With Bye Week in full effect, my Instagram Stories have filled up with the usual shots of hockey players in their vacation habitats.
As usual, a bunch of the boys have gone down to Cabo. Bo Horvat and Tanner Pearson are now so committed as linemates that they've gone to Disneyland together. Brock Boeser posted a pic from Whistler and Tim Schaller is also somewhere snowy, with his dog. Back in New Hampshire, perhaps?
Meanwhile, thoughts are starting to turn toward the trade deadline, which is now less than five weeks away.
TSN posted its first
Trade Bait Board on Tuesday. At this point, there are no names from the Canucks. In fact, the only players from the Pacific Division are both from L.A., and have both had their names tossed around quite a bit already this season — impending UFA Tyler Toffoli and left-shot defenseman Alec Martinez, who has one year to go on his contract.
Thomas Drance from The Athletic
sat down with Jim Benning on Monday, and I have to say that I'm pleased to hear that Benning has softened his position from wanting to acquire another forward before the deadline.
Benning admits that he paid a 'deadline price' for J.T. Miller last summer — but got him for the whole year, plus three more, which does make some sense. He also feels that the team's forward group has gotten a boost from having Brandon Sutter back, and hopes that Micheal Ferland could also be available soon after the All-Star Break, which would leave only Josh Leivo on the injured list through the stretch run.
And, Benning was clearly pleased with what he saw during his recent trip to Utica. He name-checked Justin Bailey and his hot stick as a guy who has done enough to deserve NHL time this season.
The list went on. He also praised Zack MacEwen and Tyler Graovac for what they've brought at the NHL level this season and on the back end, he mentioned Ashton Sautner and Jalen Chatfield as well as Brogan Rafferty and Guillaume Brisebois.
Benning acknowledged that it may be more of a priority to give these players a real opportunity within the organization than to bring someone in from outside, and said that he's not looking to give up any young players. He also acknowledged that he likes the Canucks' chemistry lately — and why wouldn't he, with a record of 11-3-0 in the last month?
He also talks about the team's desire to re-sign Jacob Markstrom, which we've heard before. And there's certainly no indication that he's eager to part ways with impending UFA Chris Tanev or Troy Stecher, who's an RFA with arbitration rights this summer.
You know who else will have arbitration rights? Jake Virtanen. He's making $1.25 million this year but will be in line for a pretty significant raise if he keeps playing like he has been lately. He's already at a career high with 28 points and after showing us some terrific passing lately, he's now on pace for 23-23-46. What's that worth??
Virtanen's name doesn't come up in Drance's interview, but Benning does assert that the team's still in good shape, salary-cap wise. Still, when he talks about contracts coming off the books this summer, the only player I see who almost certainly won't be back is Tim Schaller and his $1.9 million. And if Benning wants to elevate younger players, he'll need to free up roster spots. That's where things start to get tricky.
I wonder if he'd look at moving Jordie Benn, who has another year to go at $2 million and has basically lost his job of Oscar Fantenberg over the last month? That's a deal that might make sense for a playoff team looking for extra defensive depth, especially if Benning was able to recoup a prospect or a draft pick in return.
Rick Dhaliwal also posted a column at The Athletic last week, focused on contract and personnel talks.
Dhaliwal is floating a number close to $6 million a season as fair value for Markstrom, and suggests that Chris Tanev's in line for a raise off the $5.25 million in base salary that he's earning this year — his cap hit is $4.45 million.
Dhaliwal also reiterates that the Canucks remain intrigued by Nikita Tryamkin, whose agent says a return to the NHL is the goal for his client next season, once his KHL deal has expired. And he says the big issue for Troy Stecher is that he's not getting as much ice time as he'd like this season — averaging 14:44 this season when he has come in not far below 20 minutes a game in his previous three NHL campaigns. Since that tidbit is probably coming from Stecher's agent, perhaps a deal is in the cards — maybe at the end of the season, if Benning's happy to set up his team's push for the playoffs without disrupting team chemistry.
Further down the road, Benning and company will also have some decisions to make on their NCAA players. Will Lockwood is playing out his senior season at Michigan, so he'll become a free agent on August 15 if he's not signed, while Tyler Madden is having a strong sophomore season at Northeastern and is the Canucks' lone nominee for the 2020 Hobey Baker Award.
As the Canucks' break winds on, I'll take a closer look at the Canucks' prospects outside the AHL in a future blog.
For now, if you'd like to read more from Drance, Dhaliwal and the rest of The Athletic's massive pool of writers across all sports,
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