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Development camp wraps, Stecher files for arbitration, Baertschi's new deal

July 7, 2018, 3:03 PM ET [398 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Vancouver Canucks have taken some of the fun out of their prospects' annual Grouse Grind climb by not posting the prospects' times. In the past, they've made the guys travel in small groups, presumably as a team-building exercise.

It's not clear from this year's photos whether that's still the case but as usual, we do see the smiles start to fade as the guys get closer to the top.







Quinn looks pretty gassed in the obligatory final group picture, but good on him for having enough leg strength left to squat—and avoid another round of height comparisons.




Next stop for Hughes, Jett Woo, Michael DiPietro and Toni Utunen will be the World Junior Summer Showcase in Kamloops, which runs from July 28-August 4. Games start July 30, with both Canada and the U.S. icing two teams for the early games before cutting down their rosters.

Click here for the full schedule.

Now that the draft, free agency and development camp are in the books, here's a look at a couple of other bits of Canucks news that have transpired over the past week:

Most recently, Troy Stecher became one of 44 NHLers and the only Vancouver Canuck to file for salary arbitration by the July 5 deadline on Thursday.

Stecher, now 24, is coming off a two-year entry-level deal that paid him $925,000 per season.

Hearings will be scheduled in Toronto for the window between July 20 and August 4. Stecher and the Canucks are free to continue negotiating all the way up until a verdict is rendered. Most cases are settled before the hearings—there can be quite a negative effect that lingers if a player is forced to listen to his management group spell out all of his shortcomings while making its case.

Since the initial list was announced on Thursday, three players have already settled. One of those, Trevor van Riemsdyk, it not a bad comparable for Stecher: an undrafted defenseman who has grown into a steady third-pairing blueliner. Van Riemsdyk is two years older than Stecher, with 237 games of NHL experience compared to 139 for Stecher. TVR averaged 17:03 of ice time per game with Carolina last year and put up 16 points; Stecher averaged 18:49 and had 11 points.

TVR's new contract is a two-year deal with an AAV of $2.3 million a year. Seems like kind of a lot when the Canucks were able to bring Derrick Pouliot back at just $1.1 million, but that might actually be pretty good value:




I'd say Forbort's value should certainly be higher. He's a 6'4" first-round draft pick. He signed his current deal with L.A. at the beginning of last season. Nutivaara's the same age as Stecher and was nearly as unheralded coming into the league—he was a seventh-round pick by Columbus back in 2015. In his second full season in 2017-18, he jumped up to seven goals and 23 points and solidified a lineup spot on that strong Columbus defense—he was basically the guy that knocked Jack Johnson out of the top six. The Blue Jackets extended Nutivaara in March, on a four-year deal.

If Stecher's case does reach the arbitration stage, the Canucks will decide whether they wish to offer either a one or two-year deal. Once the arbitrator announces his decision, the result is binding to both parties except in the case of large contracts—$3.5 million in 2012-13 salary-cap dollars. That number would be even higher today, as the cap has increased, so it's well above the threshold we'd expect to see for Stecher.

There are plenty of other defensemen in Stecher's cohort also on the arbitration list. Market rates will likely come even more sharply into focus as more settlements are announced but at first glance, I'm guessing that Stecher's new number will start with a $2.

In addition to their work on the UFA front on July 1, the Canucks also announced that day that they had signed Sven Baertschi to a new three-year deal with a cap hit of $3.37 million a season. That's a nice bump from the cap hit of $1.85 million that he collected on his most recent two-year deal.

Baertschi turns 26 in October. He has been one of the more reliable scorers on a goal-starved Canucks team—when he's healthy. He hit a new high of 0.55 points per game last season but was limited to just 53 games due to his fractured jaw and shoulder injuries. That was his worst season yet, injury-wise: he has missed a total of 48 games due to injury in his three full seasons with the Canucks.

CapFriendly spits out an good comparable for Baertschi: Bryan Rust of Pittsburgh. He turned 26 in May and has collected 33 goals and 79 points in 181 career NHL games. Baertschi is well ahead of that, with 57 goals and 122 points in 259 NHL games, but Rust improved to 38 points last season while Baertschi dropped to 29.

The Penguins signed Rust to a new four-year deal with a $3.5 million cap hit on June 26, so he'll be a great player to watch beside Baertschi going forward.
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