Confirmed with Link: Canucks sign F Ilya Mikheyev to 4-Year Deal ($4.75M AAV)

[ChuckNorris4Cup]

This guy flies.

 

[MS]

Currently he's probably overpaid but about $750K, but that's the nature with UFA and that could quickly change if he comes here and puts up 20-20 next season. As other's have said, they identified an issue with a lack of speed and PK'ing abilty up front and they have presumably addressed that now. Will be interesting to see what their next moves are as they clearly looking at moving a forward or two to address the defense situation.

Yup. As you say, that's the thing with UFA. When you're signing an established player, you are *always* paying a premium on that player because of the way the market works.

In a perfect world, it's always better to develop players internally, keep them through their cost controlled years, and then let them walk when they hit UFA and replace internally. And some teams have managed to do that pretty well, but we absolutely have not. And so if you want to right the ship here and change the identity of this team/put a stamp on it, you're probably going to have to pay a couple small UFA premiums along the way. They'd just better be on the right guys who address the right issues. And this feels like one of the right guys to me.

 

[VanillaCoke]

Because prior to last year (when he broke out with 20 goals due to an abnormal 14% shooting percentage), he was a pretty typical third-line NHLer.

He's a 3rd liner, who can play spot 2nd line fill in, just an overpaid one now.
Luckily for us its not egregious like dim jim.
That doesn't mean he's useless or bad, basically all the comments in this thread are positive on the usefulness, negative on the numbers.

All the gms, reports, insiders and fans who have watched him the most for 3 years all think and say basically the same things but the small percentage of canucks fans think theyre a wrong now because "pace" again.. zzzzzzz.

He will be useful and great for the PK, and can probably get 15 goals and 30 pts without much issue. But expecting 30 goals or a late breakout 50+ points isn't realistic. He doesn't have the offensive skills. As well as disappearing in playoffs when it gets harder.

At under 4M it's a great add and fills a need this team desperately needed. At almost 5 its an overpay, as literally everyone agrees, he's extremely unlikely to provide 20M in value but its only 1M overpayment and way better than palat, marchment, etc.

 

[Melvin]

Yup. As you say, that's the thing with UFA. When you're signing an established player, you are *always* paying a premium on that player because of the way the market works.

In a perfect world, it's always better to develop players internally, keep them through their cost controlled years, and then let them walk when they hit UFA and replace internally. And some teams have managed to do that pretty well, but we absolutely have not. And so if you want to right the ship here and change the identity of this team/put a stamp on it, you're probably going to have to pay a couple small UFA premiums along the way. They'd just better be on the right guys who address the right issues. And this feels like one of the right guys to me.

Concur. I’ve said it before, but I never really had a problem with Benning being willing to pay a bit extra to get the guy that he wants. The problem is that the guy he wants almost always completely sucked.

 

[Egghead1999]

The virtually unanimous reaction to this signing from Toronto fans on the main board is really weird and honestly I don't get it.

On paper his numbers are very good and he has some very dynamic qualities yet he's treated like a dime-a-dozen third liner that is only worth 3M or so, I'm pretty sure I even saw people on the main boards call him bland.

He is not a dime-a-dozen third line, but he is not a 4.75AAV winger based on the number either. At Leafs, he is behind MM16 and Nylander. So, he was a very good third liner that can move up to 2nd line for a short period of time.
As others say, he is 750K~1M over paid unless he has some untapped potential which I think is a gamble.

 

[TruGr1t]

He scored at 48 points/82 pace in 19-20 with zero PP time. That's basically in line with the ES production of the Lotto Line that year in their best year.

He's had 2 years of producing 2nd line numbers at ES (and high-end 2nd line numbers, at that) and 1 year of producing 3rd line numbers.

Yes, his shooting % will probably regress next year. But he'll also almost certainly be playing with better linemates than David Kampf and Pierre Engvall.

His shooting percentage will almost certainly regress, as one of the big knocks on him is his hands. He also isn't exactly known as a play maker.

The issue isn't really the ~$750k and 1-year over payment ... I just hate signing this type of player in free agency. You always overpay and you end up with your salary cap upside down, with depth forwards being a drag on your cap number.

