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Evening Notes: Hronek, Eriksson Ek, St. Ivany

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There’s always something to look forward to for the Vancouver Canucks, who now have full focus on extending defenseman Filip Hronek after extending star forward Elias Pettersson. This deal should cost the Canucks a pretty penny as well, with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman suggesting in an appearance on CHEK’s Donnie and Dhali (video link) a cap hit within the range of $7.5MM.

Hronek has become a crucial piece of Vancouver’s lineup since joining the team at last season’s Trade Deadline. He’s not only boosted his own impact but made the players around him better as well – serving as the perfect partner for star defenseman Quinn Hughes. Both Hronek and Hughes have recorded a career-high in scoring this season, with 45 and 77 points respectively. The duo is playing upwards of 24 minutes each game – representing the only Canucks pairing averaging more than even 19 minutes of ice time. Hughes is signed through the 2026-27 season, carrying a $7.85MM cap hit. Vancouver will lock up their top defensive pairing for the future if – and hopefully when – they’re able to sign Hronek to a comparable deal.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Minnesota Wild centerman Joel Eriksson Ek won’t join the team for the final two games of their California road trip, getting held back by a lower-body injury per The Athletic’s Michael Russo (Twitter Link). Russo adds that Minnesota is holding Eriksson Ek out a bit longer, in an effort to be cautious with his injury. The 27-year-old centerman has missed Minnesota’s last two games. His next chance to return will be on March 23rd when the Wild host the St. Louis Blues. Eriksson Ek’s absence should continue to benefit Marco Rossi’s ice time, after the Austrian played a career-high 20:44 in the team’s last game.
  • Jack St. Ivany has been reassigned to the AHL, jumping back-and-forth between the NHL and AHL lineups on a few call-ups since Sunday. (Twitter Link). St. Ivany will hope to receive his NHL debut on his next recall, after serving as an NHL healthy scratch for the first time on Saturday. St. Ivany, 24, has four goals, 12 points, and 30 penalty minutes in 52 AHL games this season – though he hasn’t scored a point since a two-goal performance on February 14th.

Canucks Sign Christian Felton To Entry-Level Deal

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4:19 p.m.: Felton’s ELC carries a cap hit of $870K and is signed for next season, per CapFriendly. He’ll be an RFA upon expiry in 2025. The deal will pay him $775K in base salary, $95K in signing bonuses, and up to $80K in performance bonuses along with a $82.5K minors salary.

12:06 p.m.: The Vancouver Canucks have joined in on NCAA free agency, signing defenseman Christian Felton to a one-year, entry-level contract. Felton joins Vancouver as an undrafted free agent after spending the last three seasons with Merrimack College, which he joined after one year with Bentley University. Felton has been out of action since February, battling with an upper-body injury. He’ll join the Abbotsford Canucks and is poised to make his pro debut when healthy.

Felton was the only undrafted defenseman invited to Vancouver’s development camp last year and he clearly made an impact, now signing his first pro contract with the club despite a shortened season. Felton, who had many teams interested in him per Rick Dhaliwal of Chek News, is a stout defender who mans the defensive side of the ice well – using good physicality, an active stick, and cheeky passing to gather and maintain possession. While he could benefit from improved foot speed, Felton’s awareness and reaction speed help him keep up with any opponents. His calm demeanor was a key piece of both Merrimack’s power-play and penalty kill, speaking to his versatility.

Felton is also a right-hand shot, something highly coveted to a Canucks organization that’s currently boasting 14 left-handed defenders to 11 right-handed defenders. That could give Felton a leg-up in the depth chart, though he’ll still have to carve his teeth in the AHL before he earns a role with the Canucks. If he’s able to adjust to pros well, Felton could start to challenge Jett Woo as the team’s de facto right-handed call-up.

Canucks Extend Three In Front Office

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  • Getting down to business in the front office, the Vancouver Canucks announce they have extended and promoted Ryan Johnson to Assistant General Manager. Johnson will retain his role as General Manager of the Abbotsford Canucks, but he was previously serving as Special Assistant to the General Manager at the NHL level. In the same announcement, the team has also extended Cammi Granato and Émilie Castonguay in their current roles as Assistant General Managers.

