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Vancouver Canucks: Travis Green to Stay in Utica, Other Teams Making Moves |
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Once again, a few interesting tidbits around the NHL today.
Most importantly for the Canucks, it looks like Travis Green will remain behind the bench with the Utica Comets next season.
With my limited knowledge of Bednar, I'd have to say this looks like a good choice to me. The 44-year-old, who was a defenceman during his career, played mostly in the ECHL but has paid his dues as a coach. He served as an assistant with the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL for five seasons before being promoted to head coach, then won the league championship in 2008-09.
That served as a springboard to the AHL, where he started as an assistant with the Abbotsford Heat, then spent time with the Peoria Rivermen and Springfield Falcons before taking the Lake Erie Monsters from out of the playoffs to a Calder Cup title in his first season with the team, in 2015-16.
I caught a little bit of that AHL final and was very impressed by the bond that seemed to exist within the team—although everybody's happy when they're winning, aren't they?
Bednar has never played or coached at the NHL level, which means he's less experienced coming into this gig than Willie Desjardins was (he had been an NHL assistant) or than Travis Green would be (he played 970 games for five different teams). He'll have a tough task ahead, fixing the dysfunction that has become the norm in Denver. And he won't have much time to prepare for his new job, either.
One other note: I suspect, now that Patrick Roy is out of the picture, the likelihood of the Avalanche trading Matt Duchene or Gabriel Landeskog has just evaporated. I imagine Bednar will pretty much work with the existing roster for at least the next few months.
In other player movement news, John Chayka continues to show that he's a bold young general manager, picking up a toxic contract in Dave Bolland but being rewarded with a promising prospect in Lawson Crouse for his efforts.
That second-round pick is conditional—with a couple of conditions:
My understanding is that, in this case, "play in Arizona this season" means Crouse would have to break that 10-game threshold to burn a year of his entry-level contract.
For Florida, the deal not only frees up cap space, it also reduces their number of active contracts from 49 to 47, out of the allowable 50. The Panthers now have a full roster, with no RFAs left to sign, and over $9 million in available cap space if they want to make another deal.
After being the centerpiece of Florida's free-agent season two summers ago, Dave Bolland played just 25 games last season due to injury issues. It sounds like he will go back onto long-term injured reserve and will not play in Arizona—and won't cost the Coyotes much money, either. I assume that insurance would make up the difference on the contract payout.
The price paid by the Panthers—Crouse, chosen 11th overall in 2015. At 6'4" and 212 pounds, the 19-year-old left wing plays a power forward's game and has enough size that he could conceivably land a spot in the Coyotes' lineup this season.
The Coyotes have a ton of other young talent coming along, too, so they'll be able to pick and choose which players make the big club and which ones are funnelled back to juniors or the minors.
And one other note—now that Elliotte Friedman is home from Rio, he's breaking player movement stories once again!
This move seems curious to me. The Rangers just signed Jimmy Vesey and are now totally overloaded up front, with 15 NHL-level contracts. Pirri can play any forward position, so perhaps that will help him to stick, but as well as Vesey, the Rangers have also brought in new forwards Michael Grabner, Nathan Gerbe and Josh Jooris, as well as offering Max Lapierre a PTO for training camp and swapping Derick Brassard for Mika Zibanejad.
The Rangers will need to shed some bodies before the regular season begins. I think Blueshirts fans are still hoping that Rick Nash will be the man to go, but it's hard to imagine another team taking on his $7.8 million cap hit for the next two seasons.
Ever so slowly, the free agent lists are thinning out. Will Kris Russell be the next player to finally find his new home?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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