The Vancouver Canucks are enjoying a team day off on Wednesday as the 2016-17 NHL season gets underway.
Opening-night rosters were declared on Tuesday.
Click here for the full list, from NHL.com.
Of course, these rosters still represent just a snapshot in time. Changes will be made due to injuries or for other reasons.
After practice on Tuesday, we got confirmation that the Canucks had two more roster tweaks up their sleeve. Emerson Etem was placed on waivers today; once he clears and his spot is opened up, PTO candidate Jack Skille will be signed to a contract.
To review: Etem's a 24-year-old who was acquired by the Canucks last January in exchange for Nicklas Jensen, now 23. Jensen was drafted 29th overall in 2011 and has been assigned to the AHL by his new team, the New York Rangers. Etem was drafted in the same spot—29th overall—one year earlier, in 2010. He had seven goals and 12 points in 39 games with the Canucks last season—his best performance ever at the NHL level—but still struggled to find his game.
Etem was signed to a one-year, one-way contract over the summer, with a value of $775,000.
I will definitely miss his Frank Sinatra goal song!
Essentially, Etem's spot will be filled by PTO candidate Jack Skille. He's 29 and was drafted seventh overall by the Chicago Blackhawks in 2005. Listed at 6'1" and a burly 216 pounds, Skille moves really well on the ice and did a good job of getting involved in the play during preseason.
I wasn't impressed with Skille's finish, but if he's going to be a 13th forward that's in and out of the lineup in a bottom six role, he won't be counted on for scoring. I'd say his benchmark for success would be the five goals and 10 points that Adam Cracknell picked up during 44 games with the Canucks last season.
Ben Kuzma of
The Province says that Skille will be signed to a one-year, one-way contract, which is standard for players on PTOs. No word yet on what the number will be. It should be fairly close to the league minimum, I'd think.
After some earlier confusion,
General Fanager has updated its Canucks information. With the contracts of junior players Olli Juolevi and Guillaume Brisebois exempt from the NHL's 50-contract limit, the Canucks are currently sitting at 45. Skille will bump that number up to 46, which still leaves the team with some flexibility as the season progresses.
The salary-cap number also looks good—$69.8 million. That leaves the team with a little more than $3 million in wiggle room if Jim Benning decides he wants to make more moves.
According to General Fanager, four teams are starting the season with their cap space maxxed out—Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Arizona. Fifteen other teams are currently recording cap hits of $70 million or more, so the Canucks are actually in the bottom half of the league right now in terms of their cap hit.
After a flurry of big injury announcements this morning—Carey Price, Patrice Bergeron and Jack Eichel are all suddenly starting the season on IR, as is Sidney Crosby—the Canucks start the season in pretty good health. Barring any injuries in practice before Saturday's season opener, the only names on the injured list should be winger Anton Rodin, who continues to rehab his knee injury, and minor-league defenseman Tom Nilsson, who's rehabbing a sprained ankle.
As expected, Brendan Gaunce has been named to the opening-night lineup. That's quite an accomplishment for the 2012 first-rounder, who is now 22 and starting his third pro season.
Gaunce was part of that crazy 2012 draft class that gave us underachievers like Nail Yakupov and Griffin Reinhart among the early picks, while birthing stars like Filip Forsberg and Olli Maatta later in the first round. We're still a few years away from being able to identify the true winners and losers from that group.
It's a testament to Travis Green and the coaching staff in Utica, as well as to Gaunce himself, that he has been able to develop into an NHL player after an unremarkable start in the pros.
Speaking of Utica—Jake Virtanen survived the final cut but is still very much on the bubble with the Canucks. He didn't skate on a regular line at practice on Tuesday, and here's what Jim Benning told
Steve Ewen of
The Province:
“We talked with Jake. He was hurt through camp. The games that he played, we thought he played OK,” said Benning. “We’re going to keep monitoring his play, and this year we have the ability to send him down. If he’s not getting in every night or we feel he’s not playing up to his capability, we can send him down to Utica for development.”
Unless he comes out of the gate super strong, Virtanen's probably the first player earmarked for Utica if/when Rodin gets healthy. The Canucks' heavy early schedule could work in his favour, though—the team kicks off the season with back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday, so it'd make sense for Willie Desjardins to shuffle some players in and out of the lineup.
That might also bode well for seventh and eighth defensemen Nikita Tryamkin and Alex Biega. Both are still with the club, but are earmarked as spare parts for the time being.
So now that you've seen the roster, what do you think of Vancouver's chances for 2016-17?
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