    [SOURCE LINK]

Vancouver Canucks Place Dakota Joshua On LTIR, Recall Arturs Silovs

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The Vancouver Canucks have placed forward Dakota Joshua on the team’s long-term injured reserve retroactive to February 16th, per a team announcement. In a corresponding move, the organization has recalled goaltender Arturs Silovs from their AHL affiliate, the Abbotsford Canucks.

Silovs is expected to enter the lineup tonight, as the team recently learned that regular starting netminder, Thatcher Demko, is set to miss the next few games with an undisclosed injury. The team will likely opt to start Casey DeSmith in Demko’s stead, but Silovs may see his first action in the NHL since last season.

Playing in Abbotsford this season, the former sixth-round pick has had a moderately decent season as his team competes for a tightly-contested playoff spot in the AHL’s Pacific Division. Suiting up in 33 games for Abbotsford this year, Silovs has produced a 15-11-6 record while carrying a .907 save percentage and a 2.74 goals-against average.

Given that his last game was on February 13th against the Chicago Blackhawks, Joshua has already satisfied the requirements for LTIR and can be activated at any time. Currently producing at the best level of his career with the Canucks this season, the team recently learned only a few days ago that Joshua was set to miss the next two weeks.

Allvin: Canucks Have Offered Hronek Contract Extension

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With Elias Pettersson’s extension now in place, Canucks GM Patrik Allvin can shift his focus to signing his other key pending restricted free agent.  Speaking with Sportsnet 650 (audio link), Allvin confirmed that the team has offered an extension to defenseman Filip Hronek.  His first full season with Vancouver has been a successful one as the 26-year-old has already set career highs in assists (40) and points (45) while averaging a little under 24 minutes a night.  Hronek is owed a qualifying offer of $5.28MM but stands to earn considerably more than that on a long-term deal this summer with arbitration rights.  Hronek is only one year away from UFA eligibility so if these discussions don’t go well, he could simply elect to file for arbitration, take the award, and look to test the open market in 2025.

Thatcher Demko Expected To Miss Time With Knee Injury

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The Canucks are back in the win column and continue to pace themselves for their best regular season since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 2011. Their 113-point pace can be credited mainly to Thatcher Demko, who will undoubtedly get Vezina Trophy consideration in a few months thanks to an uncontestable top-five showing. Unfortunately, they’ll be without their star netminder for a slight stretch as he’s set to miss “a few games” with an undisclosed injury, Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK reports. More specifically, it’s a knee issue, per Postmedia’s Ben Kuzma. The Canucks will recall a goaltender from AHL Abbotsford, likely waiver-exempt Arturs Silovs, ahead of Wednesday’s game against the Avalanche.

After a breakout 2021-22 campaign that placed him seventh in Vezina voting, last year marked a significant downturn for Demko, who struggled through a knee injury that limited him to 32 starts and dropped his numbers to the average-to-mediocre range. He’s back to form this year, though, recording career highs in wins (34), SV% (.917), GAA (2.47), and shutouts (5). His 20.4 goals saved above expected are second in the league only behind Jets star Connor Hellebuyck’s 27.9, per MoneyPuck. The Canucks do not have enough cap space for a recall with $125K remaining in their LTIR salary pool, but Silovs is eligible for a $0 roster emergency exemption as he carries a cap hit of $850K or less. Unlike skaters, teams do not have to play short a goaltender for one game before being eligible to use this rarer emergency recall.

Canucks Recall Vasily Podkolzin

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After being papered down to the minors yesterday, Vasily Podkolzin is back up with the Canucks as the team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve recalled him from AHL Abbotsford.

The 22-year-old was the tenth pick back in 2019 and spent the full 2021-22 season with Vancouver.  However, last season, he split the season between the NHL and the AHL, and this year, they decided he’d be best served playing big minutes in his final season of waiver exemption.

This season, Podkolzin has played in 44 games with Abbotsford, collecting 15 goals and 13 assists.  He also has seen action in three games with Vancouver this month but has been primarily limited to fourth-line duty.  That’s likely to continue to be the case moving forward.

Podkolzin had been shuffled back and forth over the last week but that should change now.  With Vancouver having a dozen healthy forwards before this roster move, that means this will count as one of their four allowable post-deadline regular recalls so his stint with the Canucks should be longer this time around.  Notably, his promotion effectively caps Vancouver out as they won’t be able to afford another recall.  That likely played a role in their decision yesterday not to sign Phil Kessel as an extra depth player after he had worked out with Abbotsford recently.

