, they could expose Eriksson or Lucic in the 2017 expansion draft, in case the player they picked up has a bad 2016-17 season. But if they keep him until after the expansion draft, they risk having a huge contract they just want to get rid of for the next five years.

Next: Top 5 UFA Fits with the Sedins

Having Alexandre Burrows at $4.5 million for one more year is bad enough. But having a 30-point Lucic or Eriksson at $6 million?

Let’s hope Benning watched carefully when Clarksson and Hartnell signed their deals.