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Vancouver Canucks Alumnus Radim Vrbata Reportedly Close to deal w/ Arizona

August 15, 2016, 4:34 PM ET [286 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The countdown is on!

Three weeks until training camps open for the World Cup of Hockey, then the prospects will start gearing up for this year's Young Stars tournament about a week after that.

Once the Olympics are over, I'll start digging more deeply into what we can expect on the ice in Vancouver and in Utica this year.

For now, the news remains at a trickle.

Nothing official yet, but it looks like the Arizona Coyotes are going to sign ex-Canuck Radim Vrbata to his third tour of duty with the team.




Given Vrbata's wildly inconsistent production, this seems like a smart way to structure the contract.




Meanwhile, the veteran player bought out by the Coyotes, Antoine Vermette, has signed on in Anaheim.




The Ducks, who usually work with an internal salary cap, still need to re-sign young RFAs Hampus Lindholm and Rickard Rackell. They spent less than $65 million in total last year. Will something have to give?

Vermette, of course, is familiar to the Ducks after spending most of the last decade in the Western Conference. He has mostly been a division foe with the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes since 2012, except for when he helped knock the Ducks out of the Western Conference Final in 2015 as part of the Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks. Vermette collected three points in six games in the series, most notably the game-winning goal in double overtime in Game 4, which levelled the series at 2-2.

After re-signing with the Coyotes, Vermette put up 38 points in 2015-16, including a respectable 17 goals. It'll be interesting to see how he fits with the Ducks.

Next—a quick update on the Jimmy Vesey situation:




Plenty of speculation churning, with lots of opposing viewpoints. I expect it'll take at least a few days before Vesey makes his final decision. End of the week, maybe?

Back in Vancouver...Sven Baertschi and his girlfriend ultimately raised $4,520 for the BC SPCA last Friday. Perhaps more importantly, they helped get a dog adopted:




Sounds like Jake Virtanen is the next Canuck to be joining the ranks of the dog owners:




And finally—a sad anniversary, but one that's worth remembering.




Glad to see the Mindcheck.ca legacy continues!
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