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Vancouver Canucks: Big First Day at the Draft—Change Has Come |
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In the end, today's draft seemed a bit like a much-hyped party or networking event, where "everybody's gonna be there" and "it's gonna be wild."
For all the hype of a potentially crazy day on the draft floor, it seems like Jim Benning and the Vancouver Canucks were the only ones who really brought their "A" game.
I thought after Ryan Kesler was traded this morning that we could see a Jason Spezza deal by the end of the day—maybe even something out of San Jose. I also thought there was a strong possibility that some bold moves could come into play for those top draft picks.
It was not to be. The Canucks followed up their first deal with two more trades, Pittsburgh got rid of James Neal and a couple of picks were swapped, but that was the extent of the fireworks in the first round. For all the talk of the wildly disparate scouting reports, teams generally followed the projections pretty closely. No jaw-dropping surprises.
For the Canucks, they started off with a bang but may have started to run out of gas as the long day wore on.
There are plenty of conflicting opinions floating around on the return from the Kesler trade but I think Benning did all right, especially now that this has been confirmed:
After watching the Canucks get their clock cleaned by the Ducks over the past two seasons, the idea of bringing a couple of their players over to our side is not unappealing to me.
I think of Nick Bonino as a clutch player. He's fast, good on the power-play, and seemed to be a guy whose name I find myself inputting a lot into my STATS interface when the Ducks play Vancouver. The last time I thought that about a Canucks acquisition, the guy coming our way was Christian Ehrhoff, so that's promising. This may be another situation where, like Ehrhoff, Bonino's just not that well known outside our timezone.
Bonino has decent size but isn't much of a physical player. As well as his power-play presence, he's also an effective penalty-killer. Seems he's the player that GM of the year Bob Murray didn't want to part with in Anaheim. From their beat writer, Eric Stephens:
As for Luca Sbisa, here's Stephens' take:
The Ducks developed some young defensemen in a hurry last season while Sheldon Souray and Sbisa spent much of the year on the injured list. I thought Sbisa was someone they missed, but their strong drafting pipeline gave them the flexibility to make this deal.
We can only cross our fingers that Sbisa's injury issues are behind him. He was healthy by playoff time, but appeared in just three postseason games for Anaheim.
I suspect the Canucks' interest in Sbisa comes from his WHL roots. He played with Lethbridge and Portland from 2007-2010, so Willie Desjardins would have coached against him during his time in Medicine Hat. I'm guessing he saw something in Sbisa that he liked or, maybe more correctly, hated at the time.
Willie's roots also likely contribute to Vancouver's third trade of the day, where they flipped the third-rounder acquired from the Ducks to the New York Rangers in exchange for grinder Derek Dorsett.
I don't mind this deal at all. Dorsett is fresh off a solid run through the Stanley Cup Final with the New York Rangers and always made an impression on me when he rolled through town with the Columbus Blue Jackets. He's not huge at 6'0" and 192 pounds, but he's a willing fighter and led the NHL in penalty minutes in 2011-12. Take that, Tom Sestito!
Dorsett played his junior hockey in Medicine Hat from 2004-07, so he and Willie Desjardins already know each other well. He's clearly the new blood on the fourth line that Trevor Linden said the team would be looking for.
Vancouver's other deal of the day saw Jason Garrison shipped to Tampa Bay with a couple of spare parts for a second-round pick.
I'm okay with this as well. Even more than the salary dump or the removal of a no-trade clause, the move opens up a spot on the top four of the Canucks defense—whether for Chris Tanev, Sbisa, or someone new.
Since Garrison never fulfilled his mission as the Canucks' great power-play quarterback, I think that job's still up for grabs. Maybe they'll try to sign a veteran free agent like Dan Boyle to a short-term deal, or maybe they will go after someone younger—like Buffalo's Tyler Myers?
Myers was drafted by the Sabres in 2008, two years after Benning moved to Boston but—you guessed it—he's a WHL veteran who played for the Kelowna Rockets from 2005-09. Once again, Willie knows him, so this rumour could have some foundation.
Since winning the Calder Trophy and scoring 48 points in his rookie season, Myers has struggled in his development. He toils in relative obscurity in Buffalo but one mistake that shone brightly was his awful turnover that led to Canada's ouster at this year's World Championships in Belarus.
Myers is 24 and has plenty of upside, but he's an acquisition that wouldn't be without risk.
SO: I think I speak for many of you when I say that I'm impressed that Jim Benning was able to pull off more trades in three hours than Mike Gillis seemed to make in three years. At this point, new bodies are good bodies, especially now that we know that Kesler wanted out in no uncertain terms.
The management group continues to live up to its mandate, changing the culture of the team. I'm cautiously optimistic but want to see what else they'll pull off with all their cap space over the next week.
The salary cap for 2014-15 was announced today at $69 million. That gives Vancouver another $17 million to spend, with only key RFAs Zack Kassian and Chris Tanev to be signed.
That cap ceiling is low enough that it creates pressure for some other teams, most notably Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. I think this might be one reason why we didn't see more deals involving players today—the cap gurus are still doing the math to figure out where their teams will stand next season.
The bottom line as I see it: there may be some interesting salary dumps over the next few days, where the Canucks might be able to pick up an even better-quality player than the ones that are coming available as free agents on Tuesday.
The Draft:
Oh yeah—the reason all the teams were gathered in Philadelphia today. The draft.
Colour me disappointed that the Canucks were not able to move up to pick first overall, though I saw somewhere that Jim Benning says the Canucks did not offer the 6th, 24th and Hunter Shinkaruk, as was reported on TSN. That's the equivalent of three firsts to move up five spots; can't imagine Tallon would have said no to that.
I haven't had a chance to listen to Benning's post-draft interview from TEAM1040, but I think this is where most of these questions are answered. Also heard that Garrison was part of the package that was initially offered to Florida, so talks must have broken off completely before the trade was made to Tampa Bay.
No surprise that the Canucks went with Abbotsford power-winger Jake Virtanen at No. 6. If he meets his projection as the next Jarome Iginla, that would be magnificent.
I'm still worried about his shoulder surgery and whether this will make him more vulnerable to future injuries, but these aren't issues we'll need to worry about for at least a year. For now, it's disappointing that he won't be able to participate in prospects camp or training camp. It'll be awhile before we start to see what this kid is made of.
I'm going to assume Jared McCann's relative lack of enthusiasm in his draft interview came from him not expecting the Canucks to have a pick in that range, so he hadn't thought he'd be chosen by them. In some ways, we're in the same boat as fans: we debated to death who the Canucks would take at six, but never gave much consideration to what would happen at 24.
Overall, I'd characterize the draft in general, and for the Canucks, as reasonably "safe." I remember Benning mentioning in a previous interview that he was looking at some players "from other places" for the later rounds, so I don't think it'll be an all-Canadian group by the time we're finished tomorrow.
Round 2 gets underway at 7 a.m. our time and I'm liveblogging it for BleacherReport.com, so I'd better sign off and get some sleep. These later rounds will move quicker, but I'm not sure how quickly. Will try to post again as time permits, then get into some analysis and more free agency rumours as we wind towards Tuesday.
CHANGE IS COMING
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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