Canucks Work Hard to Stand Pat

The big story of free agency was Vancouver’s battle to keep the Sedins at a reasonable price and term. The Canucks declined the initial Sedin request for a twelve year deal and the twins finally agreed to identical five year deals just before free agency was set to begin.

This signing commits the Canucks to having the twins as the cornerstones of their top line for the next five years. What this likely does is guarantee the Canucks a playoff team, but it does not help them climb the next hurdle. While they managed to re-sign the twins, they lost their top defender Mattias Ohlund who had been the anchor of their defense for the past decade.

Even with that loss the top two defense pairings will be very competent for this season. A player to watch here is Alexander Edler who signed a four year extension last fall. He is only 23 and could develop into a puck moving two way defender with an offensive flair to replace Ohlund. Shane O’Brien will also be given the opportunity to crack the top four as the season progresses and could eventually replace Willie Mitchell who is a UFA after this season.

Upfront we have much the same team as last year. The Sedins will continue to be the face of the team and Gillis is counting on them to continue to grow and become a more dominant force up front. The Sundin experiment really wasn’t much of a success and talk about his potential return is refreshingly non-existent. The Canucks are hoping that Cody Hodgson can make the jump to the big team and take over his spot as the second line center. Hodgson was the Canadian junior hockey player of the year, but the jump to a top six forward spot in the NHL is never a sure thing.

Kessler, Burrows and Demitra fill out a solid top two lines. Wellwood is also available as the second line center if Hodgson is not ready to take on that role from day one. Mikael Samuelsson was a good pick up and together with Steve Bernier gives the team depth down the right side. Darcy Hordichuk fills the role of agitator and enforcer for Vancouver.

Still left on the to-do list for Gillis is signing Luongo to a contract extension. Luongo has one more year left on his contract, but they want to get the extension agreed to before it becomes any sort of distraction. The back up role is interesting and may see some movement. The Canucks already have Cory Schneider who is projected by most as a number one goalie and could either serve as backup, play another year in the minors, or be used as trade bait since the team signed Raycroft to a one year deal this off season. I would not be surprised if Schneider is being shopped, but in all likelihood he will not be moved until Luongo’s contract extension is done.

Overall Vancouver is a team that is hard to define. They are a hard working team and have a franchise goalie that can cover many shortcomings. On special teams they are right in the middle on both the power play and penalty killing. The defense will miss Ohlund so as usual much will depend on the Sedins continuing to grow and whether Hodgson can make an impact as a rookie.

The Canucks seem a lock for the playoffs but could fall behind the Flames in their division. Gillis should try to lock up Luongo this off season so that a slow start does not scuttle his efforts to resign him.