Most Canucks fans are aware of the big battles at Canucks training camp. Can Brock Boeser and/or Nikolay Goldobin out-battle the other skilled wingers to earn a spot in the lineup despite being exempt from going through waivers? Connected to that battle is the question of who will play with the Sedins or join Bo Horvat on the de facto new first line?
Then there’s the big battle that has barely been broached at practice, as the team has focussed on even-strength drills: who will play on the power play and which unit — the Sedin unit or the Horvat unit — will get the most ice time?
Underneath those major bouts, however, is a minor skirmish that may have an outsized impact: the battle for who will be the Canucks eighth defenceman.
This battle may not sound particularly compelling, but it will have a ripple effect on the rest of the lineup. How this plays out could affect whether Boeser and Goldobin make the Canucks out of training camp. It could affect which players the Canucks risk losing on waivers.
If any Canucks defencemen on the bubble looked at the depth chart on defence, it must have been disheartening. It’s not just that the top-six is set in stone, but it seems like the top-seven is as well. Between Alex Edler, Chris Tanev, Ben Hutton, Troy Stecher, Erik Gudbranson, Michael Del Zotto, and Patrick Wiercioch, there isn’t much of an opportunity to get in the lineup unless an injury strikes.
That leaves just one spot open on defence: the eighth spot.
The first thing to note is that the Canucks don’t have to carry eight defencemen. The issue, however, is that it’s much harder to pressgang a forward into playing defence than it is the other way around. If two forwards get injured before a game and you have just one extra forward, a defenceman can fairly seamlessly step in on the fourth line, as we saw multiple times last season. If two defencemen get injured and you have just one extra defenceman, you’re stuck playing a full game with just five defencemen.
I talked to some people at camp that seem fairly certain the Canucks will carry eight defencemen for exactly this reason. If they do, then the Canucks can only carry 13 forwards. They already have 13 waiver-eligible forwards, assuming Jayson Megna and Michael Chaput get sent down to Utica.
That means, for Brock Boeser and/or Nikolai Goldobin to make the roster out of training camp, someone like Reid Boucher or Anton Rodin will have to go on waivers, where they might get claimed.
The Canucks have a few options for that eighth defenceman spot. Fans might want to see Olli Juolevi make the team, but it seems more likely he’ll head to Finland for the season, foregoing a nine-game audition in the regular season.
Another option is Evan McEneny. The 23-year-old defenceman is waiver eligible for the first time in his career. Last season in Utica, he earned the trust of Travis Green and defence coach Nolan Baumgartner, to the point that he was even playing on the first power play unit ahead of Jordan Subban.
His excellent play earned him a one-game call-up to the Canucks last season, where he did not look out of place. His steady, reliable play could be a good fit for the tough role of eighth defenceman, which tends to involve a lot of sitting in the press box until suddenly being pressed into action.
While he’s waiver eligible, however, he’s unlikely to get claimed. As Patrick Johnston points out in his article on McEneny, the Vegas Golden Knights have 11 defencemen requiring waivers; teams looking for defensive help will likely look towards Vegas rather than the defenceman with one NHL game under his belt. In addition, if the Canucks see McEneny having a future with the organization, they may want him to play more minutes than he’d get in the NHL this season.
Instead, the Canucks could look to the Swedish defenceman they signed last May: Philip Holm. The mobile defensive defenceman has turned some heads at training camp and is doing his best to erase the bad taste in the mouths of Canucks fans for defencemen signed out of Europe named “Philip" with one "L.”
Holm can skate and move the puck effectively and has a fan in Henrik Sedin, who said, “He’s going to be a surprise to a lot of people.”
In addition, if he’s the Canucks’ eighth defenceman, he won’t be in Utica taking away prime ice time from younger prospects. See, Holm is already 25 years old, right around the time when it really becomes a stretch to refer to someone as a “prospect.”
Despite being two years older than McEneny, however, Holm is exempt from waivers, as this is his first NHL contract. That means he could be very easily sent to the AHL and called up at a later date, which hurts his chances of staying in the NHL out of camp.
But, speaking of defencemen you might not want in Utica taking away ice time from prospects, there is one more possibility for the role of eighth defenceman: Alex Biega.
By some statistical measures, Biega was one of the worst players in the entire NHL last season. Dawson Spriging’s Goals Above Replacement stat pegged Biega as the fourth worst defenceman in the league and, since it’s a cumulative stat, if he had played more than 36 games, he would have been even lower.
Biega has earned the nickname “Bulldog” because of his hard-working, gritty effort on the ice. Unfortunately, that effort cannot make up for the fact that he should be in the AHL. He’s a very good AHL defenceman.
Therein lies the rub: if he plays for Utica, he plays top minutes, minutes that the Canucks might prefer go to Jordan Subban, Jalen Chatfield, or Evan McEneny. With the Canucks, the coaching staff can keep him in the press box and know that as soon as they put Biega in a game, he’ll play his heart out.
Ideally, Biega would get waived and play for the Comets, but Canucks fans should brace themselves for the possibility that he is on the opening night roster.