As Seravalli said, this middle tier of player is also who is getting squeezed on salary right now. Of course, we have an absolute crap prospect pipeline, so we have do it this way because unlike well-run organizations, we don't generate our depth forwards from the farm on entry-level contracts.

 

[MS]

Concur. I’ve said it before, but I never really had a problem with Benning being willing to pay a bit extra to get the guy that he wants. The problem is that the guy he wants almost always completely sucked.

Yup.

I'm always of the opinion that if you see an impact player you really want hit the market, don't be afraid to overpay. Star-level players don't come along very often and in the end, quality usually wins out in a quality-for-quantity deal.

Problem is that Jim Benning went balls-deep for Brandon Sutter and Erik Gudbranson instead of Ryan O'Reilly and Devon Toews.

 

[Vector]

Ilya Mikheyev says he helped Andrei Kuzmenko pick the Canucks

A lunch in Miami helped Kuzmenko decide on the Vancouver Canucks.

www.vancouverisawesome.com

Mikhayev with the Kuzmenko assist.

A little weird he "liked" how we built the bubble team.

Canucks played surprisingly well against the Leafs that season, going 4-5.

 

[MS]

His shooting percentage will almost certainly regress, as one of the big knocks on him is his hands. He also isn't exactly known as a play maker.

The issue isn't really the ~$750k and 1-year over payment ... I just hate signing this type of player in free agency. You always overpay and you end up with your salary cap upside down, with depth forwards being a drag on your cap number.

As Seravalli said, this middle tier of player is also who is getting squeezed on salary right now. Of course, we have an absolute crap prospect pipeline, so we have do it this way because unlike well-run organizations, we don't generate our depth forwards from the farm on entry-level contracts.

I agree his shooting % will regress. It's unlikely he scores 32 goals next year.

But again : he's going to have far better linemates and it probably won't regress to the unlucky-the-other-way 7% of previous years.

I don't think this type of player was getting squeezed at all. Artturi Lekhonen is a similar-ish player and he got an even bigger deal. Mason Marchment got the same deal based on a very small run of games.

If Mikheyev puts up 20-20-40 next year from middle-6 minutes with little PP time while providing high defensive value and big PK value (which is basically what he's done for his career as a whole), this will be a very solid deal.

 

[sting101]

some interesting chatter

Ilya Mikheyev

He has 1 assist in 6 games but he has been one of the best leaf players so far this season. I feel like this guy should have way more points than he has, every time he has the puck in the neutral zone he effortlessly blows by everyone and gets a zone entry. Also, he's amazing in puck battles...

forums.hfboards.com

Ilya Mikheyev's breakout season.

He’s the kind of guy who you love having at 1.5-2m once you pay these kind of guys 3-4-5m you limit what else you can do with the line up

forums.hfboards.com

 

[vancityluongo]

I'm not sure I like the contract. Seems like too much $$$ but the player can prove me wrong on that.

HOWEVER, the process behind the signing I really liked. They had a big need for players that are better able to get in on the forecheck not just fast but properly positioned and he does that. They needed improvement on two-way play from the wings and he brings that. They needed some more help on the PK and he likely brings that. This was, in my estimation, an acquisition made with pin point accuracy.

I just wish I liked the contract more.

Interesting. I still feel the opposite - like the player, think the contract is perfectly fine for a 27 year old free agent signing with no assets given up.

The process is a bit confusing to me. He's a good complement to the rest of the team and rounds out the forward group from a skillset perspective, but it sort of feels like he fell into their lap and really wanted to play in Vancouver, vs any sort of cohesive plan around his fit on the team and how the other moves (that now *need* to happen) would fall into place. Aside from needing to pull the trigger before another team signed him on Day 1 of free agency, I'm just not sure why this was the first move.

We now have the following wingers all vying for top-9 minutes:

Mikheyev
Miller/Pettersson
Boeser
Garland
Kuzmenko
Podkolzin
Pearson
Dickinson
Hoglander

Let alone the fourth line guys like Lockwood, Joshua, Dowling, etc. who will presumably be next to Lazar.

With no third line center, the same defense, and no cap space.

