I was disappointed that we didn't get to see 2016 third-rounder Will Lockwood at development camp last week.
He's a college kid playing at Michigan, so development camp is really his only opportunity to work with the team while maintaining his amateur status.
I'm glad to see that Ben Kuzma tracked Lockwood down to fill in the blanks:
As an 18-year-old, he finished second in team scoring with the Wolverines with 20 points in 30 games despite dealing with a separated shoulder for most of the season.
He originally suffered the injury on December 10, then re-aggravated it after coming back three weeks later. He had surgery on April 30.
"Lockwood spent the first two months after surgery working on range of motion and now it’s all about strength training," writes Kuzma. "He expects to be 100 per cent ready for contact at training camp in September."
I guess that means we won't see him on the ice with the U.S. team at the World Junior Summer Showcase later this month. He is still on the
USA Hockey roster list, so I guess that means he'll remain in the mix for possible selection for World Juniors, which is back in Buffalo this year.
Kuzma says Lockwood "has been compared to Jannik Hansen with his all-in tenacity and a fearless focus. If anything, Lockwood sometimes played too hard on a 5-foot-11, 172-pound frame that needs to mature as much as his smart, yet bold, game."
Brock Boeser has looked good since leaving North Dakota. Thatcher Demko is making solid strides after his three years at Boston College. Adam Gaudette showed last week that he could be a diamond in the rough as he goes into his third season at Northeastern. If Lockwood can also continue on an upward trajectory, that'd be an impressive collection of players for the Canucks to have pulled out of the NCAA ranks from the 2014-16 drafts.
What else is going on in Canuck-land?
Well, on Wednesday the team announced that it has re-signed defenseman Evan McEneny to a two-year, two-way contract. Now 23, McEneny was originally signed by the Canucks as a free agent back in 2012. He worked his way up to full-time status with Utica last season and even played one game with the Canucks in February, when the mumps outbreak was at its peak.
According to
CapFriendly, McEneny's deal carries a $15,000 signing bonus along with a cap hit of $657,5000 at the NHL level. In the minors, he'll be paid $70,000 this season and $100,000 in 2018-19.
Another note about minor-league salaries—in his last
"30 Thoughts" before the summer break, Elliotte Friedman mentions that "The amount of salary you can bury on someone in the minors rises to $1.05M per contract."
I'm not sure what the figure was for last year, but I seem to recall that the number was $900,000 during the 2015-16 season, when the Canucks assigned Chris Higgins and Brandon Prust to the Comets but were still obligated to carry a significant chunk of their cap hits on the books. In short, it means that even though the Canucks signed Alex Burmistrov, Patrick Wiercioch and Anton Rodin to one-way contracts on July 1, any of them could be sent to the minors at any time without leaving any residual impact on the Canucks' salary-cap situation—they're all signed for less than $1 million. The same is true for Jayson Megna, whose $675,000 one-way deal was inked back in April.
More than ever, one-way contracts offer financial security and can be incentives for players to sign with certain teams, but they don't necessarily guarantee that the player will also hang onto an NHL roster spot.
Another signing note—Utica's 2016-17 MVP Darren Archibald signed a new one-year AHL deal with the team this week, but told
Ben Birnell of the
Utica Observer-Dispatch that “I still think there’s a lot of opportunity in Vancouver for me, especially with (former Comets coach Travis Green) up there now. I want to come into camp strong and try to earn an NHL contract.”
Now 27, Archibald played 16 games with the Canucks during John Tortorella's season behind the bench in 2013-14, primarily in a tough-guy role. The 6'3", 212-pound winger saw his offense blossom last season, when he posted career highs with 23 goals and 47 points in Utica, while lowering his time in the penalty box to just 58 minutes.
In other news from the minors, the Canucks also announced on Wednesday that they had renewed their affiliation with the Kalamazoo Wings of the ECHL for the 2017-18 season. The agreement is for one season and marks a return to Kalamazoo after two seasons away.
When the ECHL regulated that its teams could only have one NHL affiliate at the beginning of the 2015-16 season, the Wings stuck with the Columbus Blue Jackets and dumped the Canucks, who didn't have an official affiliate for that year but were still able to put players like Even McEneny, Dane Fox and Curtis Valk on the Kalamazoo roster. Last year, the Canucks signed an affiliation agreement with the Alaska Aces, but the Aces folded at the end of the season.
In 2016-17, Kalamazoo was affiliated with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Syracuse Crunch, so new Utica coach Trent Cull would have had some dealings with them while he was an assistant in Syracuse. Wednesday's announcement now leaves the Lightning/Crunch without an ECHL affiliate.
Finally, if you're wondering what Ben Hutton has been up to this summer, he hosted his first charity golf tournament last weekend, with proceeds to his local Alzheimer's Society.
After making an appearance at the Summer Showdown game last Thursday, Troy Stecher flew out for the tourney:
Some impressive silent auction items were available:
Congrats to Ben on his first community venture!
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