Confirmed with Link: Canucks trade Dickinson & 2nd (2024) to Chicago for Riley Stillman

[kanucks25]

So after some more time and reading, I went from thinking this was "okay" to not really liking it.

Taking Stillman back means we don't save that much room. It does give us some space for a waiver wire pickup but like, is there anyone actually good going to be on waivers? Good enough where you'll feel okay giving up a 2nd round pick to make the claim?

And if it's not waivers, then they have a little more flexibility to pounce on a deal down the road, but I feel like they could have made this trade anytime ("hold on, let me make a call to another GM to dump some cap and then we'll make the trade").

As for Stillman, toughness only matters if he can play a regular shift. Seems as though the jury is still out on that. If he's just another #7/8 it doesn't really help much.

If this is a precursor to a subsequent move then I will reassess but as of now, just getting the rid of the Dick stench is not worth the pick to me considering the poor condition of our asset and prospect pool.

e/ Someone can let me know if I'm missing anything here. Really hoping the actual cash savings for ownership was way down the list of reasons this was done.

 

[VanJack]

And the only 2nd rounders theyve developed over this time were Raymond, Demko, and Hoglander

Which means what exactly?.....that the Canucks have been been one of the worst drafting teams in in the NHL since 2000?

So the solution is simple......since you can't draft anyway, just trade your second rounders. Then you're immune from criticism....sheesh!

 

[JAK]

It just doesn't seem like a great management move by a competent management team.

The only explanation of this move, is that the ownership is refusing to allow Dickinson to be put into the minors.

Just like a lot of deals since Gillis was fired.

Would a GM really decide to sign an uninsured Ferland contract without the okay of ownership? Would a GM really push for that with a multi-year deal? Or would it not sound like something a fan boy owner would demand because Ferland seemed like exactly what the team needed (had he been healthy), and the owner made the decision because it's his money?

 

[Bitz and Bites]

Why not put him on waivers and wait to see if someone picks him up before doing a trade and losing a 2nd? Probably would not happen but you never know unless you try.

There’s only a handful of teams in the league with cap space to take on $2.65M at this time and why would those teams want an overpaid 11 point fourth liner taking up that space? Especially when they can use that space to acquire picks and prospects from other teams who are trying to unload those types of bad contracts.

It seems like Dim Jim was the only GM in the league who couldn’t recognize the value of cap space, thankfully he’s gone.

 

[Baby Pettersson]

It just doesn't seem like a great management move by a competent management team.

The only explanation of this move, is that the ownership is refusing to allow Dickinson to be put into the minors.

Just like a lot of deals since Gillis was fired.

Would a GM really decide to sign an uninsured Ferland contract without the okay of ownership? Would a GM really push for that with a multi-year deal? Or would it not sound like something a fan boy owner would demand because Ferland seemed like exactly what the team needed (had he been healthy), and the owner made the decision because it's his money?

The above is possible with a GM in the name of Benning.

 

[credulous]

Taking Stillman back means we don't save that much room. It does give us some space for a waiver wire pickup but like, is there anyone actually good going to be on waivers? Good enough where you'll feel okay giving up a 2nd round pick to make the claim?

i've posted this in a few places but this deal was about icing a roster to start the season. if you assume boeser, mikheyev and myers are all unavailable to start the season but will be back before the 10 game/24 day threshold for ltir and dermott (and ferland) are going on ltir then you can only carry 21 healthy players to start the season. if di giuseppe or garland are unavailable then you are down to 20 or even 19. that's with waiving poolman and dickinson (and then calling poolman back up after optimizing for ltir)

swapping dickinson for stillman means you can carry two additional players so even in the worst case where boeser, mikheyev, myers, garland and di giuseppe all go on ir and dermott goes on ltir you can carry a spare player. either rathbone or dries probably

once everyone is healthy the canucks have 9 dmen on the roster assuming rathbone is kept up. stillman could i guess play ahead of dermott/rathbone on the third pairing but i think it's more likely he's waived at that point

 

[Nucker101]

Tired of giving up 2nd round picks. Stillman by all accounts is not good at NHL hockey.

 

[Josepho]

i've gotta say it would be sad and hilarious if aqua finally puts the foot down after having benning piss away his money for 8 years

 

[Bubbles]

Which means what exactly?.....that the Canucks have been been one of the worst drafting teams in in the NHL since 2000?

So the solution is simple......since you can't draft anyway, just trade your second rounders. Then you're immune from criticism....sheesh!

 

[krutovsdonut]

It just doesn't seem like a great management move by a competent management team.

The only explanation of this move, is that the ownership is refusing to allow Dickinson to be put into the minors.

Just like a lot of deals since Gillis was fired.

