As I scroll through my Twitter feed this morning in the wake of yesterday's big trade, there's a cluster of hockey writers out of the East who are all expressing similar skepticism about the Canucks' path forward:
Somehow, though, my poll in yesterday's blog shifted more and more in favour of the deal as the day went on, with 53 percent of respondents now saying that they like the Sutter trade.
Even notoriously grumpy local writer Tony Gallagher is on board:
My best guess is that the disconnect comes, in large part, because the writers that live in the Eastern time zone don't get to watch the Canucks play hockey very often.
If they did, they'd know, in this most recent move, that Nick Bonino and Adam Clendening had both landed at the low end of the expectations that the team had for them when they were acquired by Jim Benning.
Bonino was great on the penalty kill and had a couple of solid offensive bursts at the beginning and the end of the season. But I think back on all the discussions here in this forum over the course of last year about how the Canucks don't have a "real" second line. Bonino's play was a key part of these criticisms.
To his credit, he is a pretty good playmaker, and I think his surge in production in March and April came when Radim Vrbata was moved down to the second line and Bonino had a real sniper to feed.
However, my overriding impression from watching Bonino all season was that he wasn't very strong on the puck. It seemed like he could be easily outmuscled in one-on-one situations, and his weakness in the face-off circle was probably the most visible downgrade from the Ryan Kesler days on the Canucks' second line.
Bonino also seemed to struggle with confidence, which I think is part of what led to his inconsistency. And he certainly isn't the type of player I'd say is "hard to play against."
Sutter may not be the poster child for toughness but from what I've seen, he has more aggression in his game than Bonino does.
Adam Gretz of
CBS Sports says of Sutter, "His shot allows him to put 15 or 20 on the board every year, something that always looks good on the final stat line for the season. But when you look back on the year as a whole you have a hard time remembering any of them or any of them making a real impact on the season."
That certainly ignores the fact that Sutter scored the Penguins' only two goals in their 2-0 win over Buffalo in the last game of the season—the must-win game they needed to clinch a playoff spot.
Sutter fits the Benning/Linden mold perfectly: a character guy from Western Canada with an old-school pedigree who also happens to fill a team need for a right-shot center, like Kesler was, and who will be a role model for the Canucks' young players as they come up.
At 26, Benning's treating him as one of the players who will lead the transition to the new era. Only time will tell whether he can live up to those expectations in his new setting.
As for Adam Clendening, I dismissed him rather offhandly in yeseterday's blog as "meh" during his time with the Canucks, so let's look a little deeper and is role, which was basically as an injury replacement defenseman. His 15 games with in Vancouver came between February 1 and March 7.
When Clendening arrived, Kevin Bieksa was out of the lineup, injured. Yannick Weber and Ryan Stanton were scratched in his first game which left Chris Tanev, Frank Corrado and Clendening playing on the right side.
That 4-2 loss to Minnesota was Corrado's last game before he was sidelined with an upper-body injury for the next 14 games, until March 3. Then Tanev was injured from February 17 - March 9, while Bieksa returned on March 14.
During the stretch from February 16 to March 3, Yannick Weber became the Canucks' top right-handed defenseman—and he made the most of his opportunity. He scored just two goals and added one assist during those 10 games, and he got burned on more than one night because he was playing above his level.
But that stretch set the stage for his strong finish, when Weber became the regular third-pairing rightie when everyone got healthy and showed some panache on the power play—something Clendening utterly failed to achieve during his chance with the team. Despite his reputation for a good point shot, he managed just one power-play assist (and only two assists in total) during his time as a Canuck. In fact, the Canucks were just 5-for-50 overall on the power play during Clendening's time with the team—a 10 percent success rate that's barely half of their season average of 19.3 percent.
Looking back, I'd say Clendening was brought in with the hope that he'd be an upgrade over Weber, especially with the man advantage—but that proved not to be the case. Weber still has a job and Matt Bartkowski is expected to slot into Bieksa's spot, with Frank Corrado penciled in as the seventh defenseman.
I can't get too irate about seeing Benning change course on two players that he acquired. It's not always about scouting and individual skill-sets—sometimes players just don't gel with a group as anticipated, especially a group you're overseeing in just your first season. If it's not working, better to cut your losses and move on.
With that in mind—I sure hope this new Sutter contract continues the trend of not handing out no-trade clauses, just in case he too is not the permanent solution down the middle.
Sven Baertschi Signs
Because we didn't have enough to talk about already yesterday, Benning also unleashed this nugget on us in the afternoon:
That number works for me. Though I'd expected we'd see Baertschi signed to a two-year deal, I have no problem giving him one year to prove himself at the NHL level. He'll still be a restricted free agent. It'll give him plenty of incentive to prove himself and if he lights it up—well, that's a good problem to have!
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A quick programming note to wrap up today: I'm out all day Thursday, attending to some personal stuff. Hopefully this blog gives you enough to chew on for 48 hours—and nothing big comes down before I return on Friday. Enjoy the sunshine!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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