Canucks News, Rumours, and & Fantasy GM | Will they stay or will they go, now?
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The joys of just throwing away picks year after year due to bad contracts. 
Bonham
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The good news is, by this date in the year 2030, the Jim Benning stink will have been fully washed from this franchise.The joys of just throwing away picks year after year due to bad contracts.
I don't know, I am not sure he was a cap dump. We got a 5th round pick for him, and then Chicago traded him to Nashville for a 5th round pick at the deadline. So I don't think he could be characterized as a negative asset cap dump like Mikheyev clearly would be.
I've been beating this drum for a while now. I think this board has been significantly undervaluing the cost it will take to dump Mikheyev. I know the cap has gone up, but we are still talking $9+ million dollars of cap left on his contract for a player with one calendar goal this year, and who may never recover from his surgery.
I don't think the Canucks will be willing to trade the futures required to purely dump Mikheyev. And rumours suggest they won't buy him out.
So the only other way is a trade for a better player that has a bad long termish contract. And we'd still likely give up some assets but at least we would be getting a player that can contribute albeit with a bad contract.
Agreed.
I see so many people on here say: Mikheyev is going to be easy to dump! Just throw a second round pick! Teams have cap space and therefore wants our junk for cheap!
Pure delusion and homerism in my opinion.
I also see a lot of mock lineups where Mikheyev is just "magically" gone without any descriptor of the assets we are going to give up.
The reality is that NO team in the NHL will want to pay over $9M in real salary over two years just for a second round pick. The math doesn't add up. We would be extremely lucky to pay a moderate cost to get rid of MIkheyev but that's just wishful thinking.
Let's be logical and think critically here.
He's likely staying or gone in a bad contract for bad contract trade. I like RIstolainen and Kotkianiemi as good candidates for swaps.
Same as OEL when they were trying to trade him, clearly it ended up in a buyout. OEL seems to have value still, just 1/3 of what he was costing Van though. A bad contract for a bad contract ever worked out? Lol. I can't think of one of the top of my head.
biturbo19
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There's no concrete indications that Poolman's contract isn't insured...but there's also no concrete evidence that it is insured either. And common sense kind of leans toward it not being one of the big megadeals that teams are willing to pay the premiums to insure. Insurance on those longer-term contracts tends to be expensive and i'm not really convinced that Benning and Co. would've shelled out Aquaman's money to insure that deal initially...and it certainly wouldn't be affordable to insure it once his head problems emerged.
Technically, it's not the substance abuse program anymore. It's the "Play Assistance" program. Which, in recent years...has been used for other mental health issues as well as, and sometimes in conjunction with substance abuse issues.
As far as Laine specifically...i think it's a bit of a harbinger of some underlying issues that might not fare all that well in the often hypercritical Vancouver market. That'd be the thing i'm more worried about.
Kunin is a real interesting player to me. He's a guy that makes a little bit of sense to me if we're dumping Mikheyev in San Jose, as has been oft suggested. I think i'd rather there just be no salary coming back, but he's a player that i do think could be a good fit here. Basically replacing the Bluegers role. He's a better player than he's looked in San Jose.
Grier really fudged things up when it comes to his contract structure though. The way he signed that deal, Kunin has a $3M qualifying offer now. Which is way too rich for a 3rd/4th line C/W like that. Not something the Canucks could afford right now as a "luxury" bottom-6er. So if acquiring him, you'd have to have the opportunity to talk ahead of time with him to negotiate some sort of multi-year deal that bargains that cap number down to something more like $2M in exchange for some extra term/security. Because moving Mikky's $4.75M for a $3M player doesn't do a whole heck of a lot for us.
But he really does feel like the sort of player who might thrive under RikTok's system and probably be a good fit with Garland driving the offense on that sort of line.
Yeah. You can sell all the "Mikheyev will be better a full year out from his ACL repair" you want...but at the end of the day, it's still just selling sunshine and hope. Teams aren't going to buy it until it happens. So in the meantime...these are your options. It's either buyout and just keep piling on even more dead cap, or you find an unpleasant deal that makes sense. Be that paying to dump him, or swapping him for someone else's crap deal and hoping that they're a better fit somewhere in the lineup. And i don't know that we really have the assets to be able to afford the former...paying to completely unload his full contract.
