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Latest On Bo Horvat

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Vancouver Canucks captain Bo Horvat has spent his entire NHL career with the franchise that drafted him, but as a pending UFA, his time in Vancouver could be coming to an end. Last month, we covered how Horvat had expressed a a desire to remain in Vancouver. Today that picture got a bit more cloudy. Speaking on CHEK’s Donnie and Dhali podcast, Horvat’s agent, Pat Morris, said that he believes “Bo is a number-one center,” a comment made in reaction to the use of Sean Couturier’s $7.75MM AAV deal as a comparable for the contract he’s seeking for Horvat. With the Canucks’ currently tight cap situation, it’s an open question as to whether Vancouver will be able to afford the sort of contract Horvat is seeking.

Morris’ belief that Horvat is a number-one center is telling as to how Horvat’s representation will approach contract negotiations going into their client’s potential unrestricted free agency this summer. The going rate for top-six centers in the NHL in their UFA years is around $8MM AAV, if not more, based on recent deals. We’ve seen centers such as Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, Ryan Johansen, and Mathew Barzal all hit or surpass that number on their own long-term deals. Horvat scored 31 goals and 52 points last season and brings the sort of defensive value and leadership intangibles teams covet, so it’s not unreasonable that a deal in that wide $7MM-$9MM range is Horvat’s target. For the Canucks, though, it’s fair to wonder whether they’ll be able to afford that sort of contract. With the recent J.T. Miller extension and other players making significant dollars already on their books, it’s definitely possible that the Canucks simply won’t be able to offer Horvat the sort of deal he could receive from another club.

Abbotsford Canucks Name Team Captain

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  • Another team announced some captaincy news today. The Abbotsford Canucks, the AHL affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks, announced that forward Chase Wouters has been named the first captain in the team’s history. While Wouters might strike some as an odd choice due to his age, (he’ll turn 23 in February) he actually has extensive leadership experience. Wouters was the captain of the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades from 2018-19 to 2020-21. In that time frame, the Blades had more wins than losses in each year Wouters wore the “C,” so the Canucks will hope that his leadership can bring similar to success to their AHL affiliate.

Vancouver Canucks Recall Sheldon Dries

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The Vancouver Canucks have swapped some youth for experience today, recalling Sheldon Dries from the AHL and sending Danila Klimovich down. The Canucks had created a perfect salary cap situation for the start of the season to maximize their long-term injured reserve placements, and can now tweak as needed.

Losing Klimovich should probably be expected, given where the 19-year-old is in his professional career. After being selected 41st overall in 2021, he played last season with the Abbotsford Canucks and scored just eight goals and 18 points in 62 games. The idea of him stepping directly into the NHL following that performance was always unlikely.

Dries, meanwhile, has plenty of experience as the extra forward on a roster. The 28-year-old has played 59 total games in his career, including 11 last season for the Canucks. It was his performance in the minor leagues, when he scored 35 goals and 62 points for Abbotsford, that helped push him up the organizational depth chart and into a position where he could take on this role to start the year.

After clearing waivers earlier this week, Dries can be shuffled up and down until he plays 10 games in the NHL or is on the active roster for 30 days.

Vancouver Canucks Place Three On Injured Reserve

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There are many teams playing salary cap gymnastics today, though the award may have to go to Vancouver Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin. The Vancouver Canucks announced a series of roster moves today, most notably placing forward Ilya Mikheyev, as well as defensemen Tyler Myers and Travis Dermott, on injured reserve.

The team also loaned forward Linus Karlsson to AHL Abbotsford while recalling forward Danila Klimovich, a move expected to be reversed once their cap situation is settled. In doing so today, the team completed maximized their LTIR pool relief from Micheal Ferland’s contract, creating exactly zero dollars in cap space, allowing them to reap the full rewards of his $3.5MM cap hit. Ferland is unexpected to play again due to post-concussion syndrome.

In terms of the actual injuries, the three players can be activated from injured reserve at any time as their placement is retroactive to when their injuries were suffered during camp. Mikheyev remains week-to-week with a lower-body injury, while Myers is expected to miss about two and a half more weeks with a lower-body injury (he was given a three-week timeline last week). Dermott is day-to-day after suffering a concussion approximately two weeks ago.

