Thursday October 6 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Calgary Flames - 7 p.m. - Sportnset 360
Vancouver Canucks preseason record: 1-2-2
Calgary Flames preseason record: 3-3-0
The Calgary Flames wrap up their exhibition schedule with a visit to Rogers Arena to take on the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.
The two teams met less than a week ago, with the Flames earning the 2-1 victory on Matthew Tkachuk's game-winning goal in a penalty-filled affair.
Thursday's game will be the second half of a back-to-back for Calgary, so the team is still carrying an extensive roster even though this'll be Brad Treliving's last opportunity to see his bubble players in a game situation before making his final cuts.
The Flames have skated in Calgary this morning before hopping on the plane. I don't have a full breakdown of lines but Sean Monahan, who missed his chance to play for Team North America at the World Cup of Hockey last month due to a back injury, was on the ice and will make his preseason debut for the Flames tonight.
Matthew Tkachuk is expected to get another look after putting together a strong preseason to this point and new backup goaltender Chad Johnson is pencilled in to play the full game in net.
As for the Canucks, all the World Cup returnees from Team Europe and Team Sweden are expected to play tonight.
The Canucks have made two sets of cuts in the last 24 hours. First, from Wednesday:
Then, this morning:
That's nine more players off the roster, so we'll be down to 14 forwards, 10 defensemen and three goalies once today's cuts are removed from the Canucks' website.
The only mild surprise so far is the demotion of Andrey Pedan—and even there, the writing was probably on the wall.
Though Pedan has shown well at camp this year, he doesn't seem to be a favourite of coach Willie Desjardins. When he was up with the Canucks last year, he was a healthy scratch 18 times. He appeared in just 13 of those games—a couple, if I remember correctly, at forward—and played less than 10 minutes in four of those 13 games.
Pedan also played just twice in preseason this year. Though his fight with San Jose's Dan Kelly was a doozy, he was the low-minute man on the blue line in both his appearances.
The warning bell that Pedan was tagged for Utica was sounded by Matt Sekeres of TSN1040 on Wednesday. Here's the thumbnail:
This is a wrinkle that I hadn't factored into the roster equation.
Straight from
NHL.com, here are the minimum "quality" requirements, if you will, for players that must be made available to Las Vegas by each team:
* All Clubs must meet the following minimum requirements regarding players exposed for selection in the Expansion Draft:
i) One defenseman who is a) under contract in 2017-18 and b) played in 40 or more NHL games the prior season OR played in 70 or more NHL games in the prior two seasons.
ii) Two forwards who are a) under contract in 2017-18 and b) played in 40 or more NHL games the prior season OR played in 70 or more NHL games in the prior two seasons.
iii) One goaltender who is under contract in 2017-18 or will be a restricted free agent at the expiration of his current contract immediately prior to 2017-18. If the club elects to make a restricted free agent goaltender available in order to meet this requirement, that goaltender must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the club's protected list.
The Canucks are allowed to protect three defensemen—who we assume will be Alex Edler, Chris Tanev and Erik Gudbranson. Ben Hutton and Nikita Tryamkin are inexperienced enough that they are automatically unavailable for selection—as would be Troy Stecher.
That leaves Luca Sbisa, Alex Biega and Andrey Pedan as players who *might* qualify for exposure.
If any of the three plays in 40 games in the upcoming season, he'd qualify to be exposed. But if that happened, I bet the Canucks would prefer to keep him if they could.
As of right now...
• Luca Sbisa played 41 games last season; needs another 29 in 2016-17 to qualify
• Alex Biega played 51 games last season; needs another 19 in 2016-17 to qualify
• Andrey Pedan played 13 games last season; needs another 57 in 2016-17 to qualify
• Philip Larsen could also qualify if he plays 70 games in 2016-17—and signs a contract extension. He's only on a one-year deal.
Pedan is also on a one-year contract. Sbisa and Biega are both inked for the 2017-18 season, as required.
We've been assuming for awhile that Sbisa will be Vancouver's expansion draft bait on the blue line. Today's move with Pedan looks like an insurance measure to me. Keep in mind, the player will need to *play* in games, not simply be on the roster/healthy scratched.
Biega's the closest to getting across the threshold. But if the team rushes to get him to 70 games early in the season to satisfy the requirement, will it be necessary to keep him up for the whole year? After he hits the threshold, he'd become an attractive waiver target for another team.
And what about Sbisa? Is management worried that he won't appear in 29 games this season? His status should get a little bit clearer after we finally see him play in tonight's game.
One thing's for sure—these complications make it tougher for Troy Stecher to find himself a roster spot.
I know we're all gun shy about putting a reasonably promising defenseman on waivers after what happened last year with Frank Corrado, but I don't think the Canucks should have any reason to worry about Pedan.
As far as I know, no team has yet made a waiver claim—everybody else is trying to whittle down their rosters as well and has prospects of their own that they are trying to protect.
For now—breathe deeply, and enjoy tonight's game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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