Would a GM really decide to sign an uninsured Ferland contract without the okay of ownership? Would a GM really push for that with a multi-year deal? Or would it not sound like something a fan boy owner would demand because Ferland seemed like exactly what the team needed (had he been healthy), and the owner made the decision because it's his money?

i agree that paying a 2nd to dump minimal cap and lose a competent roster player makes no sense. i like your thinking but i am skeptical they wanted to send dickinson down. i think more likely they wanted stillman and attributed a chunk of the second pick value to him, but we will see pretty quickly based on what they do with stillman.

it is not implausible that aquaman is now being pissy about money because he is no longer at the table and rutherford is not his guy. for example, i don't understand the reports they are shopping ferlund's deal given how close they are to the cap. i think management optimistic about a season would want that cushion to be able to make a deadline move.

 

[krutovsdonut]

i've posted this in a few places but this deal was about icing a roster to start the season. if you assume boeser, mikheyev and myers are all unavailable to start the season but will be back before the 10 game/24 day threshold for ltir and dermott (and ferland) are going on ltir then you can only carry 21 healthy players to start the season. if di giuseppe or garland are unavailable then you are down to 20 or even 19. that's with waiving poolman and dickinson (and then calling poolman back up after optimizing for ltir)

swapping dickinson for stillman means you can carry two additional players so even in the worst case where boeser, mikheyev, myers, garland and di giuseppe all go on ir and dermott goes on ltir you can carry a spare player. either rathbone or dries probably

once everyone is healthy the canucks have 9 dmen on the roster assuming rathbone is kept up. stillman could i guess play ahead of dermott/rathbone on the third pairing but i think it's more likely he's waived at that point

i don't understand how swapping dickinson for stillman allows you to carry two extra players. the roster is the roster. the trade is one body in, one out, so 0 change to available roster spots.

if you mean that would free up cap, they only freed up $1.3m of cap with the move. they could have saved $1.125m by waiving dickinson (or poolman) and leaving him down there. more than enough to bring up a dman or grab one off waivers.

 

[credulous]

i don't understand how swapping dickinson for stillman allows you to carry two extra players. the roster is the roster. the trade is one body in, one out, so 0 change to available roster spots.

if you mean that would free up cap, they only freed up $1.3m of cap with the move. they could have saved $1.125m by waiving dickinson (or poolman) and leaving him down there. more than enough to bring up a dman or grab one off waivers.

if you waive dickinson you are up 1.3 mil in cap space and down one player. if you swap dickinson for stillman you are up 1.3 mil in cap space and have the same number of players

basically waiving dickinson only lets you replace him with a single player on the roster (or maybe two guys at a min salary). stillman gets you about the same cap space but an extra body on the roster

 

[MarkMM]

That all makes sense but is too high a price for a 2nd. I get that the injuries may have made this an emergency situation and they don't want to stumble out the gate and be out of the playoffs in the first couple months but this only makes sense to me if Stillman is actually someone they think is a player and then they can flip someone else (Rathbone or Dermott?) to recoup some pick value.

 

[krutovsdonut]

if you waive dickinson you are up 1.3 mil in cap space and down one player. if you swap dickinson for stillman you are up 1.3 mil in cap space and have the same number of players

basically waiving dickinson only lets you replace him with a single player on the roster (or maybe two guys at a min salary). stillman gets you about the same cap space but an extra body on the roster

ok, i think i see what you mean. you think that $1.3m can be spent on additional call ups to allow them to go with a bigger roster without having to put anyone on ltir (and then have to wait 10 games to activate them).

i have not done the math on what they could afford for call ups. i thought ferlund already gave them a significant ltir cushion so i am not sure how $1.3m makes a critical difference. i do also see they could get that money by putting dermott on ltir without spending a 2nd, so i guess i question whether losing dermott for a maz of 10 games is worth a 2nd (assuming he'd be ready to start the season).

 

[hookshott]

if you waive dickinson you are up 1.3 mil in cap space and down one player. if you swap dickinson for stillman you are up 1.3 mil in cap space and have the same number of players

basically waiving dickinson only lets you replace him with a single player on the roster (or maybe two guys at a min salary). stillman gets you about the same cap space but an extra body on the roster

Would be nice if the "extra body" could actually play! Giving up the 2nd for an "extra body" does not make sense to me....feels like more of the same as per Benning giving up 2nd's all the time....for bodies that ended up not being able to play!

 

[credulous]

i have not done the math on what they could afford for call ups. i thought ferlund already gave them a significant ltir cushion so i am not sure how $1.3m makes a critical difference. i do also see they could get that money by putting dermott on ltir without spending a 2nd, so i guess i question whether losing dermott for a maz of 10 games is worth a 2nd (assuming he'd be ready to start the season).