Canucks Attempted To Move Tucker Poolman’s Contract

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Tucker Poolman’s tenure with Vancouver has been rough, to say the least.  Concussion and migraine troubles have limited him to just 43 games in his three seasons with the team, 40 of those coming two years ago.  For the rest of the time, he has been on LTIR, allowing the Canucks to spend over the cap by his $2.5MM AAV but his presence there has restricted them from accruing in-season cap space.  Accordingly, that has limited them when it comes to trying to bank cap room for late-season additions.

Speaking with Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston following yesterday’s trade deadline, GM Patrik Allvin acknowledged that he has attempted to move Poolman’s deal but hasn’t been able to find a taker.  It’s not a matter of his contract having value as the Canucks would need to incentivize a team to take it on but evidently, teams aren’t willing to do so or Vancouver hasn’t been offering up enough of an incentive – likely in the form of a draft pick – to take it on.

Poolman has one year left on this one at that $2.5MM price tag so Allvin will need to continue working on this into the summer.  Already without their top two selections and their fifth-rounder in the upcoming draft in June, it stands to reason that they might be hesitant to part with another selection from this class to get a team to take Poolman’s contract on but they have all but their third-rounder for 2025 so moving a pick from that group might make more sense.

One of the other challenges of being in LTIR for the entire season is that any performance bonuses earned roll over as an overage penalty to the following season.  Fortunately for the Canucks, that shouldn’t be much of a concern this year as they’ve been more of a veteran-heavy group but they will have to rely on some of their cheaper prospects to fill out their roster next season.  Those players will likely have bonuses which will provide a bigger impetus for Allvin to find a taker for Poolman’s contract in the coming months.

Dakota Joshua Set To Miss Two Weeks

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  • Jeff Patterson of Canucks Army reports that Vancouver Canucks’ forward Dakota Joshua will at most miss the next two weeks for the team. Thankfully, the Canucks only have five games over the next 14 days, so Joshua shouldn’t miss too much action down the stretch. Having the most productive season of his career up to this point, Joshua has played in 53 games for Vancouver so far this year, scoring 13 goals and 26 points overall.

    [SOURCE LINK]

Canucks Do Not Sign Phil Kessel

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March 8, 2:02 p.m.: The Canucks have not signed Phil Kessel by the trade deadline, Thomas Drance of The Athletic reports.

March 8, 8:48 a.m.: Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK and The Athletic relays that the signing is contingent on Vancouver opening up enough cap space before the deadline.  Otherwise, it won’t happen.  If they can do so, the agreement is expected to be for the prorated minimum salary of $775K.

March 7: The Canucks are expected to sign free-agent winger Phil Kessel through the remainder of the season before tomorrow’s trade deadline, Chris Johnston of The Athletic and TSN reports.

Kessel, 36, had been linked to the Canucks as far back as last summer. It became apparent last month that Vancouver would be his next NHL home after Canucks GM Patrik Allvin announced Kessel had traveled to the area and would be skating with their AHL affiliate in Abbotsford.

Vancouver must sign Kessel by 2 p.m. CT on Friday to make him eligible to play in the postseason. Players not on their team’s reserve list at the trade deadline are ineligible to play in the playoffs.

A three-time Stanley Cup winner, including just last season with the Golden Knights, Kessel still carries value as a depth winger with decent scoring ability. While he was a healthy scratch for most of Vegas’ playoff run, he appeared in all 82 regular-season games, continuing his league-record streak of 1,064 consecutive games played. That streak will remain active until he’s scratched for a regular-season contest while under contract.

Averaging a career-low 12:49 per game last season, Kessel scored 14 goals and added 22 assists for 36 points. However, his possession impacts were subpar for the third straight season – a 46.1 CF% at even strength and a -2.5 expected rating. His 1.82 shots per game were also a career low, although that’s to be expected with a reduction in ice time.

Kessel could see an even further reduced role in Vancouver, as he’s likely to unseat any of Teddy Blueger, Conor Garland or Dakota Joshua for a spot as a third-line winger. He’ll instead likely skate in a fourth-line role, slotting in above the likes of Phillip Di Giuseppe. However, it’s hard to imagine Kessel’s iron-man streak lasting much longer with Vancouver’s already strong scoring depth on the wing.

The 2007 Masterton Trophy winner will be a UFA again next summer.

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