Spencer
@Slyttle90
Canucks really are an AHL team .

If you want to see tits in a jersey go check out Benning in the white jersey.
- VANTEL

I may have to order an Abbotsford Canuck jersey, anybody know who or where we can get them from?
- Reubenkincade

Send an email request to their sales department:

https://tinyurl.com/CanucksSalesman

News: According to
@RussoHockey
#MNWild Kirill Kaprizov has reportedly turned down a $9M x 8 contract.

Reports are that he wants a shorter term (4-5 years) because he sees himself as a $10M-$11M player in the future.
- VANTEL

I’d take the security of the 9x8…but that’s just me.

I may have to order an Abbotsford Canuck jersey, anybody know who or where we can get them from?
- Reubenkincade

You could google it like I did or try here:
https://vanbase.ca/produc...bbotsford-ahl-team-jersey

I’d take the security of the 9x8…but that’s just me.
- LeftCoaster

the buyout talk yesterday got me thinking about a really interesting podcast i listened to the other week.

it's the episode "bobby bonilla day," from the NPR podcast, Planet Money.

it's an economic look at the bobby bonilla buyout. basically, the ny mets owed bobby b. 5.9 mil with 1 year left on his deal in the mid 2000's. rather than pay him, they asked if they could defer the money. they worked out a deal where instead of the 5.9m in 2004(?), he would get 1.2m every july 1 from 2010ish to 2035. so he would get about $35m over 20 years after waiting 5 years instead of the $6m right away.

great listen. i highly recommend it.

News: According to
@RussoHockey
#MNWild Kirill Kaprizov has reportedly turned down a $9M x 8 contract.

Reports are that he wants a shorter term (4-5 years) because he sees himself as a $10M-$11M player in the future.
- VANTEL

WOW

That's Ballsy for a young player. Who does he think he is ...Mike Bossy?

WOW

That's Ballsy for a young player. Who does he think he is ...Mike Bossy?
- carsonagenic

mike ballsy more like it.

but then again, how's he supposed to feed his family with $70m? that extra 30-40 schmil is the difference between kraft dinner 3 nights a week and being able to afford drive thru.

think about the kids!

WOW

That's Ballsy for a young player. Who does he think he is ...Mike Bossy?
- carsonagenic

No sh1t.

Thanks Carol .

I like the new jerseys but social media has a different opinion apparently.

Dhaliwal just said also Seattle are definitely interested in Holtby and Canucks are getting calls from a few teams on Holtby.

Thanks for your update.


- VANTEL

Nice.
I like the logo and colours.
A on the sleeve is a nice touch.

I’d take the security of the 9x8…but that’s just me.
- LeftCoaster

I would also. His thinking is riding out the buyout hits & banking on he is as good as he thinks he is. Teams will adjust to him & a poor decision if he doesn't take the 8/9m.

mike ballsy more like it.

but then again, how's he supposed to feed his family with $70m? that extra 30-40 schmil is the difference between kraft dinner 3 nights a week and being able to afford drive thru.

think about the kids!
- RealityChecker

40000000 US is
2962962962.96 Russian Rubles

In Russia, Drive thru drives thru you...

I would also. His thinking is riding out the buyout hits & banking on he is as good as he thinks he is. Teams will adjust to him & a poor decision if he doesn't take the 8/9m.
- Nighthawk

Crazy as a 2nd contract to turn that down.

A good article in The Athletic by Drance about possible scenarios for the expansion draft as it pertains to the Canucks.

Should the Canucks strike an expansion side deal with the Kraken? Exploring 4 possible scenarios

A good article in The Athletic by Drance about possible scenarios for the expansion draft as it pertains to the Canucks.

Should the Canucks strike an expansion side deal with the Kraken? Exploring 4 possible scenarios
- LeftCoaster

A deal to dump salary on Seattle?

A good article in The Athletic by Drance about possible scenarios for the expansion draft as it pertains to the Canucks.

Should the Canucks strike an expansion side deal with the Kraken? Exploring 4 possible scenarios
- LeftCoaster

Well. What’s it say?

I’m on a plane, spotty Wi-Fi, but I’ll try and paste some of it.

Part 1


All eyes are on Seattle Kraken general manager Ron Francis. He is now days away from lording over his colleagues and their frozen rosters for a four-day period, during which only his club is permitted to be active — negotiating with pending free agents, cutting side deals, leveraging his rivals cap situations — ahead of the expansion draft on July 21.

