The Canuck Way Mailbag: Podkolzin, Sutter’s deal, 2021 offseason, more

The Vancouver Canucks have now won three of their first four games back from their hiatus due to COVID-19, but they are still behind Calgary and Montreal for the fourth and final playoff spot in the North Division — with games in hand on every team around them, mind you.

Whether we’re looking at Vancouver’s fifteen remaining games, or ahead to next season, I am again here to answer all of your Canucks-related questions.

It’s Jim Benning, and Brandon Sutter is 32 years old, so minimum, what, five or six-year deal? With a no-trade clause, no doubt. Probably in that $3-3.5 million range that JB loves to give. All joking aside, realistically speaking, that’s not going to happen, because Benning doesn’t have the cap space.

I don’t think Sutter should be offered a contract extension with the current outlook of the Canucks cap situation. Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, Olli Juolevi, and Kole Lind are all restricted free agents.

As of right now, there are only two (TWO!) NHL defencemen under contract in Vancouver next season; Tyler Myers, and Nate Schmidt. If we add Juolevi, Hughes, and hopefully Jack Rathbone to those two for next year, you still only have five. Does Jalen Chatfield, Brogan Rafferty, or newly acquired Madison Bowey take that six spot? Of those three, only Bowey is currently under contract for next year.

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If the Canucks are going to sign one of Travis Hamonic, Alex Edler, or Sutter, I’d like it to be Edler or even Hamonic.  I’m sure I can’t be the only one who thinks a defence core featuring Hughes, Rathbone, and Juolevi could be helped with a veteran.

Now, I do think Benning is going to sign Sutter, especially considering that Jay Beagle looks like he could land on the team’s LTIR to start next season. If Sutter is signed, he would get a one-year, $1 million deal. A good comparable for Sutter would be someone like Carl Soderberg, who signed that exact deal with Chicago coming into this season. Soderberg is three years older than Sutter but has had much better offensive production in the last few seasons.

If it can happen on the right deal, keeping Sutter instead would be preferable, but the last thing Vancouver needs is another player in his mid-thirties on a multi-year deal in the bottom six.

There are two ways I can see Ron Francis going when he approaches Vancouver during Seattle’s expansion draft this summer.

One, he can take Loui Eriksson. There is a salary-cap floor that Seattle has to reach, and next year would be Eriksson’s last at a $6 million cap hit. Unfortunately for Vancouver, Francis is not going to select Eriksson. He’s just not. If Francis is worried about reaching the cap floor, there are better options for Seattle.

Option two is taking a chance on a former top-10 pick who has underachieved at the NHL level; Jake Virtanen. Virtanen’s 2019-20 season saw him score on a 21-goal pace, but ‘Shotgun Jake’ has taken a huge step back this season, with just four points in 34 games. Virtanen also hasn’t registered an NHL assist since August 19, 2020.

You have to assume Benning is going to consider seven other Canuck forwards more valuable than Virtanen, leaving him exposed. Francis picking JV gives Seattle a player who could either return to top-six form, or a slightly overpaid fourth liner. It’s worth the gamble.

More mailbag Q&A

I mean, first of all, I have to state for the record; Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly, John Tavares, and William Nylander are all fantastic hockey players who any NHL team would be lucky to have.

Does the salary cap exist? If so, I wouldn’t take Marner, Tavares, or Matthews. Vancouver has a core of players that need to be built around, they don’t need to retroactively replace the superstars they have.

Like most Canuck fans, I really like the one-two punch of Pettersson and Horvat down the middle. Having Miller on the wing in the top six gives Vancouver the flexibility to play him as the third line centre in the future. The Canucks will be fine down the middle, meaning neither Tavares and Matthews would be my pick.

Looking at the Canucks’ roster, even a few years down the road, you see six legitimate top-six forwards; Horvat, Pettersson, Boeser, Miller, Hoglander, and Podkolzin, but… if you’re going to win the Stanley Cup, you have to have at least a top-nine who can contribute offensively. Assuming Miller would be Vancouver’s third-line centre, that opens up a spot at wing in the top-six.

