As promised, the Vancouver Canucks made one of the biggest signings of the first day of the 2016 free-agency season with the acquisition of right wing Loui Eriksson.
(EDIT) The text above is pasted directly from the Canucks' press release. Though it says the contract would end after 2022-23, that's seven years. The correct end date should be 2021-22. Thanks to Retinalz for picking that up. Sharp eyes indeed!
A $6 million cap hit was the top number today, with Steven Stamkos out of the mix. Milan Lucic (Edmonton) and Kyle Okposo (Buffalo) signed the biggest deals of the day with 7-year teams, while David Backes also cashed in at $6 million, but for just five years in Boston.
Interesting that the Bruins had $6 million for Backes—who's expected to play third-line center behind David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron—but wouldn't pony up the same money for Eriksson, who's two years younger. Or, maybe Eriksson was determined to move on and seize his opportunity to play with the Sedins.
Here's a bit more on how Eriksson's contract is structured.
The no-move clause, of course, protects him from being exposed to Las Vegas in the expansion draft. (ANOTHER EDIT) According to
this 2015 article from Spector's Hockey, signing bonuses are not exempt from the league's escrow withholdings, but they do help protect a player in the event of a potential buyout down the road. And to be clear, the $28 million in bonuses makes up the majority of Eriksson's wage. He'll get another $8 million over six years in regular salary to bring the total to $36 million altogether.
Though Eriksson is a right wing, he shoots left. Not ideal for setting up with the Sedins, but Alex Burrows showed that it can work during his peak years. The trio had great chemistry together during Sweden's gold-medal win at the 2013 World Championship and will reunite for the first time on the international stage once again.
Here are the first words from Eriksson from his Friday afternoon conference call.
At 6'2" and 183 pounds, Eriksson is literally carved from the same mould as the Sedins. He also shares an agent, J.P Barry, with the twins.
Eriksson also mentioned his big family as part of the reason why he wanted some stability in terms of contract length. According to Wikipedia, he married his wife Mikaela in 2008 and has three daughters.
I've been a fan of Eriksson dating back to his days with the Dallas Stars, when he seemed to score with wild abandon against the Canucks. In addition to scoring 30 goals with Boston last season, he had four straight seasons with 26 goals or more in Dallas between 2008 and 2012.
When I conducted my poll before free agency began, Eriksson seemed like the preferred choice over Milan Lucic by most of you. I think Jim Benning got a player who should be a good fit in the short run and who shouldn't fuel the fire of the haters. Twitter seems relatively calm today—especially compared to what I think we would have seen if Lucic had come back to town.
For his part, Lucic offered some words of explanation about why he chose Edmonton:
Also:
The Canucks made one other move on Friday, officially inking defenseman Philip Larsen:
There were rumours through the morning that the Canucks were kicking the tires on former Medicine Hat Tigers defenseman Kris Russell. The announcement of Larsen's contract came shortly after the word started to surface that Vancouver was out on Russell, which leads me to believe that the two elements were connected. I think if Russell had signed, Vancouver would have been OK with leaving Larsen in Europe for another year rather than bringing him over and exposing him to waivers.
Russell hasn't signed yet, but here's some clarification on the Canucks' position:
Russell remains a sore spot in Vancouver due to his link with Dan Hamhuis—who did, in fact, sign as a free agent in Dallas today, four months after his trade-deadline deal failed to materialize and the Stars gave up two players and what ultimately turned out to be a second-round pick for Russell instead.
I'm OK with the Canucks moving on from Hamhuis, and I hope they continue to stay away from Russell. It's time to get younger on the blue line.
Of some of the other names that have been bandied around for the Canucks' "secondary-forward" role, everyone from Troy Brouwer to Andrew Ladd to Thomas Vanek to even Vern Fiddler has signed on elsewhere.
Mikkel Boedker was just signed by San Jose on Friday afternoon, to a four-year, $16-million deal and Teddy Purcell signed a $1.6 million deal with the Kings, so those two names are also off the list.
Genral Fanager is a good resource for forwards who are still unsigned. In the under-30 category of UFA, Sam Gagner and Kris Versteeg are about the highest-profile names still on the board.
An idea like this could still be in play.
Cracknell was a good fit and a great teammate in Vancouver last season, especially as a mentor to the younger players. I wouldn't mind seeing him back, especially if it was on a two-way deal.
All in all, not a blockbuster day for Vancouver, but not bad. And no moves to incite the sort of hysteria that erupted last year. I think the organization would consider that a win. What about you?
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