More than five years after I first proposed it, my Chris Tanev - for - Travis Hamonic trade has finally, sort of, come to fruition.
As the Vancouver Canucks opened their 2020-21 training camp with medical testing on Sunday, the club announced that it had signed Hamonic, a 30-year-old right-shot defenseman, to a professional tryout contract.
Hamonic is an unrestricted free agent, who has been vocal for years about wanting to stay in Western Canada for personal reasons. I assume the plan is similar to what we heard when the St. Louis Blues signed Mike Hoffman to a PTO on December 27. The format of a deal is probably in place, but the player and the club will wait until closer to the beginning of the season to execute the contract, in order to maximize the benefits of the cap space that will be created when Micheal Ferland goes on long-term injured reserve.
At the Canucks' media availability on Sunday, general manager Jim Benning said flat out that Ferland is still experiencing concussion symptoms, so he's unavailable to the team until further notice.
In October of 2015, the Manitoba native Hamonic first indicated that he wanted to come back to Western Canada when he requested a trade from the club that drafted him, the New York Islanders.
Word was that the Islanders wanted a quality defenseman back in return, which led me to say this:
The Canucks are in desperate need of defensive depth, but if they want to get into this sweepstakes, they'd probably have to offer up one of their own top blueliners. Hamonic's a righty, which makes Chris Tanev a logical comparable. They're the same age, the same height and signed for the same amount of time.
Hamonic's game has more of a physical element, and Tanev's a little more expensive—his cap hit is $4.45 million. As much as I like Tanev, if there's an opportunity to do this deal one-for-one, I say yes—even if Benning has to throw in a draft pick to make it happen.
Hamonic's trade didn't happen until the 2017 draft. In the end, the Islanders got draft picks — but have turned those picks into an outstanding defensive prospect. The Calgary Flames gave up a first and two seconds in exchange for Hamonic and a fourth. That first turned into Noah Dobson. The seconds are another defenseman, Samuel Bolduc, who has just finished up in the QMJHL, and Russian centre Ruslan Iskhakov.
Admittedly, Hamonic didn't exactly set the blue line on fire with Calgary. He maxed out at seven goals and 19 points when the Flames won the Western Conference in 2018-19, but went pointless in the Flames' first-round playoff loss to Colorado. Last year, he finished with 12 points in 50 regular-season games, and elected to opt out of the summer Return to Play.
Hamonic's toughness also took a downturn in Calgary. He went from 79 penalty minutes in his first season with the Flames down to 33, then just 27 last year.
I remember him stepping up to fight Erik Gudbranson in the first period of the opening game of the 2018-19 season, after Gudbranson made that questionable hit on Dillon Dube.
He missed eight games after that with a facial fracture — and has only fought one time since. Related?
But it's certainly not all doom and gloom. Defensively, Hamonic is a reliable right-sider who would probably make a great partner for Quinn Hughes — again, neatly stepping into Tanev's skates. He has averaged more than 20 minutes a game throughout his career, including 21:12 last season, and was the No. 1 penalty-killing defenseman on a Flames team that was tied for eighth in the league in that category (Vancouver was 16th).
Probably most importantly — while the Flames are on the hook for $18 million over four years with Tanev, I expect that Hamonic's deal will probably be one year, and far less than Tanev's $4.5 million cap hit.
Last week, I had a small panic attack when I stopped to think about just how quickly the experience level of the Canucks' defense corps drops off, and what that would mean for the team if injuries strike. As excited as I am to see what Olli Juolevi, Jack Rathbone and the others bring to the table, Hamonic's arrival feels like a big relief to me.
The youngsters will still get to show what they can do during training camp, too. Hamonic won't be on the ice for a week — which is basically three days before the regular season begins.
Hamonic is traveling from WPG to VAN today and will join @TD_Canada#CanucksCamp after a 7-day quarantine period, per the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.
Other key notes from Sunday's availability with Jim Benning and Travis Green:
• The team believes it does have permission to play home games at Rogers Arena this season.
UPDATE: This has just been confirmed by the premier.
After speaking with @fr_aquilini yesterday about the NHL’s return-to-play plan, I’m pleased to confirm the enhanced health measures being put in place for the upcoming season mean games can safely be played here in BC.
• Other than Ferland, it's believed that everyone else is healthy heading into camp.
• Everybody is saying the right things about eventually getting Travis Green that contract extension he'll need as he coaches out the last year of his current deal. And while Green can sometimes be cagey, he was very forthright on this topic.
Benning: "We want to take a look at the financial landscape of the whole business here as we keep moving forward, but our intention is to sign Travis to an extension here, so he's part of our group core moving forward."
Green: "I haven't hidden the fact that it's an exciting time to be a Canuck right now. Whether you're a fan, player, someone that works in the organization — it really is, and I'm part of that. I'm excited as well.
"I haven't hidden that I want to be here long term. I think we're just starting to scratch the surface of what we are as a team and where we're going. With our conversation with Jim, I'm fine with where we're at right now, and hopefully we can work things out and I can be here for a while.
"It is no secret that I love coaching here and I want to win here."
• The plan is for the Comets to play in Utica this year. More details on the AHL plan for their season are expected to be forthcoming this week. As things stand right now, any players who are called up from the Comets, or acquired by trade with U.S.-based teams, will need to quarantine for 14 days upon their arrival in Canada.
The strategic decisions about which players will be best served on the taxi squad and which ones will be better off getting AHL games is something that Green hopes will reveal itself through players' on-ice performances.
I've rambled on enough here, so I'll close with just a quick note on World Juniors.
Tough day for Sweden in their quarterfinal loss to Finland on Saturday. The Swedes took an early 2-0 lead in the game and dominated in the first period, but were eliminated after giving up a last-minute goal to the Finns.
Despite the devastating ending, there's a silver lining for Canucks fans, as centre Arvid Costmar was named one of the team's three best players. That's a feather in the cap of a fringe player who really stepped up and took on major responsibilities after Sweden's centre depth was ravaged by Covid-19.
But Vasily Podkolzin plays on! All four quarterfinal games were close, but I bet the Russians weren't expecting to squeak out a 2-1 win over a determined German squad.
Podkolzin and the Russians will now face Canada in the semifinal on Monday — a rematch of last year's gold-medal game. Puck drop for that game goes at 3 p.m. PT, followed by Team USA vs. Finland at 6:30.
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