Canucks seem to pick a goalie in every draft....you'd have to think one of DiPietro, Keilly, Thiessen, Silovs or even Demko will end up being an impact goalie at the NHL-level.
One thing for sure---Canucks have one of the best prospect goalie depth charts in the entire league.
I don't know that i'd say our goaltending pipeline is really anything to especially write home about. Demko is set to graduate the system this year, and DiPietro is the only other real "bluechip" goaltending prospect (kind of an oxymoron, but nonetheless). After that...most teams have Silovs and Thiessens and/or flyers out on college guys. The pipeline just looks a lot better than it did a couple years ago when we essentially had Demko...and literally nothing else of the prospect variety.
Managing the goaltending prospect pipeline is always a fine line to walk. You always want to have guys going through because you never know how they're going to turn out, and their development curve means you need to be drafting and developing them many years before you
need a guy at the NHL level. So you keep pumping picks into the system, because you don't really want big gaps and know a lot of them simply won't make it.
But on the flip side...it's a position where you have very limited viable "development slots". The nature of the position means the guy is either playing...or not. It's not like a forward that you can let work their way up from any of the 12 spots on the depth chart where at least they're getting into every game. So you have to to be careful not to overcrowd the situation too. You want to keep the prospects spaced well enough that the "good ones" will have a nice AHL landing spot where they can get some meaningful playing time at that level...when they get there. It's tricky to project, but the more steady you can keep the flow of prospects through the system, the better.
College/Euro guys can really complicate the timeline because when you draft them, you never quite know how long they'll stay...but NCAA/Euro FA signings can also be a useful backfill if you
do end up with gap in your pipeline due to drafted guys failing.
Yeah, signing bonuses are still paid even if the contract slides.
The best reasoning for the contract that I've seen is to encourage him to play for Barrie and discourage him from signing a KHL contract with Riga.
Yeah. I'd figure this is probably the case. The organization obviously wants him over here in North America where they can work with him and keep tabs on him better. They're not flying goaltending coaches out to Latvia regularly. Barrie is a little more accessible for them.
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Silovs probably wanted that money to help get everything settled and comfortable with the situation moving across the pond, and to entice him away from just signing a deal over in the KHL or Europe somewhere. Doesn't hurt to have a little bit of cash kicking around to fly his family out now and then or whatever, maybe help stave off a bit of that "homesickness" that sent Tryamkin back to Russia for example.
Otherwise, the timing is pretty peculiar. So that's gotta be it.