The contemporary expansion process is intricate and complex. Last time out the process served to cook up a Stanley Cup Final team in Year 1 with the Vegas Golden Knights’ inaugural general manager George McPhee microwaving a juggernaut with the apparent simplicity of just repeatedly hitting the “add: 30-sec.” button.

Vegas’ success right off the hop was largely the product of a series of ill-advised side deals that a variety of teams made. These side deals permitted the Golden Knights to accrue a ton of meaningful futures while also adding some of their most valuable assets, including a handful of players that remain top of the lineup contributors in the desert today: Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly Smith, Shea Theodore, Marc-Andre Fleury, William Karlsson and Alex Tuch were all acquired in this manner.

In the wake of Vegas’ stunning success, there’s a school of thought which suggests that NHL general managers will be leery of engaging the expansion outfit with side deal propositions the second time around. It’s widely suggested that they will have learned from the mistakes of 2017 and will be far more willing to just take their medicine, lose the player the Kraken select in the process and be done with it.

However, it isn’t a theory that Canucks general manager Jim Benning subscribes to.

“We’re looking at all of our options, we’re not going to limit ourselves,” Benning told The Athletic on Tuesday when asked about the possibility of the Canucks considering a side deal with their newest geographic rival. “We’re looking at everything. Last time teams did side deals because there were a bunch of teams that were up against the cap, and when the expansion team comes in they have zero cap committed. This time around, there’s the flat cap, so to say teams will avoid side deals because it didn’t work out last time, I’m not sure if that’s true. Teams need to shed money, so they’re going to be looking to side deals to do that.”

Benning has been in regular contact with Francis, with the frequency of their conversations increasing since the two Pacific Northwest hockey executives spent a half hour between games discussing various scenarios at the U18 hockey tournament in Dallas this spring.

“We’ve talked about lots of different things,” Benning said. “He’s had some ideas for me and I’ve countered with some ideas for him. Nothing specific, I can’t detail what we’ve talked about, but we’ve talked a lot about different scenarios.”

In the lead up to the expansion draft, fans and media in the Vancouver market — with The Athletic’s Vancouver bureau leading the charge — have been focused relatively narrowly on the opportunities that exist for the Canucks ahead of the expansion process. The Canucks don’t have a surplus depth of talent either up front or on the back end, and their protected list has shaped up favourably as a result.

The Canucks really should be able to land a player that a rival club might otherwise lose for free to the Kraken in a trade.

It’s something that the club has been working to accomplish, but to no avail at this juncture. Things could perhaps heat up before the roster freeze on July 17, but to this point, we’ve only really seen one trade with protected list redistribution in mind — the swap between the Los Angeles Kings and the Nashville Predators that sent Viktor Arvidsson to Southern California.

The fact is that the pre-expansion trade market hasn’t exactly shaped up the way many observers — both ourselves and the Canucks included — may have expected. There are a few teams willing to make trades to avoid losing valuable players without compensation to the Kraken, but there’s a general sense that most teams with expansion issues have made peace with the prospect of losing a good player and would prefer not to compound the issue by losing another good player for prospects or draft pick capital.

As a result, prices on the trade market — even for teams with significant protection issues — remain prohibitively high at this point, according to multiple industry sources.

Perhaps that changes as this week moves along. That’ll be the hope off Griffiths Way, anyway. Make no mistake, this possibility remains a front-burner consideration for Benning’s Canucks hockey operations department ahead of the roster freeze.

“We talk about it every day, we’re exploring all of the different things we may or may not be able to do,” Benning said. “If something makes sense, we’re going to do it. If it doesn’t make sense, we’re not going to do it. We’re talking to teams and we’ll see what the acquisition cost is.”

However the pre-expansion trade market plays out in the days ahead, the window of opportunity for a cap-strapped Canucks side to come out of the expansion process improved doesn’t shut when their roster freezes this weekend. In fact, considering the club’s cap flexibility issues, the more impactful opportunity may come in the meat of the expansion process itself — when the cub has a chance to incentivize the Kraken to take on one of Vancouver’s inefficient contracts.

What exactly could a side deal of this order look like? Can we work through what might be the probable market value of cutting a side deal with the Kraken, that works for the Canucks, based on what we saw during the 2017 expansion process?

Here are four possible scenarios, based on contemporary expansion draft history.

Part 2


The Pedestrian Side Deal Scenario
Most, but not all, of the most glaring side deal mistakes that we saw during the 2017 expansion draft were the result of teams that were desperate to keep hold of various roster players.

