Saturday January 9 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Tampa Bay Lightning - 7 pm. - CBC, Sportsnet, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 41 GP, 16-16-9, 41 pts, fourth in Pacific Division
Tampa Bay Lightning: 41 GP, 20-17-4, 44 pts, fifth in Atlantic Division
Jim Benning decided to get in on the NHL trade action on Friday, acquiring winger Emerson Etem from the New York Rangers in exchange for minor-league winger Nicklas Jensen and a sixth-round draft pick in 2017.
The most interesting part of this deal is the fact that both coaches have familiarity with the players they're acquiring. New York's Alain Vigneault, of course, was coach of the Canucks when Jensen was drafted 29th overall in 2011 and played two regular-season games for the coach at the end of the 2012-13 season.
AV downplayed those memories on Saturday, according to the
Blueshirts United blog:
"I had him one or two training camps when he was 17 or 18, don't remember a lot about him," Vigneault said. The blog also mentions that two of Vigneault's current aides, assistant coach Darryl Williams and associate coach Scott Arniel, both worked with Jensen as a minor-leaguer with the Canucks organization. "I think initially he was slotted in as a more offensively gifted forward, and I think through the years that might have changed where he's more of a two-way player--this is just from talking here and there and hearing from scouts."
Meanwhile, California native Etem played his junior hockey with the Medicine Hat Tigers. In his 2009-10 major junior rookie season, Etem put up 37 goals and 65 points under coach Willie Desjardins before being drafted 29th overall in 2010 by the Anaheim Ducks.
In his two subsequent seasons with the Tigers, Etem formed a dynamic duo on a line with Canucks prospect Hunter Shinkaruk, peaking with 61 goals, 107 points and a plus-29 in 2011-12. Shinkaruk picked up 91 points of his own, then followed up with an 86-point season that got him drafted 24th overall by Vancouver in 2012.
Canucks fans are most familiar with Etem from the 112 games he played with Anaheim over his first three NHL seasons. He's fast and has good size at 6'1" and 212 pounds, though I wouldn't call him a physical player with 19 career penalty minutes.
Etem is 15-19-34 in the NHL and has been 51-41-92 in 119 games in the AHL. His production has definitely dipped at the NHL level, but he was a blue-chip prospect who didn't seem to be available when the Ryan Kesler deal was made with the Ducks during the summer of 2014.
Etem was the centrepiece on the Ducks' side of the trade that brought in Carl Hagelin last summer. For the Rangers, dealing Hagelin was primarily a salary dump, as they knew they wouldn't be able to re-sign him at the money he was looking for. Etem's on a one-year deal that pays him $850,500 this season and will have him restricted again at age 24 this summer, though he will have arbitration rights for the first time.
Etem has not been a fit in New York. He's not suited to the bottom six, which is where he was mostly used by AV, averaging just 11:04 per game when he was in the lineup. He was healthy-scratched 18 times, including eight of New York's first nine games, when rookie Oscar Lindberg (who's actually a year older than Etem) got off to that hot start with four goals in his first three games.
Vigneault feels that he gave Etem enough of a chance. Also from Blueshirts United:
I was very optimistic from what I had heard from our scouts about his play," Vigneault said of Etem. "He didn't have the best of training camps, but..we gave him a good run. I think he got a fair look. He got a fair amount of ice time for the performance he was putting out. For whatever reason it just didn't work. He's a real nice young man who works extremely hard and was easy to coach. New York, it didn't work, but maybe in Vancouver it will..and I hope for him it does because he's a nice kid.
While Nick Jensen's in his last year of waiver eligibility and is reporting to the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL, Etem would have needed to be exposed to waivers if the Rangers had wanted to send him down to the AHL. For the Rangers, the trade clears a roster spot for the rest of the season, when Jensen will also become a restricted free agent—but without arbitration rights.
During Friday's conference call after the trade announcement, Jim Benning suggested that the impetus for the trade was Jannik Hansen's injury on Wednesday night:
Etem has arrived in Vancouver, but is not expected to play tonight.
Neither is Ryan Miller, who will back up Jacob Markstrom in tonight's game. That probably lowers the chances that we'll get to see the Markstrom-vs.-Luongo show on Monday—too bad!
For the moment, Alex Burrows will move up to fill Hansen's spot on the right side with the Sedins. I wonder if Etem will get a look while Hansen is sidelined? I guess it'll partly depend on how things go tonight—if I was Willie D., I wouldn't be looking to break up Baert-Bo-Vrbata anytime soon.
Benning also explicitly stated that Etem's acquisition will not affect Jake Virtanen's status with the team.
From
Brad Ziemer of the
Vancouver Sun:
Emerson can play either side, he can play the left side or he can play the right side. We met on Jake the other day, we have a plan for him going forward and for the time being he is going to be with the team and we add Emerson Etem to our mix.
It took awhile for Sven Baertschi to find his groove with the Canucks, so we'll need to be patient before we rush to judgement on Etem.
One thing's for sure—the cost of acquisition was very reasonable. Nicklas Jensen has been dropping steadily down the team's depth chart for the past couple of years. His high point was when *he* got to play some with the Sedins during John Tortorella's 2013-14 season.
So much had gone wrong by the time Jensen got his shot that I think his impact has been overstated in most fans' memories. He wasn't called up until March 8—by which point the season was already in the dumpster—and he scored all six of his points during span of just nine games in his 17-game call-up. By late March, his icetime had started to dwindle and he went pointless in his last seven games of the year.
Last season, Jensen was called up for five games. Once again, he was pointless and didn't see more than 12:08 of ice time from Willie Desjardins.
More damning, Jensen slid down the depth chart with the Utica Comets over the course of the year, to the point where he was a healthy scratch for a good chunk of the playoffs. He has struggled in Utica again this season, going 4-8-12 in 27 games.
It'll be interesting to see how a change of scenery will affect these two underperforming first-rounders. As a bonus, the Canucks now finally have a first-round selection from the 2010 draft in their lineup!
I've talked so much about the trade, I barely have time to give you other notes on tonight's game. As mentioned, Jannik Hansen's out, Alex Burrows is moved up to the first line and Jacob Markstrom will start. Today's skate was optional, so the rest of the lineup notes are from Friday's practice:
The Lightning are coming into town on a back-to-back after doing the Canucks a favour and squeaking out a crazy 3-2 win last night in Edmonton. The Oilers built a 2-0 lead through two periods before allowing THREE own goals in the third.
Ben Bishop played on Friday in Edmonton so Canucks fans likely won't have the pleasure of seeing the tallest goaltending matchup in the league tonight. Andrei Vasilevskiy is expected to get the start.
The other big question—is this the last time Steven Stamkos visits Vancouver in a Lightning uniform? I was surprised to learn last night that for all the heat he has taken, Stamkos was credited with his 18th goal of the season last night. He's tied for Tampa Bay's scoring lead with Nikita Kucherov with 31 points—it's the rest of the cast that hasn't delivered like last season.
Tampa Bay has dealt with plenty of injury issues this season but is now healthy. After losing both their games to the Lightning last season, you may recall that the Canucks eked out a 2-1 win on their pre-Christmas road trip despite getting dinged for 10 penalties along the way.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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