Unless they have a few options for destinations for at least two, if not three, of Miller, Garland, Hog, Dickinson, and/or Pearson - it seems like this signing is an overallocation of resources to an area that might not be a "strength" per se, but is certainly not the weakest. Either on the roster, or organizationally - over the next few years. the wing is really the only spot where we might see a prospect or two (Klimovich, Karlsson, Lekkerimaki) start to crack the roster. Even compared to Bo needing a new deal, we just committed to Boeser, have Garland for a few years, Pearson and Pod for another, etc. It is the strongest position we had even before this signing - maybe aside from goaltending, but even then, we have a guy with 9 NHL GP in net if Demko goes down. It's also the easiest position in the league to fill. Look what a guy like Balcers just went for.

None of this is a negative take on the signing itself as a standalone. But it makes me question management just a little bit - I'm just not sure we're going to get maximum value added to the team from this signing given how the roster is currently looking. However, a couple savvy moves to round out the stuff above could make this a high value signing.

 

[ChuckNorris4Cup]

Is everyone already forgetting how well Miller has performed for Vancouver after being given a better opportunity on a new team and not being forced to be behind so many players? This is the same for Ilya, this guy has potential and given a better opportunity here in Vancouver and not behind so many players in Toronto, I think he will surprise a lot of posters. Speed size drives the net, what more can you ask for, more than Brock can do.

 

[RutherPlan]

Building a strong Russian contigent will pay dividends in the future when pursuing Russian free agents.

 

[MS]

Interesting. I still feel the opposite - like the player, think the contract is perfectly fine for a 27 year old free agent signing with no assets given up.

The process is a bit confusing to me. He's a good complement to the rest of the team and rounds out the forward group from a skillset perspective, but it sort of feels like he fell into their lap and really wanted to play in Vancouver, vs any sort of cohesive plan around his fit on the team and how the other moves (that now *need* to happen) would fall into place. Aside from needing to pull the trigger before another team signed him on Day 1 of free agency, I'm just not sure why this was the first move.

We now have the following wingers all vying for top-9 minutes:

Mikheyev
Miller/Pettersson
Boeser
Garland
Kuzmenko
Podkolzin
Pearson
Dickinson
Hoglander

Let alone the fourth line guys like Lockwood, Joshua, Dowling, etc. who will presumably be next to Lazar.

With no third line center, the same defense, and no cap space.

Unless they have a few options for destinations for at least two, if not three, of Miller, Garland, Hog, Dickinson, and/or Pearson - it seems like this signing is an overallocation of resources to an area that might not be a "strength" per se, but is certainly not the weakest. Either on the roster, or organizationally - over the next few years. the wing is really the only spot where we might see a prospect or two (Klimovich, Karlsson, Lekkerimaki) start to crack the roster. Even compared to Bo needing a new deal, we just committed to Boeser, have Garland for a few years, Pearson and Pod for another, etc. It is the strongest position we had even before this signing - maybe aside from goaltending, but even then, we have a guy with 9 NHL GP in net if Demko goes down. It's also the easiest position in the league to fill. Look what a guy like Balcers just went for.

None of this is a negative take on the signing itself as a standalone. But it makes me question management just a little bit - I'm just not sure we're going to get maximum value added to the team from this signing given how the roster is currently looking. However, a couple savvy moves to round out the stuff above could make this a high value signing.

I think that given the terrible market for moving out guys ahead of UFA, they've just decided they needed to make free agency moves first and then clean up later.

And this does seem like a better idea than a) paying to give away players who might actually have value when the UFA period shakes out and teams are left without a chair or b) avoiding UFA entirely, trading guys later, and then ending up with no way to fill those spots.

 

[HandshakeLineRespect]

Mikheyev is a threat to score literally every time he is on the ice. His offence was stunted due to a nearly catastrophic wrist injury from which he rebounded nicely last year. He's one of the best penalty killers in the league. This contract covers the remainder of his prime years. Peoples dislike for this contract are ill informed.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

Mikheyev
Miller/Pettersson
Boeser
Garland
Kuzmenko
Podkolzin
Pearson
Dickinson
Hoglander

Let alone the fourth line guys like Lockwood, Joshua, Dowling, etc. who will presumably be next to Lazar.

With no third line center, the same defense, and no cap space.

I mean, I feel like you've answered your own question here. With this group of forwards, both Pettersson and Miller will be played down the middle, and it shakes out nicely. For one season, at least

 

[Vector]

I think that given the terrible market for moving out guys ahead of UFA, they've just decided they needed to make free agency moves first and then clean up later.