Minnesota made the Tuch deal, for example, which also cost them Erik Haula, primarily to hold onto Marco Scandella and Matt Dumba. Or the Anaheim Ducks, who made the Shea Theodore deal primarily to ward Vegas off from selecting Josh Manson and Sami Vatanen.

This is the sort of mistake that the Canucks won’t be able to make, frankly. There just isn’t enough talent on Vancouver’s roster that will be left unprotected.

Among the best, younger Canucks players that could realistically be exposed to the Kraken in the expansion process are fringe contributors like Matthew Highmore, Zack MacEwen, Jonah Gadjovich and Kole Lind. There’s some upside and potential unrealized value there, sure, but nothing the club should be losing sleep over relative to the quality of player other NHL clubs will expose for the Kraken’s consideration.

Nonetheless, in 2017 we did see a few teams with relatively minor protection issues trade mid-round picks to the Golden Knights in order to protect various non-star pieces.

The Buffalo Sabres sent the Golden Knights a sixth-round pick to select William Carrier. The side deal allowed Buffalo to keep goaltender Linus Ullmark.
The Carolina Hurricanes sent the Golden Knights a fifth-round pick for “expansion considerations” with Vegas agreeing to take pending unrestricted free agent minor leaguer Conner Brickley in the expansion draft. The side deal allowed Carolina to keep Joakim Nordstrom, Eddie Lack, Cam Ward and Lee Stempniak.
Considering the depth of Vancouver’s farm system, it’s probably not entirely worth parting with a fifth-round or a sixth-round pick to induce the Kraken to take, say, MacEwen (and his one-way salary) so that the Canucks can keep Highmore and Gadjovich. This possibility is more likely to come into play in the event that the Canucks are able to add an additional forward. In that case, one could understand if Canucks hockey operations were to deem it a worthwhile expenditure to pay the Kraken to dissuade them from selecting a prospect like Lind.

A decent outlook for Truscott

https://canucksarmy.com/2...y-killer-chance-play-usa/

Part 3


The Shed Salary Side Deal Scenario
Cap space is probably the single most valuable commodity on the trade market this offseason, and as Benning noted — quite rightly — the appeal of cutting a side deal with the Kraken that sheds a significant salary is going to be enhanced in this expansion process as a direct result of the flat cap.

In 2017, two teams cut side deals with McPhee and the Golden Knights that were specifically designed to shed an inefficient salary, although in both cases there was also a component of guiding the Golden Knights away from players that those teams valued more highly. That latter point is important because it makes extrapolating the market value of “inducing the expansion outfit to take on an inefficient contract” from these trades somewhat murky.

Nevertheless, we’ll persist:

The Tampa Bay Lightning sent the Golden Knights a second-round pick, a future fourth-round pick and prospect Nikita Gusev in exchange for the Golden Knights selecting Jason Garrison (one year left on a contract with a $4.6 million AAV).
The Ducks sent the Golden Knights Shea Theodore in exchange for the Golden Knights selecting Clayton Stoner (one year left on a contract with a $3.25 million AAV).
Clearly, the price of convincing an expansion outfit to use some of their cap space on a player you’d prefer to get rid of is very high, although in Tampa Bay and Anaheim’s case there was more going on here in terms of the considerations at play. Anaheim was also concerned with maintaining Manson and Vatanen through the expansion process, while Tampa Bay was concerned with maintaining a pair of promising young defenders of their own too in Jake Dotchin and Slater Koekkoek.

If Vancouver were to pursue an analogous trade with the Kraken to what the Ducks and Lightning accomplished with Vegas in 2017, neither side would be factoring in the same level of opportunity cost in terms of the players kept or left on the board. It’s a bit tough to tell, however, if that would lower the potential trade price, or if any impact would be offset by the higher degree of competitiveness with which teams are likely to shed sap shedding trades in expansion as a result of the flat cap.

The basic precedent here is that you’re looking at multiple good assets (three, in Tampa Bay’s case) or one super premium asset if you’re going to convince the expansion team to take on an inefficient deal. The Canucks-side analogy would be something like a second-round pick in 2021, a fourth-round pick in 2022 and a fringe top-10 prospect in the mold of a William Lockwood, Arvid Costmar or Joni Jurmo in exchange for the Kraken agreeing to select Antoine Roussel (one year left on a contract with a $3 million AAV).

It’s a steep price to pay, and the Canucks should be pretty reluctant to part with that level of draft and prospect capital ahead of a season in which they’re a likely bubble team — depending on what other moves they make this offseason.