Vancouver joined Toronto, Vegas, Tampa Bay, Edmonton, and Carolina as teams who had maxed their LTIR relief pools to within $100,000.

Waivers: 10/8/22

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With Monday’s season-opening roster deadline quickly approaching, the activity on the waiver wire is likely to pick up as teams get closer to making their final cuts.  We’ll keep track of today’s waiver placements here.

Buffalo Sabres

D Kale Clague
D Jeremy Davies
D Chase Priskie

Calgary Flames

D Dennis Gilbert
D Juuso Valimaki
F Radim Zohorna

Colorado Avalanche

F Shane Bowers
F Martin Kaut

Detroit Red Wings

F Austin Czarnik
D Steven Kampfer
F Matt Luff

Edmonton Oilers

F Brad Malone

Pittsburgh Penguins

D Mark Friedman

Toronto Maple Leafs

F Joey Anderson
D Mac Hollowell

Seattle Kraken

G Joey Daccord
F Alexander True

Vancouver Canucks

F Sheldon Dries
D Christian Wolanin

With the exception of Winnipeg’s Johnathan Kovacevic (claimed by Montreal), all other players from Friday’s group passed through unclaimed.

Canucks Notes: DiPietro, Dermott, Di Giuseppe

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Back in the offseason, it was revealed that Canucks prospect Michael DiPietro had requested a trade.  To this point, there hasn’t been a move made but as president Jim Rutherford told Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province (Twitter link), it wasn’t for a lack of effort on their end:

We were open to it and when a player like that requests it, Patrik made teams aware that we would be willing to give him a chance (with) someone else, but nothing came along.

DiPietro was once a fairly highly-touted goalie prospect after a strong junior career but that has yet to translate into much success in the pros.  Last year, he posted a .901 SV% along with a 2.95 GAA in 34 games with AHL Abbotsford, numbers that don’t scream NHL-ready by any stretch.  He accepted his qualifying offer this summer and he’ll be battling for the backup job in the minors as things stand this season.

More from Vancouver:

  • Tyler Myers isn’t the only Vancouver defender dealing with an injury as Travis Dermott has been out of the lineup recently as well. As Patrick Johnston of the Vancouver Province relays, the team has now acknowledged that Dermott is dealing with a concussion which means he’s out indefinitely.  It feels like a make-or-break year for the 25-year-old.  He’s in the final year of his contract and has had a limited role the last few seasons with limited offensive production (seven points in 60 games last year).  Owed a $1.75MM qualifying offer next summer, that might be a bit pricey for a depth defender but Dermott will have to wait for a little while now to start making his case.
  • GM Patrik Allvin told reporters including Harman Dayal of The Athletic (Twitter link) that winger Phillip Di Giuseppe is expected to miss two-to-four weeks with a lower-body injury. The 28-year-old had a nice season with Abbotsford in 2021-22, collecting 36 points in 42 games.  Injured players can’t be waived so he’ll start the year on season-opening injured reserve and then be waived for assignment when he’s cleared to return.

Vancouver Canucks Acquire Riley Stillman

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We have a trade to announce. Per a team release, the Vancouver Canucks are trading center Jason Dickinson and a 2024 second-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Riley Stillman. The Canucks have also announced the deal.

From both the Canucks’ side of the trade and the Blackhawks’, the deal makes a lot of sense. From Chicago’s point of view, this swap fits their overarching organizational vision. The Blackhawks are undergoing a full-scale rebuild, and this whole past offseason they proved they would leave no stone unturned in their quest to accumulate as many draft picks and prospects as possible.

At a time when the value of cap space is at an absolute premium, the Blackhawks, by acquiring Dickinson, (who has a $2.65MM cap hit for the next two seasons) have cashed in some of their cap space in order to land a valuable draft pick from another club.

Additionally, the acquisition of Dickinson fits in with some of their other additions from this offseason, in the sense that he is a player whose value has declined from previous seasons and has room to rebound. In the summer of 2021, the Canucks thought highly enough of Dickinson to surrender a third-round pick for his services, and now after just one season he’s relegated to being a negative-value asset in a cap-shedding trade.

