Confirmed with Link: Canucks sign F Daniel Sprong to 1-Year Deal ($975K)

[Vector]

I mean even if you get rid of him like 1/4 into the season, you will still accrue cap, just not as much.

It’s be pretty significant less due to the weirdness of the calculations. Still, we’re almost entirely two months away from training camp starting. I kind of avoid talking about anything like this, at this time, in definitives because a lot can still happen.

 

[arttk]

It’s be pretty significant less due to the weirdness of the calculations. Still, we’re almost entirely two months away from training camp starting. I kind of avoid talking about anything like this, at this time, in definitives because a lot can still happen.

I think you can accrue like 5-7M of cap if you get rid of Poolman at the 1/4 mark.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

How much cap space can we accrue when we have 3-5 guys out injured in Nov or Dec?
If this plan requires the team to stay perfectly healthy all year then it sounds completely unrealistic to me. Maybe I've just been a Canuck fan too long to believe that's possible.

 

[Steamer]

Lots of competition for wing spots at the start of camp.Lots of the guys signed are at a make or break point in their careers. Pods too.The middle 6 is really up for grabs, losers maybe lucky to make 4th line. Big potential for a couple of wingers to break out as scoring threats ala Joshua.The Canucks will be a punishing team to play. Also gives the team more trade potential if one or two of the middle 6 wingers become scoring. threats. I can see them trading for a centre unless Raty really explodes in Abby.

 

[quat]

Looks like they're expecting players to compete for playing time and opportunities.

 

[ziploc]

Looks like they're expecting players to compete for playing time and opportunities.

 

[David71]

Yeah, trading Hoglander to move off of Poolman, only to then trade futures to rent a deadline player feels steep.

Trading Hoglander to directly address an area of need is another thing entirely. If management like a puck moving D with upside/question marks (I’m not much of a scout, but Conor Timmins comes to mind), I could see the argument; Sprong fills a similar role, Hoglander is due for a raise, and the Canucks need more than Hughes-Hronek to start the rush.

just like colorado in 2022 the year they won the cup. toews/makar. byram/manson. cant always rely on hughes doing it by himself which leads to injury fatigue

 

[SopelFanThe3rd]

Deeeeep

Mm.

 

[timw33]

I'm really into this signing. If it doesn't work out, sure, fine, waived and full cap hit off the books in the minors.

The upside for 975k is huge. Cannot deny his strong ES offensive production in such minuscule minutes over the past two years, and brings a nice element of a speed/rush game to our team. If he finds a home in the top-6, we may be cooking with gas, even if we're talking about him going from a 12 minute a night guy to maybe 14/14:30 a night.

I also like how to reduces our reliance on absolutely needing an Abbotsford farm hand to step up to start the year off, and helps derisk us if Hoglander stops shooting 20%+ and continues to not be trusted at all in important minutes. There are actual camp battles to be had, and there are zero unearned spots on this roster right now.

Even if Sprong ends up being a regular season contributor only...well you need guys like that in your lineup to help you get through the slog of 82 games and give you 20ish goals from the bottom-6.

Fantastic bargain bin hunting, now time to do it for a puck moving D that can rotate through the bottom half of the D core and insulate us against injuries. Kylington and Schultz are both still out there.

 

[LordBacon]

I’m hearing that we’ve signed Sprong for 1 year at $975K. Will confirm soon

Bro be on that McDonald wifi.

 

[LemonSauceD]

just like colorado in 2022 the year they won the cup. toews/makar. byram/manson. cant always rely on hughes doing it by himself which leads to injury fatigue

I mean Makar was a result of 1 hilariously and historical down year the Avs had and Byram was because of Ottawa’s subsequent down year right after 1 successful season of Duchene in which they didn’t foresee themselves being bad and gave an unprotected 1st round pick.

Meanwhile Colorado got extremely unlucky then profoundly lucky drafting 2 defenseman in the top 5, with one of them becoming the best defenseman in the game a couple years removed from playing Junior A, in a draft where they slid back 4 spots after said historical losing season and then of course Ottawa shitting the bed 2 years later.

