Based on yesterday's poll, it looks like Vancouver hockey fans are ready to sit back and give Ryan Miller a chance to be the team's new backbone as the Linden/Benning/Desjardins era begins.
If you missed it, local goalie guru Kevin Woodley
wrote this piece for NHL.com, offering up more details about Miller's background and his numbers.
Though Jonas Hiller's two year, $9 million deal in Calgary certainly looks a lot more financially friendly, his numbers haven't been on par with Miller's. Even playing in Buffalo, Miller was able to maintain save percentages above .915, while Hiller's numbers dipped to .911 this year on a very good Ducks team.
There's every reason to believe that Miller is the better of the two goalies, though the concern about his inability to deliver during his brief time in St. Louis is not unfounded. At least there's this:
And for the 18 percent of you who expressed interest in Miller's wife Noureen DeWulf, Derek Jory
has you covered over at Canucks.com with the backstory on their relationship.
She's not your typical Canuck wife by a long shot.
I wonder how she'll get along with the rest of the wives, and how much she'll be in town?
DeWulf plays Lacey in Charlie Sheen's "Anger Management." The show is currently in the midst of shooting a 90-episode order, which is scheduled to wrap up this fall. According to
this article from
The Hollywood Reporter, the show stands to make really big money if it's renewed at the end of this run, thanks to Sheen's high international profile, so her gig could last for awhile yet.
Sheen never seems to take a hit from all his bad publicity but Evander Kane continues to court controversy in Winnipeg.
In response to Claude Giroux's
strange arrest, perhaps after an overexuberant Canada Day celebration, here's what Kane had to say:
I can't imagine that Kane's time in Winnipeg can last much longer. And it seems like the going rate for disgruntled stars is pretty low these days. Kane turns 23 this summer—he's just a few months older than Tyler Seguin. Would he be able to follow in Seguin's footsteps and put his bad boy behaviour behind him if he came to Vancouver? Would Jim Benning be willing to go down that road after having a hand in shipping Seguin out of Boston last summer?
After the Miller signing, it's not like the Canucks have a lot of money left to burn on the free agent market. The Canucks have $11.7 million in cap space remaining, with four key RFAs still to sign: Zack Kassian, Linden Vey, Chris Tanev and Yannick Weber (yes, Weber was qualified by the team on Monday).
Tanev's probably in the best bargaining position. He made $1.5 million last year on a bridge deal and does have arbitration rights. The arrival of Luca Sbisa means he's still not a sure-fire top-four guy—we'll see what Willie has to say about that—but he's due for a substantial raise. I wonder if the new group will lock him down or sign him to another one-year deal so that they can get a chance to see what he's made of? I'd pencil in at least $2.5 million for Tanev.
With only 18 NHL games under his belt, Linden Vey doesn't have much leverage. His cap hit was $790,000 last season. Let's ballpark him at maybe $1.2?
Yannick Weber is guaranteed a raise of at least 10 percent in his qualifying offer. Last year, he made $650,000. Let's say $800,000 as a depth defenseman?
And Zack Kassian. His qualifying offer goes up to $850,000 over his previous salary of $810,000. He'll be looking for a significant increase, but doesn't have a lot of leverage: no arbitration rights at this point.
For all the potential that we can still see, Kassian did have a breakout year in 2013-14. His 14 goals, 29 points and 73 games were all career-highs. He was a first-rounder in 2009, so maybe he could be compared to Brayden Schenn? Schenn was chosen eight spots higher but has also been traded once and also is judged more on his potential than on his performance to date. He had a career-high 41 points last season—pretty close, if you can forgive comparing a center to a power winger.
The Flyers just signed Schenn to a two-year deal with a $2.5 million cap hit. I think the Canucks would do well if they could match that with Kassian.
Based on those numbers, I just spent $7 million of the Canucks' money, which leaves $4.7 million on the table—at the most. That's not even Jarome Iginla money: he got $5.3 from Colorado.
It's also not Evander Kane money: his cap hit is $5.25 million.
Bottom line: if the Canucks hope to still attract a high-profile scoring winger, they'll have to deal a roster player (and his salary) to make it happen.
I think this still needs to be done. The draft was fun, but I don't think the addition of Ryan Miller alone is going to be enough to sell more season tickets, or even keep those disgruntled current season-ticket holders on board when their refund opportunity comes up on July 11th.
With that deadline now nine days away, the clock continues to tick for Linden and Benning.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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