While I was putting together
this slideshow for Bleacher Report about the best remaining unrestricted free agents, I found it interesting that
General Fanager is listing 16 of 30 NHL teams with less than $5 million in current cap space.
Tampa Bay's the only team that's listed as being over the cap, but I assume they'll have no trouble moving someone to the minors on opening day, then putting Matthias Ohlund onto long-term injured reserve for one last season (yep, that contract is *still* running).
The team with the biggest issue is still Chicago—with $231,000 in cap space and two RFAs still to be signed in Marcus Kruger and Joakim Nordstrom. The Hawks also need to activate at least one more defenseman.
My guess is that the wheels of justice will continue to turn slowly in the Patrick Kane situation—most likely leaving him available to start the season with the Blackhawks. If that's the case, Stan Bowman's going to need to make at least one more deal to get his ducks in a row before opening night.
I wonder if Kruger would be willing to look at an offer sheet from another team at this juncture?
The Vancouver Canucks are listed with $1.2 million in cap space and 22 players signed, which is just fine. That's more than enough cap space to add one new face, whether it's a rookie like Jake Virtanen or a depth veteran like Adam Cracknell.
I imagine the final decisions for opening night will have a lot to do with the health of the team after preseason, as well as players' performances. Remember Bo Horvat's injury against Edmonton during exhibition play last year?
The way the numbers shake out, there's room for either Jake Virtanen or Jared McCann—but probably not both—to play out his nine-game NHL trial before the Canucks need to make a final decision about whether or not to send him back to his junior team.
Those salary-cap numbers make it easy to understand why a player like Cody Franson has yet to find a home. Chances are, he'd like to play for a contender, but very few of the contenders have cap space to even offer him a $3 or $4-million a year deal—and I suspect he was originally aiming even higher than that.
Of the 14 teams with more than $5 million in cap space, only four made the playoffs last year. Winnipeg already has 10 defensemen on their list, and Franson's probably not high on the list of desirables for Nashville after his grim showing for Peter Laviolette last year.
The other two options are Anaheim—with seven defensemen signed and a plan to continue to develop their young blue line core of Cam Fowler, Hampus Lindholm and Sami Vatanen—and Ottawa, who happens to have a right-shooting defenseman named Erik Karlsson who plays half the minutes of every game. Neither of those teams needs a guy like Franson.
It sounds like the best offer Franson has on the table right now is from Buffalo. He may have to take a very deep breath before he signs on that bottom line.
As for Vancouver, unless they're hit by injuries during training camp and preseason, I don't expect to see the Canucks make any more last-minute free-agent signings or waiver pickups.
Canucks Moving to Dynamic Ticket Pricing
On Friday, Patrick Johnston of
The Province put up a blog post about the Canucks' move to a new pricing model for the upcoming season.
Season ticket holders' tickets will continue to be offered at a discount compared to single-game tickets, but the interesting change is that single-game tickets will now be subject to real-time price fluctuations based on supply and demand.
The goal will be to get more bodies into those empty seats at Rogers Arena. The team's promise to its season-ticket holders is that the single-game prices on offer will never go below the season ticket-holder's price point.
The Canucks website states that "This approach is used by the vast majority of professional sports teams in North America. You’ve likely encountered this when booking airline tickets, hotel rooms or shopping on EBay."
The secondary ticket market has also functioned in this fashion—well, forever. The old-fashioned scalpers who stand outside arenas and concerts halls start out demanding high prices, then drop that number as time passes if they have inventory left unsold—which becomes basically worthless as soon as the event begins.
Now, technology allows the original vendor to capitalize on the same process of supply and demand. It could mean some bargains for fans in the short run, but those extra fans should help add to the ambiance in the arena, as well as purchasing craft beers and gourmet hot dogs.
Once the Canucks do start moving back towards a sellout situation, the algorithms will push the prices up accordingly.
Single-game tickets have yet to go on sale. It'll be interesting to see how the pricing changes during the ebb and flow of the season.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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