Will we see a souped-up Erik Gudbranson on the Vancouver Canucks' blue line this fall?
Armed with a new three-year contract that carries a cap hit of $4 million per season, the 26-year-old has been putting in the work this offseason.
Ryan Kennedy of
The Hockey News caught up with the big defenseman last week in Toronto, where he has spent the summer training with the esteemed Matt Nichol and the BioSteel team.
Most of the guys in that BioSteel crew are from Toronto—players like Connor McDavid, Tyler Seguin, Tom Wilson, Darnell Nurse and the Canucks' Michael Del Zotto. Gudbranson's from the Ottawa area and has put down pretty deep roots here in Vancouver—his fiancee is now a
working dentist here in the city. But at the recommendation of Del Zotto, Gudbranson has spent the summer in Toronto (and Muskoka), working to take his fitness level up a notch.
Kennedy reports that Gudbranson's agent also recommended that he employ a skating coach, so he has been working with the well-respected Dawn Braid this summer.
“Just getting back to basics,” Gudbranson said. “Picking at little things, making adjustments – it has worked out well, I feel good out there.”
In his two years with the Canucks, Gudbranson has played 82 games—essentially missing an entire season due to his long list of injuries. Hopefully his training this summer will not just help with his skating but also make him more durable, so we can get something close to a full season of action out of him this year.
The analytics crowd has always been hard on Gudbranson's game, and
Dom Luszczyszyn's Canucks season preview in The Athletic is no different. After saying that the Canucks' blue line consists of "two third pairs and a barely passable second pair at the top", he saves his harshest criticism for Gudbranson, who he calls the weakest link: "With a projected win value of minus-0.6, my model considers Gudbranson among the five worst regular defenders in the league heading into the season." Ouch.
As well as all the games he has missed, Gudbranson has often played hurt when he has been in the lineup—which I'm assuming has hampered his effectiveness. I'm hoping that his summer training will pay off in keeping him closer to peak fitness throughout the season. On a Canucks team that doesn't have a whole lot of snarl, I'd still argue that there's a place for a physical player like Gudbranson in the lineup. He needs to be healthy enough to feel confident in bringing that level of intimidation, and do it without being a defensive liability.
Like most of the other prognosticators, Luszczyszyn's model suggests that the Sedin-less Canucks will be a bottom-feeding team once again this season and that the tem's best-case scenario is probably a solid crack at acquiring Jack Hughes in the draft lottery. He acknowledges that it was tougher to pin down a definitive depth chart for Vancouver than for any other team in the league, with so many players battling for roster spots and not many clearly established stars.
Jim Benning talked about his philosophy in loading up his roster to
Kevin Woodley, as part of NHL.com's "31 in 31" series than ran during the month of August.
"When it comes right down to it for us this season, it's about the process and culture we create in our locker room," Benning said. "If you just have a whole team of young guys and don't have enough of those glue guys in the room, young players start losing confidence and doubting their ability, and that's not good for their development. When we get to where want to get to, these young players are going to be a big part of it, so we want them to develop properly."
That being said, Benning isn't ruling the prospect of a deserving kid grabbing a roster spot.
"If one of them comes in and is like Brock Boeser was last year and we think it's best for him to be playing in the league, then we'll make room," he added. "We're going to have six to eight guys down in the American League that we think are going to be part of our future. We have to make sure they develop properly, are physically strong enough and mentally tough enough, and when they are ready, we are going to give them an opportunity."
Down in the AHL, the Utica Comets could shift from scrappy upstarts to legitimate contenders thanks to a big influx of talent on their roster this season. The group of six-to-eight guys that Benning's referencing will almost certainly include players like Kole Lind, Jonah Gadjovich and Petrus Palmu. Waiver-exempt players like Adam Gaudette, Jonathan Dahlen and Olli Juolevi could also easily be stashed on the farm—and Tyler Motte is waiver exempt for one more game, which pretty much guarantees him a ticket to Utica to start the season.
The interesting part will be to see which waiver-eligible forwards end up being sent down. Like I say every year, these moves aren't really as dangerous as they appear—every team is making the same sorts of decisions, so a player on waivers needs to be a clear roster upgrade over the guy that they'd have to expose—and somebody they want to keep on their main roster—in order for them to take the chance. With the Canucks where they are, talent-wise, it's pretty unlikely that many of their players would offer that type of upgrade for another team.
Woodley name-checks Brendan Leipsic, Nikolay Goldobin and Brendan Gaunce as the waiver-eligible players on the bubble. I'd add Reid Boucher and Darren Archibald to that list as known entities, as well as offseason acquisition Tanner Kero.
My preseason vote goes toward keeping Leipsic and Goldobin around since they've both shown that they can score goals—the skill the Canucks probably need most desperately from their forward group.
Goldobin also remains the player I'd be most afraid of potentially losing—he's a former first-round pick who can make highlight-reel plays, and that gets him noticed.
He is already back in Vancouver. This picture makes me think that he's not lacking in confidence that he'll stick around.
I'm pretty sure this picture was taken in Vancouver—Queen Elizabeth Park, with the cranes in the background that are being used to build all those new condo buildings along Cambie Street?
If the Canucks once again keep 13 forwards and eight defensemen on their main roster, there will be a lot for players to prove in preseason—which kicks off with three straight home games at Rogers Arena from September 18-20.
Even for players who get sent down, it doesn't mean they won't get their chance.
"Everybody gets so worked up about, 'Oh, we've got so many players,' but the last couple years, we have gone through 35 guys,"
points out Benning, correctly. "I think we need that depth in our organization."
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