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Canucks place Baertschi, Goldobin, Biega on waivers ahead of opening night |
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When a team acquires a bunch of wingers with the stated intention of upgrading the offense, I guess it should be no surprise that two of the players placed on waivers by that team at the end of preseason are wingers who never developed into the scorers it was hoped they'd be.
As I speculated in Sunday's blog, Travis Green telegraphed the Canucks' roster intentions with the way he deployed his lines on Saturday.
On Monday morning forwards Sven Baertschi and Nikolay Goldobin and defenseman Alex Biega were placed on waivers — on the last day teams can make waiver moves to become roster compliant for opening day.
Baertschi and Goldobin both skated as extras on Saturday, while Biega skated on a fourth pair with Guillaume Brisebois — who is waiver exempt, but has also now been sent to Utica.
So....
• All indications are that Brock Boeser and Oscar Fantenberg are healthy enough that they won't start the season on injured reserve. This was further confirmed at Monday's practice.
• The team will start the year with 14 forwards and seven defensemen
• Despite his waiver-exempt status, Adam Gaudette's fantastic preseason made him the player that Jim Benning has always said he'd make room for if it was merited.
Keeping Gaudette over Sven Baertschi is arguably even more shocking to me than when the team hung on to Tyler Motte over Sam Gagner last year. Motte still had one game's worth of waiver-exemption available at the beginning of last season, but the team elected to keep him up — and he lasted the year.
Of course, Gagner went unclaimed, returned to the Canucks for a brief seven-game stint, and was ultimately traded to Edmonton in exchange for Ryan Spooner. Spooner was bought out by the Canucks during the summer and on Monday — even though he spent a season playing for new Oilers coach Dave Tippett in Arizona in 2014-15 — Gagner was placed on waivers by the Oilers.
This year, Gaudette could have been re-assigned with no risk, which puts the Baertschi move in a bit of a different light. But Gaudette may note be completely out of the woods yet.
There's talk today that the Canucks could make a waiver claim of their own. Luke Schenn was, indeed, put on waivers by Tampa Bay — and Rick Dhaliwal's musings usually don't come without some sort of intel behind them.
If Schenn — or any other player — is claimed by the Canucks, they'd have to move someone who's waiver exempt to Utica on Tuesday in order to stay at the 23-man roster limit (assuming everyone but Antoine Roussel is healthy). The only waiver-exempt players still on Vancouver's roster are Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes, Thatcher Demko — and Gaudette.
So we will get another round of intrigue on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. Will the Canucks claim anyone? And will they lose Baertschi, Goldobin or Biega?
Given his incredibly passive preseason, I think most of us had already made peace with the idea of a possible waiver assignment for Goldobin.
There are quite a few other forwards of his ilk available today — and one name that's not even on this list is Josh Ho-Sang — the mercurial New York Islanders first-round draft pick from 2014 who is now 23 years old and has managed just 24 points in 53 NHL games to date.
Also on waivers today — Gustav Forsling, the Canucks' fifth-rounder from 2014 who was traded to Chicago in exchange for Adam Clendening seven months after he was drafted. Forsling played 122 games for the Blackhawks, but was dealt to Carolina this June. Given their defensive depth, it's probably no surprise that he couldn't crack their lineup.
Now — Baertschi. The move is an emotional one because he's a great guy who is well liked in this market. He was one of Jim Benning's more successful early trades; along with Markus Granlund, he helped the Canucks' forward group get younger as the team started to transition out of the Sedin/Presidents' Trophy years.
Baertschi was acquired in 2015, so he's not a young guy anymore. He turns 27 in October, so the fancystatters would suggest there's a strong possibility that he has already reached his career peak.
In his four-and-a-bit seasons with the Canucks, Baertschi put up 58-50-108 in 219 games. He's sixth among Canucks players in total points over the past four seasons, three points behind Alex Edler, and 12th in points per game, sandwiched just between Jannik Hansen and Antoine Roussel.
When healthy, Baertschi has been a productive power-play performer, with 14 goals and 29 points. So it's clear that Jim Benning and Travis Green believe that the new pieces they've brought in will make the Canucks better with the man advantage than what the group was able to achieve with Baertschi.
Baertschi's cause this year was probably hurt by two things — the concussions that caused him to miss 56 games last season and his rather hefty $3.67-million cap hit for the next two years.
If he was healthy, those numbers wouldn't be out of line. CapFriendly's top comparable for Baertschi's deal is Bryan Rust — a 27-year-old whose career peak to date was 38 points in 69 games with Pittsburgh in 2017-18. Baertschi's best year was 2016-17, when he had 35 points in 68 games.
I thought Baertschi's return from his post-concussion syndrome this fall was one of the most inspiring stories of training camp, especially with the outside-the-box techniques that he used to get his head back on straight — almost literally. I thought that attitude and wisdom could be valuable in the dressing room. And, I thought he had a pretty good camp.
Will he be claimed? If he isn't, he might not be gone for good.
With that, here are how the even-strength lines are rolling out at Monday's practice.
Two more sleeps till we see how this group looks in regular-season action when the puck drops in Edmonton on Wednesday night!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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