What is happening? The Vancouver Canucks have gone two whole days without a roster announcement or any other big news.
It's just a brief lull, I think. The next significant date on the offseason calendar is the arbitration filing deadline. Players must submit their names before 5 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 1.
The Canucks have three arbitration-eligible players on their roster: Jason Dickinson, Guillaume Brisebois and Lukas Jasek.
With Jasek signed to play in the Czech Republic next season, I don't think he's a concern. And Brisebois doesn't have much negotiating leverage.
When Dickinson was first acquired, there was talk that the Canucks and his reps had a framework in place for his contract. While the arbitration process nearly always leads to settlements before any awards are made, it'd be great if the two sides can hammer out a deal without going through those steps.
And speaking of contract negotiations, Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes are still on the docket, of course.
As you know, they're both repped by CAA. Agent J.P. Barry is part of that team, and chatted a bit about the negotiations with Pierre LeBrun and Scott Burnside earlier this week, on the Two-Man Advantage podcast.
It was an interesting interview — digging in a bit on the details of his company's work process, which sounds like it is pretty collaborative between Barry, Pat Brisson, and the rest of the team. Obviously, the opening of free agency is a big day for hockey agents. Barry explained that their crew was linked together via Zoom so that they were all looped in on everything that was happening as they negotiated the biggest UFA deal of Day 1 — Dougie Hamilton. A few days earlier, they also did the massive contract for Seth Jones after he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks, so they've been busy.
When asked about the status of the negotiations with Hughes and Pettersson, Barry indicated — no surprise — that the stumbling block between the two sides was the term of the deals. The length of the contract, of course, goes a long way toward determining a contract's average annual value, so both pieces go hand in hand.
Evern after all their maneuvering over the last couple of weeks, the Canucks haven't really opened up much *more* cap space to get these deals done. After Wednesday's free-agent frenzy,
CapFriendly is showing the Canucks with $14 million in space available — which needs to cover Dickinson, Olli Juolevi and possibly Brisebois as well as Hughes and Pettersson. The team also needs to keep the AAVs on these deals as reasonable as possible going forward, given that they'll have a new contract due for Brock Boeser at the end of next season — off his $7.5 million required qualifying offer. Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller are both set to become UFAs the season after that. And so it goes...
In past years, we have seen both Horvat and Boeser go all summer before signing their second contracts. So while I'm hoping for a swift resolution and some cost certainty here, and both those deals did come in to be pretty reasonable, we could very well be in the same boat in mid-September this year, as we start to gear up for training camp.
In the last blog on Wednesday, I went over the Canucks' main signings of the day — bringing back Hamonic, Sutter and Justin Bailey and adding Jaroslav Halak, Tucker Poolman and Luke Schenn.
Now, we have the full list of secondary signings. There are 10 in total, so I can't hit everybody today. I'll get to Devante Stephens and John Stevens, Brad Hunt, Justin Dowling, Kyle Burroughs and Sheldon Rempal in a blog (or blogs) to come.
Also, at some point I'll review the departures, as players like Jalen Chatfield and Brogan Rafferty have found new NHL homes.
For today, meet these four, who will likely play big roles on the Abbotsford Canucks:
• Brady Keeper - right defense - signed to a one-way contract for two years at an AAV of $762,500
Keeper is a 25-year-old from Manitoba, with good size at 6'2" and 196 pounds. He's 25, and was signed as a college free agent by the Florida Panthers in 2019, following two years at Maine. He has played just two NHL games to date, but put up 108 penalty minutes with the Springfield Thunderbirds in the 2019-20 season. He split his time between the Syracuse Crunch and the Panthers' taxi squad last season.
• Nic Petan - forward - signed to a two-way contract for one year worth $750,000 at the NHL level, with an AHL minimum of $450,000
A local boy from Delta, Petan is an undersized forward. He's probably best known as a World Juniors gold medalist, and was drafted in the second round by Winnipeg in 2013.
Now 26, he was traded to Toronto at the 2019 deadline, and played seven games with the Leafs last season. All told, he has 6-22-28 in 136 career NHL games.
• Phil Di Giuseppe - forward - signed to a two-way contract for one year worth $750,000 at the NHL level and $450,000 in the AHL
Drafted by Carolina in the second round in 2012, Di Giuseppe is now 27, and is listed as a left winger. He's originally from Toronto and spent three years at the University of Michigan before making the jump to pro hockey, so he would have been college teammates with Tyler Motte.
He has 16-37-53 in 201 career NHL games. Early in 2019, Nashville claimed him on waivers from Carolina, but he only played three NHL games with the Predators. He was signed as a free agent by the Rangers during the 2019 offseason, and played 51 games for them over the last two seasons.
• Sheldon Dries - center - signed to a two-way contract for one year worth $750,000 at the NHL level and with a minimum of $350,000 at the AHL level
Dries is an undrafted center from Michigan. Now 27, he played four years at Western Michigan University, then played for the Texas Stars for a year before being signed to a two-way contract by Colorado.
Over the last three seasons, Dries has played 48 NHL games, going 3-3-6. Like Petan, he's undersized at 5'9" and 175 pounds.
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