I don't really care much for Clifton. He's a real Boston mirage, who only looked good because he was in a great situation to flatter his play in soft minutes. But even outside of not liking him, i'm not sure Buffalo would see much purpose in swapping him for Mikky either. He was bad for them, but he's still the only natural RH shooting D they have under contract at the moment. Jokiharju is an RFA that they're probably looking to move, and other than that they just have a metric ton of LHD, even if some of them can play their off side.
Some interesting names there.
-Skinner is a no go for me. That's insane money. That deal is too much worse and basically buyout proof.
-Josh Anderson i really like as a target in a crap for crap deal. Had a brutal season but if a change of scenery can break him out of his own head, and he shoots at a less freakishly low SH% next year, more in line with his typical seasons, i don't see why he couldn't bounce back as a big, fast, 20G scoring power forward. I feel like he'd almost kinda backfill Mikheyev and Dakota's roles simultaneously, which has some utility to it.
-JG Pageau is an interesting name i hadn't really considered. His offense seems to have just completely up and died though. He's an absolute black hole, in the sense that i'd almost worry he'd even find a way to drag a guy like Garland or Hoglander down in the bottom-6. But he's still a good RH defensive Center. He's a bit similar to Bluegers now, who seemed alright in that role with Tocchet's system. So maybe there's hope there.
-Goodrow i don't think is really an option. His buyout is really funky, but i think that probably spurs the Rangers to just pull the trigger on it, unless they come across some way to unload him basically for free. He actually generates a "cap credit" next year for the Rangers in a buyout. As in...it buys them an extra quarter million bucks in cap space somehow. And most of the rest of it is easier to swallow than Mikheyev's buyout. Aside from 26-27'.
-Ristolainen certainly has been linked to this administration and he does fit the bill as a towering RHD. I'm not really sure what to make of his "turnaround" under Torts. I think there are reasons to believe that he'd be able to sustain that simplified game under TocchetFoote, as we've seen others like Myers do. But it's still an awful lot to commit to that gamble, and i'm not even sure what sort of "sweetener" we'd have to throw in to make that happen. If we're doing that sort of deal with Philly...i'd almost want to just balloon the whole thing into something that also includes Laughton, who i think would be a terrific fit here in a lot of different roles. Or swing for the fences if Farabee is stupidly available as it sounds like he might be. I'd get silly with whatever assets we have left, if Farabee could be acquired there. I honestly think he'd be an easy ~70pt+ winger if you paired him with JT Bozo and Boeser and gave him a bit of PP time. He already scores at a 1st line level at Even Strength.
-Rakell is a no go for me. That 4 years remaining is just a nightmare. He seems pretty cooked and i just wouldn't gamble on any kind of resurgence at his age. He's also got some trade protection, and who knows if he'd even want to move to the Canucks.
-Jensen i really don't have a good read on. But it never really seemed like he was as good as he was often made out to be, and some of his regression just feels like maybe the mask was pulled off. Plus just getting old and worse. I feel like he'd be hard to "hide" here and probably just not a good idea as a crap swap. A lot easier to hide a bad contract winger than a defenceman.
But i do think that in general, these are the sort of targets to look for in a Mikheyev dump. I like the idea of giving up less in terms of assets, to take on the right sort of bounceback candidate on a similarly bad contract.
Josh Anderson really does intrigue me as a potential crap cap swap. He looked so frustrated and desperately in need of a change of scenery in Montreal last year. He also shot at an insanely low percentage that is a total outlier in his career. 6.4% is literally half his typical, stable career shooting percentage. And he still generated a very similar number of shots and looks overall. That's also not even accounting for that stretch last year where it looked like he was playing "3 bar" and hit an absolutely staggering number of posts for no apparent reason. And looked like he wanted to ragequit as a result.
But if a change of scenery refreshes him a little bit and gets him back to his typical ~12% shooting rate, he'd be right back on for another solid ~20G season.In the right situation, i'd bet good money on him actually scoring more than Dakota Joshua next year. The guy who scored at a completely unsustainable 21.5% rate last year, and is rumored to be looking at a ~$4M multi-year deal. Anderson is bigger, faster, and i think overall, a more natural goal-scorer. He's the sort of guy who can generate his own goals a little better than Joshua as well. He was also a pretty solid PKer before he went to Montreal and they basically just decided to not use him that way for no apparent reason.
