The Vancouver Canucks need to make moves this off-season that is a given, how will they do it when they are maxed up on contracts going into free agency, I look at all of the RFA’s and UFA’s upcoming this offseason.
The Vancouver Canucks have 50/50 contracts currently signed until July 1st when their UFA’s will reach free agency and they will need to make some decisions when it comes to their RFA’s. They currently have 12 upcoming RFA’s and nine pending UFA’s.
(Numbers are per CapFriendy.com)
Roster forwards:
- Loui Eriksson three more years at $6 million
- Bo Horvat four more years at $5.5 million
- Tanner Pearson two more years at $3.75 million
- Sven Baertschi three more years at $3.366 million
- Ryan Spooner one more year at $3.1 million
- Antoine Roussell three more years at $3 million
- Jay Beagle three more years at $3 million
- Tim Schaller one more year at $1.9 million
- Markus Granlund RFA
- Jake Virtanen one more year at $1.25 million
- Tyler Motte RFA
- Josh Leivo RFA
- Elias Pettersson two more years @ $925,000
- Brock Boeser RFA
- Adam Gaudette one more year @ $916,666
- Nikolay Goldobin RFA
On defence, the Canucks have Alexander Edler (UFA), Christopher Tanev, Ben Hutton (RFA), Troy Stecher Josh Teves (RFA), Derrick Pouliot (RFA), Quintin Hughes, Alex Biega Luke Schenn (UFA), Guillaume Brisebois, Ashton Sautner and Brogan Rafferty (RFA).
Roster goalies, injured reserve, more forwards
The Canucks have, Jacob Markstrom, Thatcher Demko and Jake Kielly. On injured Reserve, the Canucks are carrying Brandon Sutter and Yan-Pavel Laplante. Non-roster forwards include Tom Pyatt, Kole Lind, Lukas Jasek, Zack MacEwen, Petrus Palmu Jonah Gadjovich, Brendan Gaunce, Tanner Kero and Reid Boucher RFA.
If the Canucks chose to not resign anyone (dumb idea, but just for the sake of argument) they would be down to 29 contracts. But we know that won’t be the case so let’s go over who the Canucks should keep or toss.
Lets Start with the AHL depth
Walk – Mazanec and Leighton
Mazanec played 10 games for Utica and had an underwhelming 2.99 GAA and a .874 SV%. Leighton played 18 games for Utica and had an average 2.70 GAA and a .901 SV%
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Mazanec and Leighton were brought in for goaltending relief after the Nilsson trade, the Demko injury and Richard Bachman going down. These two aren’t anywhere in the plans and so it’s an easy decision to see them walk with our goaltending situation looking brighter with every DiPietro victory.
Keep – Evan McEneny
McEneny led the Utica Comets in Blue line scoring and was fifth team-wide this past season with 31 point in 58 games, eight goals and 23 assists.
Olli Juolevi looked poised to lead the back end but an unfortunate injury kept him sidelined. The prospect of Juolevi coming up for a taste of NHL action means that scoring from the back end will be lacking in Utica, the Canucks should definitely look to re-sign him.
Keep – Reid Boucher
Boucher is a confusing case, with 31 goals and 31 assists he continues to improve each season, but he just can’t seem to make the jump up into pro play. He is an RFA and his minor numbers are just so consistent that I can’t see the Canucks giving up on him for nothing. He deserves one more training camp to prove that he has what it takes to be an actual late bloomer in this league. Signing Boucher back is a no-brainer.
Toss-up – Tanner Kero
This is the same argument that goes for Boucher, the unfortunate part for Tanner Kero is that even with the injuries to the Canucks he still got no love from the Big Club. Since playing eight games with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2017 he hasn’t gotten a chance to play with a big club and our needs at center ice don’t seem to fit him. He would be an obvious boost to the Utica Comets and that alone should be enough for the Canucks to try to resign him. For the right price of course, if not, let him walk — he’s already 26.