The Vancouver Canucks held their end-of-season media availability on Monday. Nothing too earth-shattering came out of that. For now, Trevor Linden is suggesting that the team will go into next season without spending to the ceiling for the first time since, I think, very early in the salary-cap era.
I hope that means Linden and Benning will also be keeping their eyes open for opportunities to add assets by taking on other teams' contract problems. Vegas is currently getting all the credit for making these savvy moves but the Arizona Coyotes were well ahead of them when they grabbed Pavel Datsyuk's deal from Detroit during the summer of 2016 in exchange for an opportunity to move up in the draft and pick Jakob Chychrun.
As far as World Championships, Bo Horvat has now officially said yes to Team Canada. Alex Edler, to my surprise, is a no for Sweden. Jacob Markstrom's a maybe.
Travis Green's name had been tossed around as a potential candidate for Team Canada's coaching staff but he was not mentioned when the announcement was made on Monday. After winning gold in 2016, Bill Peters will be back as bench boss, assisted by Bob Boughner of the Florida Panthers and Mike Yeo of the St. Louis Blues.
As for Brock Boeser—should we be worried?
From the way this tweet is phrased, I assume we're talking about the same wrist that Boeser injured while he was at North Dakota, which limited him to 32 games in his sophomore year and kept him out of the 2017 World Junior Championship while he recovered from surgery.
I remember that it was still a bit of an issue during YoungStars and training camp—and then we all forgot about it when he started scoring.
After the wrist was re-injured in Tampa Bay on February 8, Boeser scored just three goals in the subsequent 11 games before his season was ended by that back injury on March 5. Hopefully five months will be enough time for him to get sorted out. With the Sedins gone, his production and power-play presence will be even more important next season.
If you missed it, Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini also weighed in with a lengthy Tweetstorm on Monday afternoon.
Click here if you missed it.
It's a solid step toward acknowledging accountability right to the top of the organization. The issue now is execution: will this group be able to find the right pieces to effectively support the young players as they integrate into the organization?
I was busy on Monday with a couple of Canucks-adjacent projects.
First, I was following the story of Alain Vigneault's firing, just hours after the New York Rangers closed out their season with a dismal 5-0 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.
Immediately after that final game, Vigneault asserted—incorrectly, as it turned out—that he believed he and his staff would be retained. In making his case, he pointed out that the Canucks are on their third coaching staff since he was let go in 2013 (ouch!) and in defending against the perception that he can't develop young players, he strongly suggested, without *quite* naming names, that the Canucks hadn't given him much to work with in that department.
"Player development-wise, we’re not perfect, but we’ve done a pretty good job (in New York)," he concluded. If you have a subscription to The Athletic, you can read
Rick Carpinello's report of the presser here.
Vigneault's assistant coach Darryl Williams and associate coach Scott Arniel were also both let go. Arniel succeeded Vigneault as coach of the Manitoba Moose when he moved up to the Canucks in 2006; Williams has been an assistant to Vigneault since the 2008-09 season with the Canucks.
I also had a terrific chat on Monday with former Canucks goaltender Kevin Weekes and 2003 Stanley Cup hero Mike Rupp, who are both now working as analysts at NHL Network.
You'll find their playoff predictions in the article above.
Weekes also had some interesting insight into Ryan Miller's success in Anaheim this year and Cory Schneider's situation in New Jersey. I find it so ironic that the Devils have made the playoffs for the first time in Schneider's five seasons with the team but despite often carrying the Devils on his back when they were bad, he has now lost the net to Keith Kinkaid.
Schneider has a record of 17-16-6 in 40 games this season. He was excellent at the beginning of the year, but faltered when he came back from his groin injury at the beginning of March. Schneider's last win came on December 27—it was Kinkaid who backstopped the Devils to the 7-1-1 record down the stretch that got the team into the postseason.
Here's what Weekes had to say about the situation:
I've been a longtime Cory Schneider fan since he first came in the league. I was doing a lot of his games, right from his rookie year in Vancouver when I was doing Hockey Night in Canada games in Vancouver, doing colour.
I've been a long Cory Schneider fan, still am, as a goalie and as a person. Just prior to his injury, he struggled to get some wins. It was a difficult time for him individually, but he got off to an amazing start.
His first half, he got off to a blazing start but this is kind of the way that goaltending goes at times. It kind of ebbs and flows and only one person can play at once.
I give Keith Kinkaid a lot of credit. I spoke to Cory Schneider during Patty Elias's jersey retirement night; (Mike Rupp) and I were among the invitees. I remember talking to Schneids there and I asked him about their goalie coach Rollie Melanson who he had in Vancouver, which I think was a brilliant hire by the Devils, in bringing Rollie here.
I said "Schneids, how's it been, man, getting Rollie back in the mix?" He said "It's been great for me, it's been even better for Kinks."
To Kinkaid's credit, he's become more accountable, harder working, more focused and all round a better goalie under the tutelage of Rollie Melanson. I give him a lot of credit. It's not easy when you're paired with a guy that's an outstanding goalie, let alone an all-star, let alone *is the guy.*
I kind of went through a similar thing playing with Arturs Irbe down in Carolina; we're great friends to this day. He's a multiple-time all-star, he was the franchise goalie for the Canes. I ended up playing in quite a few of those games, kind of the way things are going for Kinkaid. I can relate to that. I give him a lot of credit. He's been awesome for them and he's a bit part of why they're able to get into the stanley cup playoff mix.
Will Kinkaid start Game 1?
I figure he will. The key for Cory Schneider—it gives him more opportunity to work on his game with Rollie Melanson. Also, it's the class of Cory Schneider. Keep in mind, in doing a lot of those games, knowing both him and Roberto so well, when he was getting the net instead of Roberto Luongo, if you recall.
Cory Schneider was on the other end of that, then Schneids was on the other end of it when he came here to Jersey. He was a young guy biting at the heels of the all-time winningest goalie in NHL history in Marty (Brodeur). Schneids has kind of lived this whole thing, from being an elite prospect to being a young kind of budding star to a star goalie to an all-star, world-class and now Kinkaid's got the net from him.
It's a tough situation, but i've seen firsthand how Cory Schneider's handled himself as a goalie and a person in these types of situations and I'm seeing it once again, so i don't expect anything less than the class that he brings to the table.
Both Weekes and Rupp played for the Devils, which I think is part of the reason they're so enthusiastic about what they'll bring to the playoffs. But in the end, both men picked the Tampa Bay Lightning to advance in that series.
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