Vancouver Canucks: How much will Jake Virtanen get in his next deal?

Jake Virtanen is having a great season with the Vancouver Canucks. His current deal does not expire until 2020, but it might be worth exploring what his next contract could look like and the implications involved.

The Vancouver Canucks are in a rather interesting position. Jake Virtanen has had an interesting journey to this point. From the local kid taken sixth overall, to winning World Junior Gold and being blamed for an early exit the following year.

After being rushed to the NHL, Virtanen was a little lost. He wasn’t taking his pro career as seriously as he could and his lone season in Utica was uninspiring to say the least. Most Canucks fans (including me) were seriously doubting an NHL career for him and waited to see what we could salvage.

That’s where Travis Green comes in. The guy may frustrate me, but I give him full credit for not giving up on Jake. Last season, it seemed like the kid from Abbotsford would be confined to a bottom six role for the foreseeable future.

But that has changed this year. Top six minutes, time on the power play and earning the coach’s trust to the point of being used when the team is down by one and needs a desperate goal. Although the team has had leads fewer times this year, Jake is also used to hang on to those leads.

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Currently, Virtanen is on pace for 24 goals and 36 points. He is making $1.25 million this season and next year, which is a bargain for that kind of production. Considering a $3 million player just got his first goal of the season yesterday and a Loui Eriksson goal costs more than $1 million each, it’s nice to see the team get some bang for their buck. I didn’t forget about Bo Horvat or Elias Pettersson either. Although, Pettersson is on an ELC, so it’s not like any negotiating skill was involved there.

So, let’s operate on the assumption that Jake is a 20-goal scorer by the end of the season. Virtanen is not an RFA until 2020, but the Canucks might try and get ahead of the curve and sign him to a bridge at the end of this season.

Is that the best idea? Probably not. They were already “burned” by the Ben Hutton deal even though he has “turned it around.” The only difference with Hutton is conditioning and Benning projected Hutton to be a 50-point defenceman. That’s not going to happen.

I still think it’s a good idea to wait. Case in point is Brock Boeser. On his rookie season alone, Boeser could command a scary amount of money. The Canucks were fortunate in a way that injuries caused a slow start to his sophomore season. Boeser is still on pace for 70 points over 82 games, but that slow start will help knock the price down. William Nylander‘s cleverly structured deal should help as well.

The Canucks will likely get a discount on Boeser because of that injury. That’s why it won’t hurt to wait. They can see if Jake can duplicate what he is doing now and won’t get burned by rushing to sign. Virtanen has arbitration rights and I know Jim Benning is afraid of those.

Jake has a good case to use Sven Baertschi‘s deal as a starting point ($3.66 million/year). If he can become a 20-goal scorer (something Baertschi has yet to do) and match Baertschi’s points totals from the past, it would be hard to argue against it. However, Jake is riding a shooting percentage of 13 when his past seasons hover around 7%. Then again, Baertschi has coasted on higher shooting percentages with the Canucks.

So, how do the final numbers work out? It depends on what happens. If the team doesn’t wait, then I expect Jake to get Baertschi money on a two-year deal. Although, if Jake can duplicate this season, then he is due for that kind of money anyway. Given that Benning just went for a six-year deal with Horvat since he felt the number was high enough, that could be a route the Canucks go with Virtanen assuming next season turns out just as well.

The last scenario is that the team waits and Jake comes up short the following year. I would like to think the team could get Virtanen below $2.75 million per year on a bridge deal, but this is Jim Benning we’re talking about. We might be lucky to get him under $3 million if it goes to arbitration. That’s why we complain about the bad contracts on the team. It’s death by a thousand cuts and overpaying poor veteran players hurts your salary structure in the long run.

The last management group was able to negotiate their best players to below market value deals. I don’t expect the current group to do the same. Overpaying is the name of the game and nearly every contract is bloated in some way.

The only Benning deals that are acceptable belong to Chris Tanev (negotiated by Laurence Gilman) and Bo Horvat (whose agent was grinning at a six-year deal). Don’t expect Jake to take a home town discount. That’s not fair of us to expect that from him. He should try to make as much money as possible. It’s the spineless manager that will be at fault for bad contracts. Jake has a an opportunity to cash in and if he keeps playing like this, he shouldn’t have a problem later on.