 

[bossram]

How much cap space can we accrue when we have 3-5 guys out injured in Nov or Dec?
If this plan requires the team to stay perfectly healthy all year then it sounds completely unrealistic to me. Maybe I've just been a Canuck fan too long to believe that's possible.

Which is why ideally they are able to dump Poolman prior to the season starting, giving them the longest possible window to accrue cap space.

 

[VanJack]

The Canucks struck gold by signing Pius Suter two or three weeks past the July 1st UFA deadline last season, getting him for two years on a team-friendly contract.

And looking like they've pounced again with Sprong, who was probably getting bit antsy after not catching on with a team; and watching other UFA's sign in Europe or even retire in some cases.

A complete 'no risk' signing. If the guy flops, they could always put him on waivers or send him out to Abbotsford. But I doubt that happens. He's proven to be a reliable depth scorer in Seattle and Detroit.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

If the only other option is handicapping yourself for a giant “maybe”, then yes.

That is sad... to have given up like that

 

[Jyrki21]

"Sprong first played hockey as a young child in his hometown of Amsterdam. Due to the lack of a developed hockey program in the Netherlands, at ages four and five, Sprong played on teams with players as old as twelve or thirteen.[1] To help further Sprong's development in hockey, his family moved to L'Île-Bizard, Quebec, in 2005 when he was eight years old.[1]"

Can we take a moment to appreciate how insane this is? The kid shows some promise at eight years old so the family ups and moves to suburban Montreal to help him live out his dream?

If my kid really liked cricket at 8 I wouldn't be like "that's it, fam, we're off to Australia! (also a part of it where we somehow don't speak the language.)"

 

[LandfiII]

100%

What I like about our forward groups is the flexibility our forward have.

And I like how they can go left and go right and go backwards. And uh. Mm. Ah never mind. Lost it.

 

[LemonSauceD]

"Sprong first played hockey as a young child in his hometown of Amsterdam. Due to the lack of a developed hockey program in the Netherlands, at ages four and five, Sprong played on teams with players as old as twelve or thirteen.[1] To help further Sprong's development in hockey, his family moved to L'Île-Bizard, Quebec, in 2005 when he was eight years old.[1]"

Can we take a moment to appreciate how insane this is? The kid shows some promise at eight years old so the family ups and moves to suburban Montreal to help him live out his dream?

If my kid really liked cricket at 8 I wouldn't be like "that's it, fam, we're off to Australia! (also a part of it where we somehow don't speak the language.)"

I believe his father played hockey in the Netherlands. His father likely saw some potential in him to make the move to Quebec worth it.

 

[biturbo19]

At this price, i don't really have any issue with the signing. If it works, and they get some points out of it...that's cool. If not, and Tocchet rejects him or he shows some of that signature lackadaisical nonsense this team needs no part of with it's new "ultimate buy-in across the board" identity...it's dirt cheap and buriable so whatever. You can dig a hole somewhere and put your tiny ooopsie in it if you have to.

My main issue if i have one is just...

We've already got Hoglander as a bit of a weird misfit who does pretty much the exact same things. A strange "4th line scoring winger" who scores better there in those sort of limited minutes, doing his own thing. Varying degrees of defensively unreliable (and possibly for different reasons).

Did we really need another? I guess now we've got a RH Shooter to go with our LH Shooter version? To complete the set? Bookend Suter or something on a butter soft minutes offensive 4th line that wants to play 1st line hockey but doesn't really have the chops for it?


I guess we'll see. Getting random jump from guys early last year was big in jumping out of the gates, so maybe they're just trying to get some fresh blood in here to see if they can't strike goal for 10-20 games at some point again next year to bolster the scoring?

 

[VanJack]

Canucks Army with a thoughtful piece on the Canucks sudden log-jam at forward. They have 15 guys, who based on their contracts and previous playing history are NHL-forwards. But there's only 13 spots available.

So one of two things has to happen......either they're forced to expose a decent player on the waiver wire; or a trade. My vote is for the latter. Signing Sprong makes little sense otherwise.

Maybe the Canucks can package a couple of forwards, or one forward and a draft pick, and find another solid d-man. That's really all this team is lacking right now.

