The Canucks had a few clear needs heading into free agency. First and foremost, they needed a backup goaltender; of secondary importance, a replacement for the Vegas-bound Luca Sbisa; thirdly, another forward to improve their depth. Really, only the first was truly necessary.
Then, like Louis CK, the Canucks edged towards the line, then plowed right through it. They ended up far more active on the first day of free agency than anyone expected them to be. Simultaneously, Jim Benning avoided making obvious mistakes: no overpayments to big name free agents, no long-term contracts that might hamper rebuilding efforts, no objectively terrible players.
Taken individually, the Canucks moves on the first day of free agency (and one the night before) all make good sense. From a rebuilding perspective, each signing has upside and could eventually be traded to acquire additional assets or incorporated into the rebuild.
The issue is less with the individual signings and more with all of them together. That’s a lot of players added to the roster when the Canucks are looking to incorporate more of their youth into the lineup.
It started with Anton Rodin on the eve of free agency. The beleaguered winger deserves another chance to prove himself, but the Canucks have added several other skilled wingers since bringing him over from Sweden last year.
Brock Boeser, Nikolay Goldobin, Jonathan Dahlen, and Reid Boucher will all be battling with Rodin for a spot on the roster. It’s certainly a better problem to have than the converse, but it seems unlikely that all of them will fit.
And then the Canucks added another forward: Sam Gagner. Coming off a 50-point season, Gagner could command more than his one-year, $650,000 contract from last year, but the Canucks did well not to overpay, getting him for three years at $3.15 million per year.
Gagner can play at centre or on the wing and provides scoring pop missing from the lineup over the last couple seasons, but he also potentially pushes prospects out of the lineup. It looks pretty much impossible for Jonathan Dahlen to make the Canucks out of training camp next season, for instance.
To top it off, the Canucks signed one more forward, centre Alexander Burmistrov. The former eighth-overall pick is a good gamble on a cheap, one-year contract, but who comes out of the lineup to make room for him? Brendan Gaunce? Reid Boucher?
To be fair, you might not even see this as a problem. The Canucks couldn’t score last season — any move to improve the forward group and make them a little more likely to put the puck in the net is a good one, even if it means some fringe players get bumped to waivers. Some might see the possibility of Gaunce and Boucher getting bumped off the roster and shrug.
Perhaps the bigger question is on defence, where it made perfect sense to add one defenceman, so the Canucks added two.
They started with Michael Del Zotto, who has issues in the defensive zone, but makes up for it in the offensive zone and on the powerplay. Del Zotto ought to be a fit on the third pairing and, if his $3 million cap hit is a little high for a third-pairing defenceman, it’s lower than Sbisa’s and is only for two years.
Then, after finding what they were looking for, they went rifling through the bargain bin and came up with Patrick Wiercioch, a potential steal on a one-year, league-minimum deal.
The two defencemen will make it tough for any of the Canucks prospect defencemen to make the team. Combined with Alex Edler, Chris Tanev, Ben Hutton, Erik Gudbranson, and Troy Stecher, that’s already seven defencemen.
Again, maybe you don’t see this as a problem. The Canucks defence was a weakness last season and they didn’t just need to replace Sbisa, but also Nikita Tryamkin. There’s just a thought that they could replace one of them from within. Between Olli Juolevi, Andrey Pedan, Evan McEneny, and Philip Holm, the Canucks ought to be able to find one NHL defenceman.
The one signing that doesn’t raise questions is Anders Nilsson: the Canucks needed a goaltender to backup or platoon with Jacob Markstrom, so they signed his identical twin brother from another mother. The two 27-year-old, 6’6” Swedish goaltenders will each look to prove that they can be the number one goaltender for the next couple years until Thatcher Demko takes the mantle.
There are plenty of positives to see in the Canucks’ free agent signings. They seem to have been influenced by analytics, a big change from previous years. They portend a training camp that sees battles between truly skilled players rather than grinders battling for a fourth-line role. The emphasis on offensively-capable players promises a more entertaining team to watch. And the signings give the Canucks more options on the power play with the addition of Gagner and Del Zotto and the retention of Rodin.
But they still added an unusual number of players in their late-twenties for a rebuilding team that is looking to get younger and it raises the question of whether there will be room in the lineup for some of the young players Canucks fans want to see.
All told, it was a good and busy day for Benning, signing multiple perfectly reasonable contracts that promise to make the Canucks a more enjoyable team to watch next season. It just seemed to be a lot busier of a day than it needed to be.
