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Qualifying offers for RFAs due Monday. What will Canucks do with DiPietro? |
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Now that the 2022 NHL draft is in the books, we have one more week of heavy hockey activity before things will settle down for a brief summer break.
For the first time in three years, teams are holding proper development camps over the next week — getting a look at where their prospects stand, and giving them a list of things to work on during their offseason training.
For the Canucks, the on-ice sessions will run from Monday through Thursday at UBC. The daily schedule runs from about 9:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or so, subject to change. The forwards and defence are broken into separate groups, and there is some overlap. No formal scrimmage is scheduled at this point.
There's also another important deadline looming on Monday — the last day to present qualifying offers to restricted free agents.
The Canucks have taken care of quite a few deals already, most notably Brock Boeser's new contract. But there are a few RFAs still to be addressed.
Juho Lammikko, Matthew Highmore and Justin Bailey are RFAs with arbitration rights. Michael DiPietro has no arbitration rights.
Selected by Vancouver in the third round in 2017, DiPietro is now 23 years old and has graduated from the Development Camp stage of his career.
The Canucks will have five goalies out at UBC:
• DiPietro's presumptive partner in Abbotsford next season, 21-year-old Arturs Silovs
• 2021 fifth-round pick Aku Koskenvuo, a 6'4" 19-year-old from Finland
• 2022 fifth-round pick Ty Young, a 6'3" 17-year-old who played in the AJHL and with the WHL's Prince George Cougars last year
• undrafted 21-year-old Samuel Richard, a 6-footer who had a .918 regular-season save percentage last year with Rouyn-Noranda in the QMJHL
• undrafted 19-year-old Brett Brochu, who's 5'11" and put up a .911 regular-season save percentage last season with the London Knights in the OHL. He also played in Canada's 11-2 win over Austria at the abbreviated World Junior Championship last December.
Despite being undersized for a goaltender in today's NHL, DiPietro seemed like he was on a solid development path until the pandemic turned everything sideways. He won a Memorial Cup with the Windsor Spitfires, then a silver medal with Canada at the 2019 World Junior Championship.
Then, he made a solid AHL debut in Utica in the 2019-20 season, putting up a record of 21-11-2 with a .908 save percentage and 2.79 goals-against average.
But goalies need game action, and he spent a good chunk of the 2020-21 season on the Canucks' taxi squad. When he got into four games in Utica, he did well, with a record of 3-1-0 and a .916 save percentage. And he brought home a gold medal from Latvia from the 2021 Men's World Championship, although he didn't see any minutes.
Last season, he got a good look in Abbotsford. Spencer Martin got the lion's share of the attention with his outstanding play, but DiPietro's record wasn't bad, at 15-13-5. It's the .901 save percentage and 2.95 goals-against average that may not have been enough to keep him front of mind in terms of Vancouver's goalie development plans.
With the crowded crease, Silovs didn't see a ton of game action: 10 games with Trois Rivieres in the ECHL, and 10 with Abbotsford, where he had a 3-6-0 record with an .888 save percentage and 3.10 GAA. But he has NHL size at 6'4'. And he stole the crease from Elvis Merzlikins with Team Latvia at the World Championship, finishing with a .952 save percentage and 1.22 goals-against average in four games and offering a glimpse of why the Canucks organization is excited about his future.
There hasn't been much talk at all about DiPietro's future with the Canucks. Without arbitration rights, there shouldn't be any issue in qualifying him: he was on a two-way contract last year that carried an $800,000 salary at the NHL level and $70,000 in the AHL.
But there is talk that the organization is looking to see if it can unearth another wily veteran like Spencer Martin to help out in Abbotsford this year.
With goalies at such a premium around the league, that might be a tough ask. But if the Canucks can find what they're looking for, it wouldn't be surprising to see DiPietro get a fresh start with a new organization — perhaps even before he inks his next deal.
It may also be worth noting that DiPietro was drafted by the Canucks while goaltending guru Ian Clark was still with the Columbus Blue Jackets. So he's not one of 'Clark's guys,' while Silovs is.
Meanwhile, the organization is in need of a new AHL goaltending coach. After four years as a goaltending consultant with Utica and then a year as goaltending coach in Abbotsford, Curtis Sanford announced on July 5 that he's moving on up to the NHL, as the Toronto Maple Leafs' new goalie coach — whoever the Leafs' goalies turn out to be next season.
As for the three RFAs with arbitration rights, it's possible that the Canucks could choose not to qualify any of them. Technically, that makes the player an unrestricted free agent but as we've seen in the past, that course of action can also be taken to improve the club's contract leverage, rather than risking the threat of an arbitration ruling that might be more than a team can fit into its budget.
Lammikko and Highmore, both 26, served as part of a useful energy line when Bruce Boudreau first arrived. But their impact tapered off later in the season — especially after their other linemate, Tyler Motte, was traded to the New York Rangers at the deadline.
Lammikko was on the first one-way contract of his career last year, at the league minimum salary of $750,000. He finished with seven goals and 15 points in 75 games — all NHL highs for him.
Highmore finished up a two-year contract that he signed in Chicago before he was traded to the Canucks at the 2021 deadline in exchange for Adam Gaudette. He also got one-way money for the first time last season, at $750,000. And he also had his best season to date, with five goals and 12 points in 46 games.
Bailey, 27, has now been in the Canucks organization for three seasons, after the Buffalo Sabres allowed him to go to free agency when they didn't qualify him in the summer of 2019. He re-upped with Vancouver last summer after becoming a Group 6 unrestricted free agent, and split his time between Vancouver and Abbotsford.
Bailey is injury-prone. And while he has good size at 6'4", he struggles to produce at the NHL level. He had 15 goals and 27 points in 30 AHL games with Abbotsford last season, but has not recorded a single point in his 19 total games with Vancouver over the last three seasons, including 14 games in 2021-22.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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