Thursday March 2 - Vancouver Canucks at San Jose Sharks - 7:30 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific
Vancouver Canucks: 62 GP, 26-29-7, 59 pts, sixth in Pacific Division
San Jose Sharks: 62 GP, 37-18-7, 81 pts, first in Pacific Division
Tonight's game had the makings of a public relations dream, but immigration paperwork will prevent both Jannik Hansen and Nikolay Goldobin from making their debuts with their new teams when the Vancouver Canucks kick off a three-games-in-four-nights California road trip in San Jose on Thursday.
Scouts row was virtually empty at Rogers Arena last Saturday, when the mumps-inflicted Canucks dropped a 4-1 decision to a Sharks team that was running mostly on cruise control. But San Jose general manager Doug Wilson must have been keeping a close eye on Hansen from the visitors' box, since he pulled the trigger on his team's only deal of the deadline three days later.
Here's the latest on the status of both players—apparently it's not that easy to get Canadian paperwork for a Russian or American paperwork for a Dane!
Though we'll have to wait to get our first look at Goldobin, the Canucks are debuting one new player tonight.
Though the Canucks didn't execute any additional trades on Deadline Wednesday, they did claim Joseph Cramarossa off waivers from the Anaheim Ducks.
Cramarossa's a gritty 24-year-old forward, in his first NHL season. From what I've seen, he was quite well-liked in the Ducks organization. His waiver assignment was simply part of the numbers game—an attempt to ensure that he'd be eligible for the AHL playoffs.
Two other interesting items to note about him:
• Because he has played 49 NHL games this year, Cramarossa can meet the qualifications to be one of the two forwards the Canucks are required to expose to Las Vegas in the expansion draft—but he'd need to be signed to a new contract first. The two forwards offered up to Vegas must have reached that 40/70 game threshold—and must be under contract for the 2017-18 season.
Cramarossa's currently on a one-year, two-way deal with a cap hit of $724,500 at the NHL level. He'll be an RFA with arbitration rights at the end of the year.
Right now, the Canucks have just seven forwards who meet both expansion draft criteria—the Sedins, Loui Eriksson, Brandon Sutter, Derek Dorsett, Sven Baertschi and Markus Granlund. Presumably, Dorsett will be exposed. Before the expansion draft, the Canucks will need to re-sign a qualifying RFA like Cramarossa or Chaput (or a UFA like Skille or Megna) so that he can be exposed. The other option would be to make a deal for another exposable forward who's already under contract for next season.
Otherwise, the Canucks would be required to offer up either Sutter, Baertschi or Granlund—the players that meet the qualification standards and aren't protected by no-movement clauses.
Goldobin and Jonathan Dahlen are both expansion-draft exempt.
• Cramarossa's big year in junior came as a 20-year-old in 2012-13 with the Belleville Bulls, when he scored 19 goals and 63 points in 68 games.
Cramarossa, Gaunce and Subban were 1-2-3 in scoring for the Bulls that year. Funnily enough, Subban's older brother Malcolm and Cramarossa's younger brother Michael were also on that team. Where's Cameron Gaunce??
Goldobin also has a Canucks connection from his junior days:
Canucks' writer Derek Jory offered up a poignant look on how things will be different on the road for the Canucks with Burrows and Hansen gone:
Ed Willes also captured the emotions that the Sedins are processing now that they're left as almost the last men standing from those Presidents' Trophy years in
this article for the
Vancouver Sun.
“I don’t know if it’s lonely,” Daniel said, reacting to the late news that Jannik Hansen had been dealt to the San Jose Sharks a day after Alex Burrows was moved to Ottawa.
“It’s empty. I think it’s empty.
“Those are guys who came into each and every game and they gave you so much because of who they are. You enjoyed coming to the rink because they’re here. That’s what you’re going to miss.”
He paused.
“It’s tough to realize but it happens. We have to move on. They were teammates for so long and good friends. That’s the tough part.”
Henrik articulates an important takeaway from the success stories that Burrows and Hansen were able to write for themselves:
“We’ve seen them grow up, go from call-ups to first- and second-liners on this team,” said Henrik. “That’s something for our young guys to learn, to understand you can’t be happy to be here.
“You’ve got to try to get better. That’s what those guys did. I don’t think they had much more talent than a lot of these guys.”
After what has happened this week, I think for the first time ever, it's no longer certain that the Sedins—or Alex Edler, for that matter—will retire in Vancouver uniforms. The rebuild is on, and the elder statesmen may decide that they'd like to follow in the footsteps of Jarome Iginla—and Burrows—and do what they can to get one more chance to chase the Stanley Cup.
Of course, a Sedin trade remains as complex as ever with their $7-million cap hits for one more season and, presumably, the fact that they would still want to play together.
There's another wrinkle now, too. NHL teams are only allowed to retain salary on a maximum of three players at a time. By picking up 20 percent of Hansen's freight, the Canucks have filled two of their slots until the end of 2017-18—they're also still carrying $800,000 a season for Roberto Luongo.
That means, if the Canucks ever did decide to try to trade the Sedins, they wouldn't be able to retain salary on both players—only one. An interesting twist going forward.
The Canucks are now hitting the ice in San Jose for today's morning skate.
Sounds like a couple more injured players will be back in the lineup tonight:
Still no sign of Nikita Tryamkin, who did not travel with the team. Neither did Jacob Markstrom, who's expected to be sidelined for at least another week. Ryan Miller should get the start tonight but Richard Bachman may draw in for one of the back-to-back games in Southern California this weekend.
I expect Aaron Dell will be the first of many backups that the Canucks will find themselves facing down this home stretch.
Dell hasn't played much this year, but has been good when called upon. The 27-year-old has patiently worked his way up the ranks—this is his first NHL season after spending time in college at North Dakota, then in the CHL, ECHL and AHL.
Dell's record this year is 7-3-1 in 12 games, with a 1.96 goals-against average and .934 save percentage—good enough that Doug Wilson didn't feel he needed to acquire a more experienced backup to play behind Martin Jones during this year's playoff run.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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