 

[Nona Di Giuseppe]

At this price, i don't really have any issue with the signing. If it works, and they get some points out of it...that's cool. If not, and Tocchet rejects him or he shows some of that signature lackadaisical nonsense this team needs no part of with it's new "ultimate buy-in across the board" identity...it's dirt cheap and buriable so whatever. You can dig a hole somewhere and put your tiny ooopsie in it if you have to.

My main issue if i have one is just...

We've already got Hoglander as a bit of a weird misfit who does pretty much the exact same things. A strange "4th line scoring winger" who scores better there in those sort of limited minutes, doing his own thing. Varying degrees of defensively unreliable (and possibly for different reasons).

Did we really need another? I guess now we've got a RH Shooter to go with our LH Shooter version? To complete the set? Bookend Suter or something on a butter soft minutes offensive 4th line that wants to play 1st line hockey but doesn't really have the chops for it?


I guess we'll see. Getting random jump from guys early last year was big in jumping out of the gates, so maybe they're just trying to get some fresh blood in here to see if they can't strike goal for 10-20 games at some point again next year to bolster the scoring?

pettersson deserves, at very least, competition to play on his line; he needs a fast scorer and hoglander shouldn't be the only option

 

[Jyrki21]

I believe his father played hockey in the Netherlands. His father likely saw some potential in him to make the move to Quebec worth it.

Still pretty crazy -- unless there was a good employment opportunity in it for the parents (or some other reason they wanted to cross the ocean), it's relying on incredibly low odds to decide on such a massive upheaval.

 

[strattonius]

This is such a great signing.

We will see a gap in Sprong's ice time between home and road games as Tocchet will be able to leverage some favorable match up situations more often at home.

Sprong will be a high event player when he's on the ice and although this is not typically a 'Tocchet guy', i'm viewing it more as Sprong being a tool Tocchet can use in certain situations. If we are down by a couple goals you'd expect Sprong's ice time to get a bump, etc.

Our offense has so many different looks and so much potential littered through the line up it looks like our offensive floor is much higher this year. We don't need to rely on Hoglander and Joshua having another career year and this depth is going to be so, so, so valuable.

 

[LemonSauceD]

pettersson deserves, at very least, competition to play on his line; he needs a fast scorer and hoglander shouldn't be the only option

I wonder had we signed Skinner to 3M if there would be this many detractors as we have for a 12 minute 20 goal scorer who makes near league minimum. Or like Duclair for $3.5M x 4.

Sprong has produced more in considerably less minutes than Dubois, Skinner, Eberle, Duclair, Schwartz, Bjorkstrand in 2023, Kapanen and just 3 points below Schenn and Domi who both don’t kill penalties and are some of the worse defensive players over the last 3 years, with their only saving grace being their physicality.

I’m actually very optimistic about Sprong. Kuzmenko didn’t work out not only because of his defensive habits but also because he was actually the worst transitional player on the team. He lacked acceleration and was behind the play too much and it also contributed to his lack of forechecking ability. He was exposed.. couldn’t get up or down the ice fast enough and couldn’t be relied on effectively carrying the puck thru the neutral zone.

Sprong can drive play and is good in the transition. He is a good shot creator, another thing Kuzmenko lacked and good off the rush, another thing Kuzmenko lacked. His problems are strictly defense, decision making, and his controller disconnecting.

I am confident in saying Sprong will put up at least 50 points and 20 goals playing with Debrusk and Pettersson, you can quote me. Tocchet will Phil Kessel tf outta him.

 

[ProviesGhost]

that $16k in cap space is burning a hole in the chef's pocket

 

[VanJack]

Some of those Sprong YouTube 'highlights' on the defensive side of the puck are kind of alarming. And statistically, despite his 43 points in Detroit, his line was getting caved in in terms of zone time and scoring chances given up.

Of course that might also have been a function of his line-mates. And Allvin did claim that Sprong had 'matured as a player', which might mean his defense is improving.

Also, I suppose the Canucks front office would have consulted with Tocchet before signing Sprong. So maybe he's comfortable that he can get this guy to improve defensively, or more likely, they're willing to live with the limitations.