The downside is...he's a bit like Garland in that he plays a bit of a disjointed game that doesn't tend to mesh all that well with other high skill players. He's not a good passer and he doesn't share the puck all that well. But i feel like Tocchet and Co. have actually had pretty good results with this type of player. I can see a world where they try to force it with Pettersson and it irritates everyone, but in the end...i think he'd be a really solid replacement for both Joshua and Mikheyev, sort of at the same time. And it's not like they didn't keep playing Mikheyev with Pettersson, much to everyone's consternation. lol.
Kind of curious why Lafferty isn't someone they'd like to keep. He really tailed off late in the season, but i can't imagine he's going to be too expensive. Has familiarity with the system, chemistry with Hoglander, positional versatility. I'd keep him, as long as the cap number makes sense.
Duhaime is a guy i really like as a player. Real human missile forechecker and responsible all-around player. But it feels like he's a guy who is going to get one of those real "premium 4th liner" contracts. Which i wouldn't even hate in a vacuum...but i don't think Vancouver are in a position to be spending like that on that sort of role right now. Too much of a cap crunch. Where i feel like there's probably gonna be about a half million dollar price gap between Duhaime and Lafferty...that just isn't worth it, for where the team is at right now.
Yeah. That's yucky. Just too much for a no-event 3rd pairing defenceman. Stepped up admirably with Pesce being in and out, but that's not the sort of defenceman i'd want to be on the hook for $3M for. Probably an unfortunate harbinger that things are about to get wild in the defenceman contract market though.
Somehow finding a way to turn Hronek into Rasmus Andersson would be so huge. He's a better defenceman in the first place, but that contract is absolute gold. It'd give them so much more flexibility in absolutely everything else. Awkward down the line when he hits UFA at and older age and needs a new deal and you probably just have to let him walk. But in the meantime, it's such a steal of a deal. On a player who is basically a Hronek++.
Hansen
tyler motte simp
If the rumours are that Lindholm, Joshua, and Zadorov are walking and Hronek not resigning then who tf are we signing
biturbo19
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Moving Garland to create cap space, or to gain assets to move another bad contract should be an absolute non-starter for this team.
It's unconventional, but he's providing extremely good value for his contract under Tocchet. Having a guy who can anchor a great 3rd line that produces at a basically Top-6 clip at even strength, is such an enormous bonus value. There were times that Garland was quite literally carrying the offense for the entire team. He's also a guy who is trusted by Tocchet and he's a huge sparkplug who gives absolutely everything on effort, which can be really contagious, in a positive way.
He's one of the strengths of this team. Even if it's weird to have a nearly $5M "3rd line winger".
Yeah. It's where i really think that the crap cap swap ideas might ultimately be the more feasible way to go with Mikheyev. Just a matter of finding the right player/deal to gamble on as a swap that can fill a useful role. And not accidentally bring in an even more dead weight deal.
Because it's not like Mikheyev is a useless player. He's still a solid, reliable two-way player, with decent size and speed that is potentially still recovering. Good PKer and he does get some decent looks...just can't seem to finish anymore. So the crap swap has to be a player who can potentially contribute more than that, or replace the role of someone else that we can't afford to keep.
Ya, the best thing you can say about Mikheyev as a reclamation project is that he could conceivably improve significantly just based on his knee further healing and him regaining speed. So when you are considering what kind of reclamation project to prefer, it might actually be hard to find a better one than Mikheyev (although gambling on a change of scenery sometimes pays off).
My preference is just to pay assets for a player with a big contract that has a far more significant impact than Mikheyev but is still overpaid.
