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Tyler Toffoli's future and bubble truths from Canucks' Horvat and Tanev |
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As we wonder what the 2020-21 NHL season will look like, Bo Horvat made it pretty clear on Thursday that he'd be reluctant to go back into a bubble setting unless his family could be there.
The Vancouver Canucks' players did a good job of putting on a brave face and focusing on the task at hand during their six weeks in Edmonton — and the time leading up to it before and during training camp in Vancouver. All told, it was 66 days from when Troy Stecher and Chris Tanev first hit the ice at Rogers Arena on June 30 to the Canucks' Game 7 elimination at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights last Friday.
On Thursday, I asked Horvat and Tanev about how they kept their heads screwed on straight while they were in the bubble.
"You're playing so much hockey that you're busy," said Tanev. "You're playing every other day, sometimes back-to-back. So when you're resting, you're trying to recover, you're hanging with the guys.
"A lot of guys played video games. I'm not a big video game guy so there's cards. There's these other things that we did to keep ourselves busy, but a lot of it was just recovery because we played so much. So that's what I tried to focus on."
"It's just trying to get your body ready for the next game," added Horvat. "Obviously, game days are a lot easier, mentally preparing for those."
Horvat talked about how emotional it was to rejoin his wife and newborn son. When asked if bubble life was easier or harder than he'd expected and if he'd do it again, he was very forthright.
"It was tougher than I thought," he admitted. "Mentally, being away from your family and
not knowing when you're going to see them and stuff like that.
"Would I do it again? I don't know. I think if my family could come and spend that time with us from the beginning, I'd have no problem doing it.
"Being away from them for that long was tough. So if, if we could bring families and be able to see them sooner, that would be definitely a lot better for me."
Tanev's answer was much more results-oriented. "For me, I think it started off great," he said "The more days you spend in the bubble obviously, the better it does get."
"There's a lot of highs and lows. When you win a game, everyone's happy and everyone's together. It's easy when when everyone's in a good mood. It's obviously harder after a
loss.
"As far as would I do it again? Like Bo said, I think, depending on the circumstances and what needs to be done, then we would we would talk about it at that time, I guess."
At this point, it kind of goes without saying that Tanev hasn't changed his tune at all about his desire to remain with the Canucks now that his unrestricted free agency is less than a month away. Asked if his priority in negotiations is the dollar amount, long-term security or no-trade projection, Tanev said those were all important factors. "Wanting to win is is a huge thing too," he added, "especially as you get older."
On Friday, Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson met with the media via Zoom.
Toffoli's first media availability after he was acquired before the trade deadline is still so clear in my mind. He'd just had his first practice with the Canucks and was still reeling a bit from changing teams for the first time in his career, especially going to a division rival, even though he knew that the Los Angeles Kings were set to be sellers at the trade deadline.
We talk a lot about Toffoli's 10 points in 10 games after he joined Vancouver and the chemistry that he showed while playing with Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller, but he only got two regular-season games with the Canucks before Jacob Markstrom was injured. The Canucks were a relatively pedestrian 4-5-1 during Toffoli's tenure, and had been in danger of slipping out of a playoff spot when the season was paused.
In the playoffs, he finished with 2-2-4 in seven games — injured during the Canucks' shutout loss to Minnesota that opened the postseason. After missing 10 games, he had a goal and two assists in his return, helping Vancouver tie its series with Vegas at 1-1 after a shutout loss in Game 1. He chipped in one other goal in Game 4 against Vegas, the 5-3 loss that put the Golden Knights up 3-1 in the series.
I like Toffoli and I like what he brings to the table. He's only 28, so he should still have a few good years ahead of him, and he has been relatively healthy through his career. But at a time when dollars are short and long-term deals for older players carry a good degree of risk, I certainly hope Canucks' management won't let itself get talked into signing Toffoli to a seven or eight-year deal.
With so much uncertainty about the future economics of the NHL, I think most members of this year's UFA class — and their agents — will need to accept that they won't be able to acquire the same level of security as they would have expected a year ago. Probably not even the same security that an impending UFA like Jake Muzzin got when the 31-year-old signed a four-year deal with Toronto on February 24 — just a few weeks before the pause. He's getting a raise in his base salary from $4 million to $5.625 million a year and has protection — a no-move clause for next season to keep him safe from the expansion draft, then two years of full no-trade and a modified no-trade in his final year.
The Kings' window to contend has crashed closed as the team has parted ways with useful veterans like Toffoli, Muzzin, and Alec Martinez. But they've got a boatload full of inexpensive young prospects who probably aren't far away from being ready to take the next step, and another 11 picks in this year's draft, including Vancouver's second rounder.
And despite the fact that they've got a $4.06 million buyout hit for Dion Phaneuf on their books for next season, plus the $6.25 million for Ilya Kovalchuk's contract termination, they're still in such a good place, cap-wise, that they were able to commit to 25-year-old defenseman Sean Walker on Friday, with a four-year deal carrying a cap hit of $2.625 million per season. An undrafted defenseman who was signed as a free agent out of Bowling Green two years ago, it'll be interesting to see if Walker turns out to follow in the footsteps of Muzzin, who was a late bloomer in in the OHL and didn't get signed after he was drafted, allowing the Kings to scoop him up as a 20-year-old free agent.
It has been well documented that Toffoli's wife works for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and that the couple has enjoyed the Southern California lifestyle. If the Canucks can't make contract terms work with Toffoli, it does appear that the Kings would have room to fit him into their cap structure, at least in the near term, if they chose to do so.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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