Part 4


The Godfather Side Deal Scenario
Of the side deals the Golden Knights made in the 2017 expansion draft, two in particular bear an uncanny similarity. We’ll call these the godfather side deals, deals in which the Golden Knights were willing to do a couple of teams massive favours in nearly every respect — but at a very high cost.

The New York Islanders traded a first-round pick, a future second-round pick, prospect Jake Bischoff (who was coming off a really good NCAA season) and Mikhail Grabovski’s LTI’d contract to the Golden Knights in exchange for Vegas selecting J.F. Berube. The side deal allowed the Islanders to protect Brock Nelson, Ryan Strome, Calvin de Haan and Thomas Hickey.
The Columbus Blue Jackets traded a first-round pick, a future second-round pick and David Clarkson’s LTI’d contract to the Golden Knights in exchange for Vegas selecting one of Karlsson, Ryan Murray or Matt Calvert (Vegas selected Karlsson). The side deal allowed the Blue Jackets to keep Joonas Korpisalo and Josh Anderson.
The shape of these deals is phenomenally interesting, but effectively Vegas netted three assets from each team as payment for both agreeing to be steered away from some key, premium assets and for taking on an expensive LTI’d contract.

Now, our analogy will fall apart a bit at this stage because there’s not a ton of benefit to the Canucks making a deal that would include Micheal Ferland’s LTI’d contract. You’d rather not operate in LTI all things considered, and doubly so when your AHL affiliate is local as Vancouver’s will be next season, but it’s not worth three premium assets.

What might be worth three premium assets for Vancouver? Perhaps moving off the final year of Loui Eriksson’s $6 million cap hit.

This is by no means a perfectly analogous situation since Eriksson’s contract is entirely active and not on LTI and the Canucks wouldn’t be protecting any players of Andersson or Nelson’s calibre as part of the deal, but one wonders if the logic of a godfather offer that accomplishes a ton from Vancouver’s perspective in exchange for significant futures could be worth considering.

Let’s say, as a hypothetical illustration of how this deal could be modified to function in Vancouver’s case that the first-round pick becomes a future first-round pick that’s protected in some manner or trade down from No. 9 to the late teens (presumably a pick that the Kraken acquire from another club; Vegas made three first-round selections in their first NHL Entry Draft in 2017), in addition to a 2022 second-round pick and a top-five prospect, perhaps Mike DiPietro or Aidan McDonough or even Olli Juolevi should the Canucks agree beforehand to leave him unprotected for this purpose — in exchange for the Kraken taking on Eriksson’s deal.

The price is probably too steep for Vancouver considering where they’re at in their team-building cycle. That’s especially true once the club’s long-term needs and what a top-10 pick could mean for this group a year or two down the road is factored in.

On the other hand, the Canucks could accomplish a ton with an additional $6 million in cap space this offseason, including big game hunting in a major way on the trade market and in free agency. At the very least, this type of package would have to be worth an extended conversation.

The End


The Goaltender Side Deal Scenario
We get to the fourth scenario and this one is the most straightforward to unpack, feels the most likely overall and is by far the most attractive from Vancouver’s perspective:

The Pittsburgh Penguins trade a future second-round pick to Vegas in exchange for the Golden Knights selecting Marc-Andre Fleury.
It’s easy to forget that Fleury was at a very different stage in his career in 2017. He’d lost his starting job in the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, and then struggled mightily the subsequent season, posting an uncharacteristically low .909 save percentage while appearing in only 38 games. He had two years remaining on a contract that carried a $5.75 million cap hit and exactly that amount of cash per season as well.

Holtby has struggled more than Fleury, but he has a similar pedigree and marketing appeal for an upstart franchise and also has only one year remaining on his contract ($4.3 million AAV, $5.7 million in actual salary).

If Vancouver could recreate this deal with the Kraken in the expansion process, part with a second-round pick in a subsequent season in exchange for steering Seattle toward Holtby and lock in $4.3 million in cap savings in the expansion process while saving closer to $6 million in real cash, that would have to be an absolute no-brainer for Canucks hockey operations.

Oh oh , Drance gonna be mad @ lefty

Just speculating…

With us not having to worry about losing much to the Kracken I can envision Francis eluding to taking Holtby. If it’s Lind & JB is high on him then a minor side deal. More likely is JB wants to deal for a player from another team with protection issues & it needs some collaboration with Francis.

Holtby would free up cap for a bigger reshuffle