And this does seem like a better idea than a) paying to give away players who might actually have value when the UFA period shakes out and teams are left without a chair or b) avoiding UFA entirely, trading guys later, and then ending up with no way to fill those spots.

It's also not like they left themselves in a dire cap situation. It's bad but it's solvable.

Now next season...they are absolutely screwed for next season.

 

[DonnyNucker]

Yesterday Dan Milstein said they had better offers money-wise. He could be making things up but a small market doesn’t necessarily mean an uncompetitive market.

Whether Mikheyev is worth the contract he got is ultimately a different question.

Didn’t he also say that they narrowed down the list of teams they woud consider to 8? So more than 8 teams were interested. The agent could be lying or Frank us clueless

 

[Melvin]

Because prior to last year (when he broke out with 20 goals due to an abnormal 14% shooting percentage), he was a pretty typical third-line NHLer.

Why do people keep saying stuff like this?

You’re talking about a guy with 150 games played in his career. That’s barely enough of a sample to say anything about his career sh% let alone weirdly weighing two years ago as being more meaningful than the most recent season.

If Nils Hoglander scores 30 goals next year nobody is gonna be like “I dunno guys, seems like an outlier based on his career before that.”

Last year was basically the first regular NHL season that he played after a 39 game rookie year and a weird COVID year played under unusual circumstances. Granted he is not super young but he is still a mystery box in a lot of ways with tons of uncertainty around any projection you can make. Talking about “his career before last year” as if he’s a 35 year old veteran with 1000 games played is very odd to me. Last season is the most relevant sample of data that we have.

When a guy basicallly had two full seasons worth of data there is no reason to assume that the most recent one must be the outlier.

 

[vancityluongo]

I think that given the terrible market for moving out guys ahead of UFA, they've just decided they needed to make free agency moves first and then clean up later.

And this does seem like a better idea than a) paying to give away players who might actually have value when the UFA period shakes out and teams are left without a chair or b) avoiding UFA entirely, trading guys later, and then ending up with no way to fill those spots.

Fair enough - but I guess it remains to be seen if guys like Pearson and Dickinson will have any additional value now vs whatever they had two weeks ago. Post-draft, a number of teams that were sort of striving for mediocrity (Chicago, San Jose, Columbus, Ottawa, NJD) have made committments to either get better or worse and maybe won't be destinations for middling players like the ones we have to offer because they decided to push the needle moreso in one of the two direction than to just add an incremental piece. And I just don't know that a player like Tanner Pearson is any more appealing for teams that have seemingly "struck out" on big name wingers - Calgary, NYI, Vegas, maybe Toronto.

I mean, I feel like you've answered your own question here. With this group of forwards, both Pettersson and Miller will be played down the middle, and it shakes out nicely. For one season, at least

Interesting thought haha. I mean the division in theory is quite wide open this year...

But that still leaves 8 wingers for 6 top-9 roles. Even if they keep Miller at C, still probably have to move one of those guys, even if they want to play Hog/Dick on the fourth line or whatever.

 

[MarkMM]

Interesting. I still feel the opposite - like the player, think the contract is perfectly fine for a 27 year old free agent signing with no assets given up.

The process is a bit confusing to me. He's a good complement to the rest of the team and rounds out the forward group from a skillset perspective, but it sort of feels like he fell into their lap and really wanted to play in Vancouver, vs any sort of cohesive plan around his fit on the team and how the other moves (that now *need* to happen) would fall into place. Aside from needing to pull the trigger before another team signed him on Day 1 of free agency, I'm just not sure why this was the first move.

We now have the following wingers all vying for top-9 minutes:

Mikheyev
Miller/Pettersson
Boeser
Garland
Kuzmenko
Podkolzin
Pearson
Dickinson
Hoglander

Let alone the fourth line guys like Lockwood, Joshua, Dowling, etc. who will presumably be next to Lazar.

With no third line center, the same defense, and no cap space.

