Finally

There. It's over. It's done. Now we can all shut up about it.

By the way, Linden's stats last season adjusted for ice time:
points/60 min ES ice time: 1.53
points/60 min PP ice time: 2.71

And Bryan Smolinski's:
points/60 min ES ice time: 1.57
Points/60 min PP ice time: 2.70

I don't hear anyone calling Smolinski washed up.

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.

$2.5 Million and How to Spend it

As of right now the Canucks total salaries payable for next season are $43.4 million dollars, with the only notable players yet to be signed being Ryan Shannon, Trevor Linden and Rory or someone similar to fill our 6th D slot. Assuming these three sign for a total of about 2 million, that leaves us with a cap figure of $45.5 million dollars. The canucks have said they won't commit the full cap to sign the season, with $48 million seeming like a reasonable figure to stop at. So basically there's $2.5 million dollars left to improve the team. Seeing as how our depth chart currently looks something like this:

Sedin-Sedin-Pyatt

Naslund-Morrison-???????
Cooke-Kesler-???????
A whole bunch of 4th liners

It seems reasonable to assume that the money should be spent on a good second/third line winger(or two). With that in mind here's some of the remaining UFA's who could fill that role at a price we could afford.

Martin Gelinas. Thirty-seven years old and still full of piss and vinegar. Already spent 5 years with the Canucks, might be interested in finishing up his career with a contender.
Pros:Cheap( last contract was $950 000 per year for two years). Playoff experience (147 career playoff games)
Cons: Thirty-seven years old. Little offensive upside (best NHL season was only 68 points and that was 10 years ago. He had 41 and 44 points in his last 2 years with Florida and it's hard to see him putting up more than that in the Canucks defensive system)

Jeff O'Neil. His career has hit a rough patch the last few years with both personal and on-ice problems, to the point that he apparently considered retirement this season. Maybe a change of scenery will bring him back to his old form.

Pros: Good offensive upside(had four consecutive 60+ point seasons with Carolina a few years ago). Grit (he'll fit right in next to Isbister and Ritchie)
Cons: Defense. (i don't necessarily consider +/- a very useful stat but this guy's been a minus player for 9 of his 11 seasons, and the other two he was only +1 and +3. That's got to mean something).

Anson Carter. Poor guy went from playing with the Sedins and scoring 33 goals (by the way, the Sedin's jersey numbers: 33 and 22. Carter's number: 55. Carter's stats in his season with Van: 33-22-55. Coincidence? Destiny? You decide.) to Columbus and a 28 point season. We need to show him a bit of love.
Pros: Probably the best offensive player of all the 2nd/3d liners still available. His career numbers don't as good as they should because he keeps bouncing from place to place (9 teams in 10 seasons) but give him some stability and he'll put up numbers. Also, nice guy, smart, everyone loves his interviews.
Cons: If we actually do get him everyone will start asking why he's not playing with the Sedins, leading to the inevitable Carter or Pyatt controversy. Maybe this is a good thing and a little competition wouldn't be a big deal, especially with Vigneault's sytem, but I'm putting it down as a negative. It just seems that it would throw the whole balance of the team out of whack.

Jan Bulis. The Canucks don't seem to want to resign him but damnit I do. He built up a lot of animosity among the fans last year with his lackluster play and his trade demand, but picked things up in the second half, working his way up from "he's an ass" to "benign neglect " status.
Pros. Honestly I think this guy 's one of the more underrated defensive players on the Canucks. He always seems to have his stick in on the play and make those little deflections that screw up the flow of an opposing team's rush. He's also my vote for "player most likely to intercept an opposing team's pass and take it back up the other way for a scoring chance".

Cons.Of course for Bulis "scoring chance" means "aborted spin move and weak shot that poses no danger of going in". If he could just finish he'd be good for 20+ goals a year.

Tony Amonte. He'll be 37 to start the year, and many have said he's been one of the players most negatively affected by the new NHL, with the drop-off in his point production agreeing.
Pros. Used to be the best offensive forward out of anyone on this list. Only guy we could afford who had at least one point-per-game season. Solid playoff experience. Crappy season last year(30 pts) means that he might take a pay cut(from $1.85 million) making him fairly affordable.
Cons. Will be 37 to start the year...Best days are behind him...it's pretty easy to compare him with Martin Gelinas except at this point in their careers I think Martin might have more offensive upside. If that's not a con i don't know what is.

This isn't a complete list of course, nor is it necesarily a list of the top 5 guys who would make the best signings(except for Bulis. He's at the top of the list damnit), more like a sampling of the possibilities that are out there. There's other guys out there(although they may be better players at this point their names aren't as big so I kind of naturally erred towards the older guys) and I may add to this list in the future. If there's any point to this though, it's to show that the Canucks still have plenty of options hope that we pick up at least one of these guys so we dont go into the season with Brad Isbister as our second line right winger.

Were Ritchie and Isbister really necesary?

With the recent signings of Byron Ritchie and Brad Isbister the Canucks now have the dubious honour of having one of the NHL's deepest 4th lines. Assuming Linden is re-signed here are all the players that could concievably play on the Canucks' 4th line:

Ryan Shannon, Trevor Linden, Brad Isbister, Byron Ritchie, Alex Burrows, Jeff Cowan.

Now I'm not really confortable with any of these guys playing anywhere except the fourth line for long periods, but even if we get desperate and end up with someone like Ritche or Cowan filling out the third line with Cooke and Kesler that still means two of these six guys won't be on the team to start the year. Which brings me to the question: Why bother with Ritche and Isbister? Why not spend the $1 million or so you spent on them combined on an established third-line grinder (Re-Sign Bulis maybe?) and take your chances with Linden Shannon and Cowan as your fourth line with Burrows and Rypien as injury replacements. I'm not against depth at any part of your team but it seems that the 4th line isn't really the spot you'd most like to have it, especially when you're still missing a second and third liner.