I was surprised to realize that we're already at Scouting Combine week but on second thought, it does make sense.
The week starts off with player interviews, then they go through medical testing on Thursday ahead of the real fun—the physical tests, on Saturday. I'll have more on those in the coming days.
Once all that data is collected, teams and pundits have three weeks to assemble their final lists before the 2018 Draft goes down in Dallas on June 22-23.
For the Canucks and their fans, with a wide range of prospects potentially available at the seventh spot this year, those testing numbers are bound to fuel plenty of discussion, as we get some data that will allow us to make more head-to-head comparisons of the many defensemen that are in the mix.
Elliotte Friedman has added another possibility, after saying in his "31 Thoughts" blog a few days ago that the Canucks were a "stealth" contender for Carolina Hurricanes' defenseman Noah Hanifin.
Hanifin already has three NHL seasons under his belt, but he's only 21. He was drafted fifth overall by Carolina in 2015, the same year the Canucks took Brock Boeser.
He hit 10 goals for the first time last season, which was nearly 50 percent of the output of the entire Canucks defense (21 goals). Only one of those goals game on the power-play, interestingly enough—Justin Faulk was the go-to guy in that role. Hanifin's a lefty while Faulk, who's 26, shoots right.
Hanifin ranked fourth in average ice time with the Hurricanes this season, primarily because he doesn't kill penalties.
In addition to his offensive acumen, Hanifin is an excellent skater, which would be a boon to the Canucks' blue line. Crazy as it seems, the Canucks need to start thinking about the possibility of life after Alex Edler: he's a UFA at the end of this season and with the Sedins gone, maybe he won't be quite so stubbornly committed to staying in Vancouver — although I'd bet that he's still welcome anytime as a dinner guest.
Hanifin has been pretty durable, missing just seven games in his first three NHL seasons, but it is worth noting that the three games he missed in 2017-18 were due to a concussion he suffered in March. He did come back to finish out the year, with two goals and an assist in Carolina's last eight games.
After new owner Tom Dundon took over the Hurricanes earlier this year, he started a full-scale overhaul of his team. GM Ron Francis was moved out his role and eventually parted ways with the franchise, while Bill Peters opted out of the last year of his contract to join the Calgary Flames.
In the end, though, not much new blood has been added. Assistant coach Rod Brind'Amour was promoted to the head coaching gig, while Don Waddell took on the roles of Hurricanes president and GM in addition to his job as president of the team's parent company, Gale Force Sports and Entertainment. Rick Dudley, who served as Waddell's GM with the Atlanta Thrashers, has been added to the management team as a senior VP of hockey operations.
So—even though the early word was that Dundon was looking to do bring a fresh approach to his team, his newly assembled management group is decidedly old school. At one point, word was that every Hurricanes player except Sebastian Aho could be in play.
Hanifin is a young defenseman with a ton of upside, so if he is available, the Hurricanes' asking price could be steep. The Canucks certainly won't be the only team interested, and that could set up a bidding war.
Hanifin's also a restricted free agent, coming off his entry-level contract. He doesn't have arbitration rights yet, so he doesn't have a whole lot of bargaining power, but we heard stories during the GM search that Dundon keeps a pretty tight grip on his wallet.
Last June,
Hanifin switched agents, moving from Orr Hockey Group to a team of agents at CAA led by Pat Brisson, who reps Sidney Crosby, among others.
When Hanifin made the change last June, Liz Mullen of Sports Business Journal reported:
Asked for comment on Hanifin leaving the agency, Orr Hockey Group managing partner Rick Curran responded in an email, “Disillusionment.”
The Hurricanes have defensemen Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce signed long term and Faulk locked up for two more seasons. Trevor van Riemsdyk is an RFA with arbitration rights but carried a cap hit of just $825,000 last season and they've got more young blueliners in their system—not just first-rounders Haydn Fleury and Jake Bean, but also 23-year-old Trevor Carrick, a fourth-rounder from 2012 who led the Charlotte Checkers' blue line with 44 points last season.
If Carolina's management team already knows that it's going to have trouble inking Hanifin to a long-term deal that works for both sides, that could be the catalyst for a trade.
The Canucks have taken quite a bit of heat over the last few years for giving up draft picks in an effort to hasten their rebuild, but they've always hung onto their first-rounders.
So, the central question:
polls
Here's another idea. Would the Canucks offer Olli Juolevi? Like Hanifin, he's a left-shot defenseman. He was also a fifth-overall pick, chosen one year later. From a budget point of view, he might be appealing to the Hurricanes—a blue-chip prospect whose entry-level contract has not yet started ticking down. Carolina would be able to keep him for awhile on the cheap—in the minors or on the big club.
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