Canucks extend Bieksa, sign Miller

The Canucks extended Kevin Bieksa today (press release) for three more years at 3.75 million per, and also added defenseman Aaron Miller (press release) . Some random thoughts about the Bieksa signing:

• The scary thing here is that the Canucks probably got him for less than he was going to get when he became an UFA a year from now. How scary is it when a player can have one good year and already command a 3.75 million salary on potential alone. Call it the Vanek effect.


• I found it kind of funny that the deal is 3.75 per year instead of 3.50 like our three other top guys. Now whenever Mitchell/Salo/Ohlund screws up and Bieksa bails him out he can say "see that's why I make that extra 250 grand". Couldn't have they just thrown in a no-trade clause and bumped him down to 3.50 just so all four of them would make the same ammount?


• All in all a hell of a deal though. I don't think a lot of people really realised that Bieksa would have been an UFA already next year since he's barely been in the league for one full season. With this our top-5D is officially set for the next 3-4 years. It will be interesting to see if these guys develop some sort of crazy synergy in the next few years after playing with each other so long.


• Bieksa likely knows very well that he could have commanded more on the free market next year, but chose to extend right now and stay. Always good to see a guy do that, says a lot about the current state of the organisation.
  
• The only bad news of the day in my opinion is that according to the team 1040 Nonis hinted that he was pretty much done with signings and any further moves would come through trades. We've still got some cap room and there's still some good depth wingers out there. An extra would seem like a better move at this point. Why give something up when you don't have to?
  
• As for Miller, good signing, no complaints here. It will be sad to see Rory go and not only for the comedy implications. He wasn't that bad, but Miller's definetly an improvement.