the tl;dr is that with everyone it's reasonable to send down (aman, karlsson, rathbone) the canucks are about 2 mil over the cap before putting anyone on ltir

they'd have to send down some combination of stillman, poolman or di giuseppe to get under but they didn't waive any of them (they probably can't in di giuseppe's case because of injury). they could maybe send down kuzmenko, podkolzin or hoglander (they're all not subject to waivers) but their bonuses and how they interact with ltir make that a bad idea

that leaves the canucks with 9 or 10 healthy forwards (pettersson, kuzmenko, miller, horvat, podkolzin, pearson, lazar, joshua, garland (maybe?) and hoglander) and 6 healthy dmen (hughes (maybe?), oel, poolman, schenn, burroughs, stillman). moving ferland to ltir gets you enough space to call up aman and karlsson and moving dermott to ltir gets you enough to call up rathbone but that leaves you with only a single healthy scratch (stillman or rathbone, likely) until boeser is healthy enough to play. you can move di giuseppe to ltir as well to call up dries to get another extra

with dickinson it's even worse because you don't have stillman and you also need to send down another player to get under the cap

also i'm not defending this move from management. i think stillman is no better than half a dozen players that were waived recently and he's likely going on waivers as soon as dermott is ready to play (or sooner if rathbone sticks). i think the team's cap management has been atrocious so far this offseason. there were definitely alternatives to paying someone to take dickinson but they all had to be done well prior to now

 

[DonnyNucker]

Would be nice if the "extra body" could actually play! Giving up the 2nd for an "extra body" does not make sense to me....feels like more of the same as per Benning giving up 2nd's all the time....for bodies that ended up not being able to play!

It wasn’t about the “extra body” it was about cap space and creating roster space for a younger, more capable player in the bottom 6

 

[me2]

i agree that paying a 2nd to dump minimal cap and lose a competent roster player makes no sense. i like your thinking but i am skeptical they wanted to send dickinson down. i think more likely they wanted stillman and attributed a chunk of the second pick value to him, but we will see pretty quickly based on what they do with stillman.

it is not implausible that aquaman is now being pissy about money because he is no longer at the table and rutherford is not his guy. for example, i don't understand the reports they are shopping ferlund's deal given how close they are to the cap. i think management optimistic about a season would want that cushion to be able to make a deadline move.

How would you feel about paying Dickinson (AHL), Poolman (AHL) and Ferland (uninsured) not to play for you. $-7.5-8m in real money. Got to sting.

 

[Ruthervin]

So after some more time and reading, I went from thinking this was "okay" to not really liking it.

Taking Stillman back means we don't save that much room. It does give us some space for a waiver wire pickup but like, is there anyone actually good going to be on waivers? Good enough where you'll feel okay giving up a 2nd round pick to make the claim?

And if it's not waivers, then they have a little more flexibility to pounce on a deal down the road, but I feel like they could have made this trade anytime ("hold on, let me make a call to another GM to dump some cap and then we'll make the trade").

As for Stillman, toughness only matters if he can play a regular shift. Seems as though the jury is still out on that. If he's just another #7/8 it doesn't really help much.

If this is a precursor to a subsequent move then I will reassess but as of now, just getting the rid of the Dick stench is not worth the pick to me considering the poor condition of our asset and prospect pool.

e/ Someone can let me know if I'm missing anything here. Really hoping the actual cash savings for ownership was way down the list of reasons this was done.

I might be wrong here but I think the rationale behind this is that the Canucks can send Stillman down once we start to get healthy on the back-end again (i.e. Myers, Dermott) which would basically take all/most of his 1.35 million off the books. I could be wrong though. Even if this isn't the case, the extra 1.3 million (Dickinson minus Stillman) might be enough extra cap in order to re-sign Horvat.

Like you though, I'm also interested to see how things play out long term before fully judging this deal. If the competition for 4th line duty really has come down to Lazar, Hoglander, Joshua, and Aman, then was there really any point of us holding onto Dickinson anyways?

 

[Nazzlind]

for next season, Stillman is also a 1/3 buyout instead of a 2/3 one like Dickinson

 

[krutovsdonut]

How would you feel about paying Dickinson (AHL), Poolman (AHL) and Ferland (uninsured) not to play for you. $-7.5-8m in real money. Got to sting.

depends on whether it was my idea or decision to sign them.

you're talking about a guy who gave eriksson $30m to score 38 goals, bought out holtby after one year for $2.85m, and paid gagner $3m to play for the marlies.

he seems to have a very short attention span and memory and a high tolerance for wasting money.

 

[JellyRamp]

i dont care for this trade, adding a second wasnt smart

 

[Shareefruck]

Eh 25% isnt too great, wasnt it like 40% play 100+ games? But yes top 3 rounds you want as many picks as possible always

40% of all 2nd rounders play 100+ games? That sounds high to me.

 

[andora]

there were definitely alternatives to paying someone to take dickinson but they all had to be done well prior to now

What were they and how would that have affected the present day?

 

[mathonwy]

Dumping dicki, freeing up a roster spot + cap space this season is worth a 2nd.

I'm glad they made this trade.

depends on whether it was my idea or decision to sign them.

you're talking about a guy who gave eriksson $30m to score 38 goals, bought out holtby after one year for $2.85m, and paid gagner $3m to play for the marlies.

he seems to have a very short attention span and memory and a high tolerance for wasting money.

Let's call a spade a spade.

You are describing FAQ.

Jimbo was just the idiot rubber stamper