Hurricanes:
-know Guentzel will test the market
-negotiating with Slavin on an extension
Sharks:
-willing to listen on Ferraro; very high ask
-will entertain trade talks with Couture if he's healthy
-Senators, Predators, and Sabres asked about Couture last season
Blue Jackets:
-Laine technically still part of the Player Assistance Program
Canadiens:
-looking for immediate help; wants to add more scoring on the wing
-Zegras and Necas have been targets
Jerry the great
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Cancuks
Former Exalted Ruler
Mikheyev will be bought out. The cap hit isn't terrible. Cap going up 5% a year will make it doable. But this regime needs to stop signing 3rd liners to $4 million contracts like Mikheyev. Pay your proven top line players like Guentzels and the likes but no to the Joshuas of the world. And hell no to a $7+ million Lindholm.
biturbo19
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Logan Couture is such a fascinating case. I don't think he really has any relevance to Vancouver, unless it's as some part of a Mikheyev dump. But i don't know what to make of him at all. At 35 with 3 more years on an $8M contract, he's such an enormous risk. And pretty close to a complete NTC just makes things even more complicated...even if there probably aren't many worse teams to go to than the Sharks right now.
Just had a complete non-season that is impossible to read.
But he's also not that far removed from being a real quality productive Top-6 Center. Teams that miss out on Lindholm and Stephenson might well circle back on that as a Plan B. And San Jose are obviously at a point where they can afford to take back some terrible salary just to make something work.
Haven't heard his name mentioned anywhere but I wonder if Justin Schultz would be on the team's radar. Should come cheaper than his AFP contract projection (2y/2.4m), obvious strong connections to the coaching staff and management, BC boy, right shot defenceman that is a puck-mover. He'd be someone you can rotate Juulsen with to keep them both fresh.
The problem with a Mikheyev buyout isn't his caphit but the cumulative caphit of him and OEL for the two seasons afterwards.
25-26: 6.92m
26-27: 6.32m
That's a lot of deadspace for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations.
i was surprised they didn't pursue him at the trade deadline
I was a little surprised his name didn't come up as a target. They didn't have any real capspace so I don't think it was possible.
With the way his season ended and his injury, I don’t think he’d get anything more than $2 x 2.
bandwagonesque
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They're also getting a veteran 3rd line forward who stands a good chance of being better this season. You may be right that the valuation is unrealistic, but Mikheyev belongs on an NHL roster.
The time to dump Mikheyev on the cheap passed with the deadline.
The cost now will not be comfortable.
The cost now will not be comfortable.
Hansen
tyler motte simp
Guentzel would be a big add, and Dillon a Cole replacement. Duhaime doesn't strike me as a buy low option, it would be confusing to sign Duhaime at 2M but let Joshua walk for 3+, I liked Duhaime as a deadline acquisition but Joshua has a lot more upside
Jerry the great
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the difference there is obvious. OEL had Twice the term remaining, more than 3x the cash owed and there was absolutely no chance he was ever going to earn his deal. There is only one guy who would have traded for OEL and we'd fired him.
In year one with us, after getting hurt in preseason, Mikheyev produced at a 50 point pace on a torn ACL until he was shut down. In year two he did the same over the first half of this season on a recently surgically repaired knee before running out of gas and completely losing his confidence. I'm sure the Kuzmenko situation and whatever was going on with Pettersson didn't help.
a buy out makes no sense, there would be way too much dead cap over the next 2 years with the OEL hit ramping up.
If the cost is a first round pick, it would be insane to pay it IMO (particularly considering the apparent fragility of our starting goalie). I'd just bet on him bouncing back and being the 2 way 50 point player they signed him to be.
"bad contract" swap might make sense depending on who it is. people have mentioned Ristolainen, which absent retention would be a non starter IMO. $5mm cap hit + extra year for a number 6 defender would be lunacy. Someone like Conner Clifton would be interesting. Laine depending on if there was retention would be very interesting if our pro scouts like him.
biturbo19
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I don't really think Schultz has any utility here, unless he comes in at like $1M bucks or something.
He's an offensive, powerplay specialist type defenceman. Which...for a team with Hughes, is kind of pointless.
Like...you're not gonna pair him with Hughes. He's not going to be part of a robust 2nd pairing. So you're basically getting him to play with Soucy or Zadorov or whoever on a 3rd pairing. Where that offensive bent isn't going to be as useful and his defensive play is just going to be more of a liability.
He also completely fell off a cliff last year, playing essentially that sort of "3rd pairing role". I don't see much reason to believe he'd be any better here, doing that. It's weird because he started his career pretty late, but he's already 33 years old and clearly in decline. Wouldn't expect even a dead cat bounce from a guy with that profile.
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