In the first year of the Jim Benning-Trevor Linden era, Canucks management made a priority of building additional forward depth.
Last summer the club renovated their forward lines entirely, bringing in the likes of Nick Bonino, Derek Dorsett and Linden Vey in a flurry of trades and signing Radim Vrbata in free agency. The project continued at the deadline when the club flipped a pick to the Calgary Flames for Sven Baertschi.
In the regular season Vancouver’s depth additions paid off, as first-year coach Willie Desjardins rolled four lines equitably and with great success. In the playoffs though, the club’s depth was exposed, as only the Sedin twins managed to win their territorial battle in a six game playoff series loss to the Flames.
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Though the Sedins are getting long in the tooth, they still provide the Canucks with a top-end first line. Beyond the club’s two aging stars though, Vancouver is lacking the sort of secondary quality that’s required to make any significant noise in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Today we take a look at potential forward options for the Canucks, starting inside the organization.
Where things stand
The Canucks have nine forwards signed to one-way NHL contracts for next season, including: Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Vrbata, Alex Burrows, Dorsett, Jannik Hansen, Chris Higgins, Bonino and Zack Kassian. 20-year-old centreman Bo Horvat is on an entry-level contract, but he’s a shoe-in to make the club again this fall after his impressive rookie campaign.
Those 10 signed forwards carry a combined annual average value of over $35.5 million.
Pending unrestricted free agents Brad Richardson and Shawn Matthias will probably head out the door to bigger paydays with other teams, though Benning hasn’t closed the door on either player returning yet.
“I’ve reached out to (Matthias’ and Richardon’s) agents this last week,” Benning told Sportsnet on Wednesday. “We’ve kept in contact with their agents, I don’t know if at the end of the day we’re going to get something done, but we’re talking to them. So we’ll see where it ends up.”
If Richardson and Matthias do indeed leave, the club possesses a couple of young, affordable candidates to pick up some of the slack in Horvat and Baertschi. The Canucks can also fill out their roster with a handful of eminently affordable restricted players, a group that includes Vey, Ronalds Kenins, Brandon McMillan, Alexandre Grenier, Cory Conacher, and Alex Friesen.
If the Canucks have a glaring need up front, it’s a lack of depth down the middle of their forward group. This issue will be exacerbated by the likely loss of Richardson (a full-time pivot) and Matthias (who can fill in at centre when injuries pile up).
“I think (Vey) can (hold down a bottom-six role as a full-time centre),” Benning told Sportsnet. “This was his first year in the league and a really good learning experience for him…
“Now he knows the speed and the strength of the NHL players, and I expect him to come back and be better next season.”
Even if Vey takes a major step forward this summer, adding another capable NHL-level pivot would seem to be an obvious area of need for the club.
It’ll also be worth watching whether or not the sixth overall pick at the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, Jake Virtanen, can push for a fourth-line spot next season. Surely he’s helped his cause by looking like he belongs in the AHL playoffs with the Utica Comets over the past month.
“He’s going to have to come in and earn a spot and if he’s good enough to earn a spot, he might be on that fourth line,” Benning told Sportsnet, while praising Virtanen’s NHL-ready speed and physical play. “So he’s going to have to do those things that good fourth liners do.”
Aiming high
Unless the Canucks shed a significant amount of committed salary on the draft floor, they’re going to be too cash strapped to make a serious offer for the bigger name unrestricted free agent centremen like Antoine Vermette, Carl Soderberg or Mike Ribeiro.
On the trade market, it’s possible that players like Ryan O’Reilly, Tyler Bozak, or Zach Smith and Kyle Chipchura on the lower-end could be moved to the highest bidder this off-season.
O’Reilly may be the sort of player worth selling the farm for, but it seems a stretch to imagine that the Canucks have the required blue-line assets to be a serious player in those trade talks.
Established free agents
The Canucks might lack the assets and flexibility to complete a blockbuster trade or pursue a marquee free agent, but there are a handful of decent lower-tier options that will shake loose on July 1.
Vancouver-born former Canuck Mike Santorelli could be a good fit, particularly because he can play on the wing or at centre, but he’d surely have to be willing to take a hometown discount to make it work.
Montreal Canadiens mercenary Torrey Mitchell made himself a lot of money with his game-breaking performance in the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs and he’d fit the bill as a versatile bottom-six forward who can add a speed element to the Canucks’ forward group.
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If the Canucks are looking for a more typical fourth-line centre, there are a variety of options, including Jay Beagle, Gregory Campbell, Marcel Goc and Jim Slater.
Vancouver could also do a lot worse than pursuing Ottawa Senators forward Erik Condra – a quietly useful depth winger, who will be available and reasonably affordable this summer.
Buying low
Especially as a result of continued salary cap uncertainty, the Canucks may have to get creative and go dumpster diving on the secondary free agent market.
Every summer there are generally some sharp low cost, no-risk bets to be made, and this off-season won’t be any different.
Toronto Maple Leafs centre Trevor Smith, for example, is an unrestricted free agent who is unlikely to generate a high level of interest on the market. The 30-year-old pivot is a productive AHL forward whose offensive game hasn’t translated at the NHL level, although he managed some respectable defensive results on a bad team last season.
Smith is not a game breaker by any stretch of the imagination, but he can hang with NHL-caliber players and he also won 52.6 percent of his defensive zone faceoffs at 5-on-5.
Finally the Canucks could look to bet on a veteran looking to rebuild their value with a short-term deal. It might contravene the Canucks’ ‘get younger’ mandate, but players like Martin Erat or Michael Ryder may still have some serviceable hockey in them.