If not for the stipulation that I couldn’t select Marner, he would be my choice. With him off-limits, I’d probably take Nylander. The 24-year old is a proven 30-goal, 60-point player, with a cap hit at $4 million less than Matthews and Marner.

The last thing that needs to be taken into consideration is Vancouver’s defence. The back-end could use a bolstering, and Toronto has three defencemen I’d consider; Rielly, Jake Muzzin, and T.J. Brodie. Muzzin and Brodie, while still being excellent two-way defencemen, aren’t special enough to justify taking over one of Toronto’s star forwards.

On the other hand, Rielly. The issue? His game is pure offence. Now, I’m not necessarily opposed to defencemen of that nature, they still contribute to the team in a big way, but do the Vancouver Canucks need a second Hughes? I’d argue they are better off adding a Marner or a Nylander, and finding a Muzzin or Brodie-Esque defenceman elsewhere.

Well, Mark, it’s not going to be pretty. Here’s my projection:

J.T. Miller – Elias Pettersson – Brock Boeser
Vasily Podkolzin – Bo Horvat – Nils Hoglander
Tanner Pearson – Brandon Sutter – Kole Lind
Tyler Motte – Matthew Highmore – Zack MacEwen

Quinn Hughes -Nate Schmidt
Alex Edler – Jack Rathbone
Olli Juolevi – Tyler Myers

Thatcher Demko
Braden Holtby

Scratches: Antoine Roussel, Madison Bowey

Edler gets signed on a discount (I’ll touch on that later), Hamonic walks, and Virtanen belongs to the Kraken. The only thing I didn’t do with this was add a defenceman; chances are, Benning is bringing someone in. I have stated before that I would support a return for Nikita Tryamkin, but there are reports that his agent considers him a “top-four NHL defenceman.”

Sorry, but I’m not giving Tryamkin north of $3 million after spending his last four years in the KHL. The other option is a low-risk low-reward free agent pickup; you could get Sami Vatanen, Zach Bogosian, Jon Merrill or others on a one-year deal between $900,000 and $1.5 million. With next year’s cap situation still looking bleak, the Canucks will likely have to roll with what they have.

More Mailbag Q&A

Here’s one thing I’m not going to touch with this: Politics. My opinions on Francesco Aquilini are entirely political. I’m not going to get into his apparent hesitation to spend money, because that’s not what this platform is for.

So, Aquilini aside…

There should be four main goals for Vancouver in the offseason, and they are named Pettersson, Hughes, Travis Green, and Ian Clark. Those four have been essential pieces to any relative success the Canucks have had since the beginning of the 2019-20 season, and the four will be important to any success the Canucks hope to have moving forward. Get those four signed, and get them signed ASAP. The rest can wait.

They might as well, yes.

To my knowledge, no. Last week, Benning said that the Canucks had “no timeline” regarding a Pettersson return, and that was after an appointment with a specialist.

Truth is, I don’t know, but hopefully, Pettersson can return to help the Canucks with a playoff push.

Yes, I think Edler is a Canuck next year. One year, $2 million. He can play with either Juolevi or Rathbone, providing stability for the youngsters.

Honestly, I see Edler retiring as a Vancouver Canuck. He has been a staple on the back-end for more than a decade and a half. He would have to take a major, major pay decrease – Edler is not worth any more than $2.5 million. His offensive production has completely dried up, and his defence is not what it used to be.

With that being said, he still has more to offer and contribute, and a one-year deal is low-risk, low-reward. I’d rather have him back than Hamonic, and I’d rather see him at $2 million than Tryamkin at above three.

That’s it for this week’s The Canuck Way Mailbag. If you want your questions answered, get them in next week. Ask a question when we drop the Tweet every Friday.