While Dickinson’s lone season in Vancouver was admittedly a poor one, the Blackhawks are now hoping that he will respond well to greater opportunity on their team and rehabilitate his value enough to possibly be flipped for even more draft picks either at this trade deadline season or this summer.

Dickinson, 27, was a 2013 first-round pick and has at times shown the ability to be a quality defensive center. But in Vancouver his offense almost completely dried up, meaning improving Dickinson’s play offensively will likely be the first priority for head coach Luke Richardson and his staff.

From Vancouver’s perspective, this deal seems less about acquiring Stillman and more about clearing Dickinson’s contract off their books. Just a few hours ago, we covered how 22-year-old Swedish import Nils Aman was in pole position to seize the Canucks’ fourth-line center role, a development that, prior to this trade, would have left Dickinson either without a regular spot in the lineup or perhaps even on waivers and headed to AHL Abbotsford. Now, the Canucks’ roster decision-making process will be a lot simpler.

While clearing Dickinson’s deal off the cap-strapped Canucks’ books was likely the main purpose of this trade, acquiring Stillman is not without its usefulness as well. Today we learned that Tyler Myers would be out with an injury for the start of the regular season, so perhaps Stillman was acquired in part to help the team make up for his absence.

Stillman, 24, played 52 games last season in Chicago and scored 12 points. The former Oshawa General is a defense-first, physical defenseman who saw some time on the Blackhawks’ penalty kill as well. While it’s unlikely that he’ll climb the Canucks’ competitive defensive depth chart, he’ll be a useful reinforcement as Vancouver looks to pick up where they left off under Bruce Boudreau last year.

Pictures courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Latest On Nils Aman

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  • The Colorado Avalanche drafted Swedish forward Nils Aman in the sixth round of the 2020 draft, but didn’t sign him to an entry-level deal, letting his rights expire. The Vancouver Canucks scooped him up in June on an entry-level deal, and now it’s beginning to look like that was a savvy move on the part of GM Patrik Allvin and his front office. Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic report (subscription link) that there is “increasing industry buzz” that Aman has done enough to cement himself as the Canucks’ opening-night fourth-line center. If that ends up being the route the team chooses to go, it will be a major step forward for the 22-year-old, as he has no experience in North American pro hockey. Aman spent the last two seasons as a full-time player for Leksands in the SHL, scoring 14 points in a limited role.

Latest On Sonny Milano

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Milano was recently released from his PTO after an underwhelming preseason, but that may not mean the end of his NHL journey. Per Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic, (subscription link) the Vancouver Canucks invited Milano to their training camp before he ultimately chose to go to Calgary, and they “still like” Milano as a player. But given the complex roster and cap situation that the Canucks’ front office will need to manage in the coming days, Drance and Dhaliwal do state that the team isn’t able to acquire Milano at this moment. The bottom line, though, is that despite how rapidly his stock seemed to decline over the course of this summer and preseason, there still are teams who believe Milano can contribute in the NHL.

Tyler Myers Out 2-4 Weeks With Lower-Body Injury

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The Vancouver Canucks will be without another one of their key players for the start of the season, as Tyler Myers has been ruled out for the next two to four weeks. Myers is dealing with a lower-body injury according to head coach Bruce Boudreau.

The Canucks are already without Brock Boeser and Ilya Mikheyev, though there was some optimism surrounding both players when Boudreau spoke with the media. Harman Dayal of The Athletic relays that both will be with the team on the season-opening road trip and that Boeser could practice in full contact as soon as Sunday.

While Myers continues to be a source of frustration for Canucks fans, given his performance since arriving in Vancouver, there’s no denying his place in the lineup. The 6’8″ defenseman carries a huge amount of responsibility, averaging 22 minutes a night including more short-handed time than anyone else.

Without him (and Travis Dermott, while he continues to work back from his own injury) the team is currently working with a less-than-ideal defense group that likely includes Quinn Hughes, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Kyle Burroughs, Tucker Poolman, Luke Schenn, Christian Wolanin, and Jack Rathbone on opening day.

That is of course unless another move is made in the days ahead. If Myers were sure to miss four weeks, the team could place him on long-term injured reserve and gain some extra flexibility to add a defenseman off waivers – today’s group includes several interesting names – or the free agent market.

Either way, Myers won’t be in the lineup for a while.

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