After the announcement of Chris Tanev's new contract on Saturday, the rest of the weekend was relatively quiet in the world of the Vancouver Canucks.
Elliott Pap of
The Vancouver Sun has Tanev's story, with the defenseman explaining exactly why he agreed to the deal:
“I would have liked a longer-term deal but, with a new GM this year and a new coach, they didn’t know me too well,” Tanev, 24, explained from his off-season home in Toronto. “So the team elected to offer us a one-year deal and we went from there. We went over our arbitration case and we thought that potentially we might be able to get a little bit more, but we also might get a little bit less."
Tanev's agent, Ross Gurney, explains why he felt this was the best deal for Tanev at this time:
"One year made the most sense for Chris based on the feeling of his case had we gone to arbitration. The key stats in arbitration are games played, minutes played, points and things like that, but Chris is all about hockey intelligence and you and I don’t have a stat for that.
“First pass, puck retrieval, puck distribution, instincts … those are Chris’ skill set and it kept coming back to the fact that maybe Jim Benning doesn’t know what he has in this player yet. When we realized it was a one-year deal, we attempted to get to the ceiling of what our arbitration case would have been without going through the arb.”
After this contract, Tanev will still have two more seasons before he can become an unrestricted free agent. If Benning likes what he sees from Tanev next year, a mid-season extension might make sense. As some of you pointed out over the weekend, he could continue to be an attractive trade chip—a heads-up player who's great value for what he brings to the ice.
In this story, Jason Botchford argues that Tanev lowballed himself. The comparables that Botchford offers up, Jared Cowen and Karl Alzner, aren't really that comparable. Both are much bigger than Tanev and were both first-round draft choices, where Tanev went undrafted. Pedigree definitely counts when teams make contract decisions.
In the same article, Botchford brings up the idea that Jacob Markstrom wants out of Vancouver:
It’s believed Markstrom, who wants to play in the NHL with his $1.2 million cap hit, asked for the Canucks to trade him if they can after the Ryan Miller signing.
Botchford says that three teams are interested in Markstrom's services, so it would make sense for the Canucks to work out a deal if they can and get his cap hit off the books.
Markstrom's on a one-way deal this year, which makes his contract less-than-ideal for a team that might be interested in an unproven backup. After a strong start to his career in Sweden, Markstrom was passed over for the starter's job in Florida in 2013-14 when Tim Thomas was signed, then had a rough go in Vancouver after he was acquired in the Roberto Luongo trade.
This year's free agent market saw a couple of rising backups sign for a bit more money than Markstrom's deal—Alex Stalock got $1.6 million a year to stay in San Jose and Chad Johnson took $1.3 million a year from the New York Islanders. But Al Montoya signed in Florida at just $1.05 million and Ray Emery and Thomas Greiss each took $1 million deals.
As
this list from CapGeek.com shows, there are plenty of big-name veterans like Martin Brodeur and Ilya Bryzgalov left on the market, but the younger goalies with experience have basically been snapped up.
That could help to improve Markstrom's market value, though the fact that he'd be exposed to waivers on a new would remain an issue: they'd have to be reasonably certain that they'd be using him in an NHL role.
Though Jim Benning points out that the Minnesota Wild used five different goalies last season, that's certainly the exception rather than the rule. The question now is whether Markstrom will find a new address, or if he'll start the season in Utica.
Speaking of Utica, this announcement slipped by last week, and it's a positive one. Ben Kuzma
reports that Travis Green turned down an assistant coaching opportunity with the Pittsburgh Penguins in order to remain head coach of the Comets.
Green seemed to do a good job with limited resources with first-year Utica last season. His continued presence should provide some stability as the franchise takes another step towards finding its footing.
No Canucks on NHL Arbitration List:
To close things off today,
Here's a look at the full list of NHL players who have filed for salary arbitration, led by Montreal's P.K. Subban. That should be an interesting case—any chance the Canadiens would walk away from a massive award and let Subban become an unrestricted free agent?
With Chris Tanev locked into his new deal, there are no Canucks on the arbitration list. Only newcomer Linden Vey remains unsigned.
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