How are we all feeling about our newest Vancouver Canuck, Ryan Miller?
If you'd told me a week ago that I'd be typing that sentence on July 1, I would have thought you were crazy. The possibility never even entered my mind until I heard a whisper just before the rumours started to bubble to the surface as the "talking period" opened last week.
I guess he does fill our void of "American Olympians named Ryan" after a certain Mr. Kesler left town last week.
I was able to follow Miller's news while I was on my free agency liveblog this morning.
The term is three years at $6 million per season, and includes a modified no-trade clause, where he could list five teams where he'd be willing to be moved. I wonder which ones he'd include beyond California?
It's a pretty sweet deal for him, especially considering Miller says negotiations didn't get serious with other teams. He said his agent had some conversations, but Miller was enthusiastic about Vancouver as soon as he heard there was interest. That's exactly how the rumours were trending as they unfolded last week.
It's certainly a honourable way to business—set your target and make him an offer he can't refuse—but it feels a bit weird that the Canucks have now signed a goaltender who's just 15 months younger than Roberto Luongo to a deal with a bigger cap hit—all while still retaining part of Luongo's salary.
Granted, three years doesn't seem like *that* long a term for Miller, compared to a Luongo deal that extends to 2022. Also, Luongo's real salary still beats Miller's: he's scheduled to make $6.7 million for another four seasons. So, when you factor in Luongo's $800,000 in retained salary, the dollar value invested in the goaltending position is now virtually unchanged from when Luongo was a Canuck.
I caught most of Miller and Jim Benning's press conference, which was appropriately awkward for those two personalities. Miller came across better in his one-on-one interview with TEAM1040 immediately afterwards.
He said he doesn't exactly know how the workload will break down but seems to understand that he'll play less games now that he's in the Pacific time zone, where travel will be more of a factor. Spoke very warmly about Eddie Lack and was appreciative of the quick tweet that Eddie sent out once the deal was announced.
For his part, though Lack looks like he's knocked out of the No. 1 position for now, he appears to be taking things in stride while on holiday in Spain:
Miller talked about how he hoped the pair would "push each other," and Benning comes from a school that puts a succession plan in place for goaltenders—best illustrated by the transition from Tim Thomas to Tuukka Rask in Boston.
Miller was also pretty frank when asked about his prickly relationship with the media. He does seem to have some awareness of his public persona thanks to his actress wife. He says he realizes that his voice doesn't have a lot of inflection and that he can be pretty quiet around people he doesn't know. He also admits that he's an emotional guy whose mood gets pretty dark after losses and sometimes finds it difficult to deal with the press in those situations.
He's also clearly aware of the spotlight that shines on goaltenders in this city and while he didn't say he'd relish the attention, he does seem to understand that a light touch is the best way to get fans onside. He has some big skates to fill from both Lack and Luongo in the Twitterverse.
Miller seemed to indicate that this biggest reason for wanting to sign here in Vancouver is his buy-in to the philosophy put forth by Benning and Trevor Linden—that they're trying to build a quality organization from top to bottom. He said he thinks that's a key component for successful teams, so we'll see if they can make it happen.
I do think the signing of a veteran goalie pushes the Canucks much closer to being potential playoff contenders but the team still desperately needs to find more goal-scoring.
After a strong push to sign Jarome Iginla, the Canucks were said to be in the final three before Iggy decided to hitch his cart to his old pal Joe Sakic in Colorado. He'll be a great mentor for Nathan MacKinnon and the other young Avs players.
Most of the other top free agent prospects have already signed new deals but Benning says he's not done. Let's see if he'll be able to land a decent UFA or—I'm still hoping—swing a trade for a quality player from a cap-crunched team.
For today, let's focus on the present:
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»