It took a few days longer than expected — and a few minutes past Wednesdsay's scheduled 10 a.m. unveiling. But the AHL Abbotsford Canucks are now official. With a familiar colour scheme and a popular character front and centre.
After pushing off from their original announce date, last Friday, due to what Patrick Johnston from Sportsnet reported as a
family emergency for one of the participants, Wednesday's drop came via Instagram.
That was followed up by an
official press release, including a photo of the jerseys, which are already on sale.
Abbotsford general manager Ryan Johnson is also scheduled to chat with the media later on Wednesday morning.
Of course, there's much more going on that just AHL news. We're now one week out from the expansion draft.
As expected, buyouts before Saturday's roster freeze have been few and far between. But the Minnesota Wild dropped a couple of whoppers on Tuesday when Bill Guerin announced that the team would be cutting ties with Zach Parise and Ryan Suter after nine seasons.
First off — thank goodness the league and the Players' Association chose to save the owners and GMs from themselves when they dropped the maximum contract lengths to seven/eight years after the lockout that followed the signing of these 13-year deals (and Shea Weber's massive offer sheet from the Flyers) during the summer of 2012.
I love to see players get paid. But in a hard-cap word, there's no change in the size of the pot of money; it's just the allocation that shifts.
And even though the Wild will only owe Parise and Suter a total of $3.3 million each in real dollars over the next eight years, their ongoing impact on the cap is going to affect Minnesota's ability to give money to players from this generation. This season, after they locked up Joel Eriksson Ek, they have big deals for Kirill Kaprizov and Kevin Fiala that still need to be done.
With a $2.3 million buyout charge per player for next season instead of their cap hit of $7.5 million each, the Wild have freed up more than $10 million for the 2021-22 season. But after that, the total cap charge will be $12.7 million in 2022-23, then $14.7 million for the two subsequent seasons — almost as much as it would have cost to keep them around.
Makes the Loui Eriksson deal seem pretty minor by comparison, doesn't it?
By making the move now, the Wild do free up two more protection slots on their expansion draft list, as they take two players with no-movement clauses off their books. And now we see if Parise and Suter become the next players to become inexpensive Corey Perry-style reclamation projects on other teams.
I expect both will look to stay in the U.S., and I'm sure teams will be interested. Both have had injury issues, and Parise was healthy scratched in the playoffs by Minnesota. But even while Suter is finally seeing his massive ice time drop a bit, he played every game last season for the Wild and still averaged a solid 22:11. He's a left shot, so he doesn't really fit the Canucks' needs, but I would think he has at least as much left to give at this point as Duncan Keith — who the Blackhawks managed to offload for two assets, without even retaining any of his salary. That trade looks even more impressive when compared to the consequences the Wild are facing with Suter.
A couple of notes that have come up on the Canucks' free-agent front in the couple of days. Word is that Rick Dhaliwal has reported that the Canucks have made offers to defensemen Alex Edler and Travis Hamonic, who are both set to become UFAs in two weeks' time. Meanwhile, Elliotte Friedman says no offer will be forthcoming for Brandon Sutter.
Finally, to finish off today, let's head back to Minnesota, where Da Beauty League kicks off another year of summer hockey on Wednesday night.
This isn't easy to read, but here are the rosters for the six teams — the usual mix of NHL regulars and prospects. Brock Boeser is back, of course, as is Nate Schmidt.
While the games have been livestreamed for free in past seasons, this year they go behind a paywall — US$10.95 for a single-day pass (all three games) or $49.95 for the six-week season, which runs through August 25.
That's too bad. Hopefully they'll still fill their social feed with highlights.
One thing's for sure. When players are getting back on the ice — in Ryan McDonagh's case, just a week after winning the Stanley Cup — it means the new season will be here before we know it!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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