With one day to go until the trade freeze before the expansion draft, the tradewinds are blowing around the NHL.
Nothing big happening on the Canucks front right now, but the team did ink restricted free agent Erik Gudbranson to a one-year contract extension on Thursday.
The deal's worth $3.5 million, the same as what he made in 2016-17 from the deal he signed in Florida in May of 2016, about two weeks before he was traded to Vancouver.
Gudbranson managed just 30 games with the Canucks before undergoing season-ending wrist surgery in mid-December. During that time he scored one goal and added five assists, averaging 20:20 of ice time a game—right on par with his workload in Florida.
Jim Benning got roasted pretty hard when he acquired Gudbranson, who was packaged with a sixth-round draft pick in exchange for Jared McCann and two draft picks—a second and a fourth.
Funnily enough, McCann's stat line for the 2016-17 season is almost identical to Gudbranson's—not exactly ideal for an offense-minded forward. He played in 29 games with the Panthers, scoring one goal and adding six assists. McCann got his chance with the Panthers early in the season, when injuries left some holes in the team's top six. He was assigned to the AHL's Springfield Thunderbirds in late November, recalled in early January, then returned to the minors for the rest of the year on February 1. In Springfield, he finished out the year with 11 goals and 25 points in 42 games.
Panthers blog
The Rat Trick informs us that McCann's season in Springfield ended on a high note when he was named AHL player of the week for the last week of the regular season. With the Thunderbirds out of the playoff picture, he logged four goals and three assists in his last three games of the year, including his first career hat trick.
Blogger Joey Bailey concedes that Panthers fans still aren't sure if they came out on the right side of the trade—Gudbranson was a popular player in Florida. But Bailey believes that McCann should be able to take a real shot at sticking with the Panthers in 2017-18, most likely on the wing.
McCann is exempt from the expansion draft and remains waiver exempt for one more season or 62 NHL games, whichever comes first. So new Florida coach Bob Boughner will have a year to figure out what he's got in McCann.
The Panthers went on to flip the 33rd pick that they received from the Canucks to Buffalo as part of last summer's Dmitry Kulikov trade. If we're playing Sliding Doors, we need to keep an eye on the progress of Swedish centre Rasmus Asplund, who was chosen by the Sabres with that second-rounder—and who seems a bit like the kind of player Jim Benning might have picked in that spot, too. Asplund just finished his third year with Farjestads of the Swedish league, where he had six goals and 19 points in 33 games. He was an alternate captain on Sweden's 2017 World Junior team and posted seven points in seven games before the Swedes lost to Russia in the bronze-medal game.
At this end, the Canucks have a big defenseman with a bit of a mean streak—who can become an unrestricted free agent at the end of next season.
Gudbranson's short season didn't exactly set him up for a lucrative long-term contract extension. When he was in the lineup, he seemed to struggle with mobility, and his physical presence was—shall we say—understated when compared to how he had been billed. He averaged 2.2 hits a game when he was in the lineup—tied for fourth on the Canucks with Nikita Tryamkin, behind Alex Biega (2.7), Joseph Cramarossa (2.5) and Derek Dorsett (2.5).
But his two fights were slobberknockers!
First, Gudbranson took on Zack Kassian when the Canucks hosted the Oilers on October 28.
Then, his December 3 tilt with Matt Martin, full of buildup after Gudbranson had strong words for Martin for going after Troy Stecher when the Canucks played the Leafs in Toronto a month earlier.
In
this article in
The Province, Ben Kuzma says that if Gudbranson starts the season on a positive note, the Canucks will start talking about a contract extension in January, before the UFA pressure starts to mount.
Ever since his arrival, Gudbranson has said all the right things about playing in this market, and he has talked about having accountability after his rough season.
“I have something to prove,” he said last spring, per Kuzma. “I want to be here more than anything. Above that, I want to prove to the city and the team that I can be a good influence on this group.”
Does this mean that I shouldn't be so worried that if he does get off to a good start next year, he might start looking at other options or thinking about selling his services to the highest bidder? Should I be more optimistic about the other side of the coin, that the Canucks have left themselves with some flexibility and not committed a big term to a six-year veteran who's still looking to realize his full potential?
When Gudbranson spoke with Rick Dhaliwal of News1130 on Thursday, I found these comments most intriguing:
Colour me curious to see how that all plays out.
Here's what Gudbranson's up to for the rest of the offseason:
One other note from Dhaliwal—Gudbranson is repped by agent Mark Guy, whose client list also includes the Canucks' other important RFA, Bo Horvat.
Horvat got an interesting comparable for his negotiation on Thursday, when Jonathan Drouin inked his six-year deal with the Montreal Canadiens with a cap hit of $5.5 million per season.
Drouin was chosen six places above Horvat in the 2013 draft.
Bo has 49-68-117 in 231 career NHL games so far, while Drouin has 29-66-95 in 164 games. Will his contract be the model for Horvat's new deal?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»