Unless they have a few options for destinations for at least two, if not three, of Miller, Garland, Hog, Dickinson, and/or Pearson - it seems like this signing is an overallocation of resources to an area that might not be a "strength" per se, but is certainly not the weakest. Either on the roster, or organizationally - over the next few years. the wing is really the only spot where we might see a prospect or two (Klimovich, Karlsson, Lekkerimaki) start to crack the roster. Even compared to Bo needing a new deal, we just committed to Boeser, have Garland for a few years, Pearson and Pod for another, etc. It is the strongest position we had even before this signing - maybe aside from goaltending, but even then, we have a guy with 9 NHL GP in net if Demko goes down. It's also the easiest position in the league to fill. Look what a guy like Balcers just went for.

None of this is a negative take on the signing itself as a standalone. But it makes me question management just a little bit - I'm just not sure we're going to get maximum value added to the team from this signing given how the roster is currently looking. However, a couple savvy moves to round out the stuff above could make this a high value signing.

I think that given the terrible market for moving out guys ahead of UFA, they've just decided they needed to make free agency moves first and then clean up later.

And this does seem like a better idea than a) paying to give away players who might actually have value when the UFA period shakes out and teams are left without a chair or b) avoiding UFA entirely, trading guys later, and then ending up with no way to fill those spots.

It's also not like they left themselves in a dire cap situation. It's bad but it's solvable.

Now next season...they are absolutely screwed for next season.

Wasn't what I was hoping for coming out of the draft / into free agency, but I wonder if this sets us up to trade two of Miller / Garland / Boeser for a a couple RHD's (one a straight trade for a young player and another prospect) that allows us to fill a top four RHD slot now with a high end prospect ready to go when Myers's contract ends.

That would immediately fix our RHD undermanning and winger overmanning, while also giving us good cap space for next year.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

Fair enough - but I guess it remains to be seen if guys like Pearson and Dickinson will have any additional value now vs whatever they had two weeks ago. Post-draft, a number of teams that were sort of striving for mediocrity (Chicago, San Jose, Columbus, Ottawa, NJD) have made committments to either get better or worse and maybe won't be destinations for middling players like the ones we have to offer because they decided to push the needle moreso in one of the two direction than to just add an incremental piece. And I just don't know that a player like Tanner Pearson is any more appealing for teams that have seemingly "struck out" on big name wingers - Calgary, NYI, Vegas, maybe Toronto.



Interesting thought haha. I mean the division in theory is quite wide open this year...

But that still leaves 8 wingers for 6 top-9 roles. Even if they keep Miller at C, still probably have to move one of those guys, even if they want to play Hog/Dick on the fourth line or whatever.

Pearson-Dickinson-Lazar is pretty good 4th line

 

[Jay26]

Ilya Mikheyev says he helped Andrei Kuzmenko pick the Canucks

A lunch in Miami helped Kuzmenko decide on the Vancouver Canucks.

www.vancouverisawesome.com

Mikhayev with the Kuzmenko assist.

A little weird he "liked" how we built the bubble team.

I'm not following... Why is that weird?

 

[Bobby9]

Spent more time digesting this signing and still do not like it.

 

[TruGr1t]

Why do people keep saying stuff like this?

You’re talking about a guy with 150 games played in his career. That’s barely enough of a sample to say anything about his career sh% let alone weirdly weighing two years ago as being more meaningful than the most recent season.

If Nils Hoglander scores 30 goals next year nobody is gonna be like “I dunno guys, seems like an outlier based on his career before that.”

Last year was basically the first regular NHL season that he played after a 39 game rookie year and a weird COVID year played under unusual circumstances. Granted he is not super young but he is still a mystery box in a lot of ways with tons of uncertainty around any projection you can make. Talking about “his career before last year” as if he’s a 35 year old veteran with 1000 games played is very odd to me. Last season is the most relevant sample of data that we have.

When a guy basicallly had two full seasons worth of data there is no reason to assume that the most recent one must be the outlier.

Sure call him a "mystery box" if you want. There's plenty of people who have watched him play plenty of hockey in Toronto to form at least a preliminary opinion. When he pops out suddenly with 20 goals and a 14% shooting percentage, it looks like possible regression to me.

I also dislike buying depth players in free agency because you end up with an upside-down cap situation with overpaid middle-six forwards. Unfortunately, due to the fact our prospect pipeline is complete crap we can't staff our depth forwards through the prospect pool with guys on entry-level contracts. So you end up with contracts like this ... c'est la vie.

This is also broadly why this roster is doomed. You can't build a contender through free agency.