Canucks free agent strategy: Sign stars or look for value?
Patrik Allvin has no shortage of options as he heads into his third offseason as general manager of the Vancouver Canucks.
He won’t be able to re-sign all of his key unrestricted free agents, and it seems very likely that most of them will be gone after July 1. And with speculation that Vancouver may take a run at Jake Guentzel, the Canucks GM has a very important philosophical decision to make.
Does it make sense to pay big money to land one big fish, or should the Canucks aim for more affordable players?
Both present a risk.
The Canucks spent their money incrementally last season, adding Carson Soucy, Ian Cole, and Teddy Blueger on July 1 for a total cost of $8.15 million in 2023-24. Those moves helped transform Vancouver’s roster, as the team became far better defensively and much improved on the penalty kill.
One year earlier, the Canucks signed Ilya Mikheyev to a four-year contract paying him $4.75 million annually. The same day, Allvin added Dakota Joshua on a low-risk deal, paying him $825,000.
And then there was Loui Eriksson, who Jim Benning signed to a six-year deal worth $6 million per season back in the summer of 2016. In 2018, Benning went with volume, signing Jay Beagle ($3 million), Antoine Roussel ($3 million), and Tim Schaller ($1.9 million).
So what do they do this year?
AFP Analytics’ contract projections for Elias Lindholm (5 x $6.79 million), Nikita Zadorov (5 x $5.32 million), and Joshua (4 x $3.26 million) add up to a $15.37 million cap hit next season.
Would that be money well spent?
Because if the Canucks want to land an elite winger for Elias Pettersson, they can do that for less than $15.37 million.
Would you rather have Lindholm and Zadorov for roughly $12 million, or sign Guentzel for $9 million and another UFA defenceman like Brenden Dillon for $3 million?
There are other options of course. What about Anthony Mantha, Tyler Bertuzzi, or Teuvo Teravainen? Maybe Jason Zucker tickles your fancy. David Perron and Tyler Toffoli will be available. So will Jake DeBrusk and Viktor Arvidsson.
The rub is that the more certain you are about a player, the more money they’re likely to cost, and the more term they can command.
Another Stanley Cup building block?
How many key ingredients are the Canucks missing from fitting the profile of a Stanley Cup winner?
They have a Vezina finalist in goal with Thatcher Demko and a Norris Trophy winner on defence in Quinn Hughes. J.T. Miller and Pettersson give Vancouver a great one-two punch up the middle, and Brock Boeser is a good goal-scoring winger.
They’re missing at least one more elite winger and probably another bonafide top-four defenceman.
Allvin talked about finding “the next Dakota Joshua” at his year-end press conference. That won’t be easy, but it is possible.
But how about finding a 40-goal scorer to play with Pettersson?
Maybe Jonathan Lekkerimäki will develop into that player years from now, but even that is far from a certainty.
Guentzel would instantly give the Canucks another elite player.
The risk, even if Guentzel lives up to the hype, is that you may have to pay him until he’s 36. How will that deal look five years down the road if you’re paying him $9 million a season?
That kind of deal also probably takes the Canucks out of the running for a player like Chris Tanev, who is likely in the $5 million range. Instead, they’ll have to find a player in the $3 million range, like they did with Soucy and Cole this past summer.
The case for value pick-ups
What if instead of signing Guentzel for $9 million, the Canucks added Teuvo Teravainen for $5 million and Jason Zucker for $4 million?
Or how about Tanev and Viktor Arvidsson for $5 million each?
When these mid-range signings pay off, you can win big, like Nashville did when they signed Ryan O’Reilly ($4.5 million) and Gustav Nyquist ($3.185 million) in free agency last summer. They combined for 144 points last season and were a big reason why the Predators qualified for the playoffs.
But when you miss out on a contract like that, you end up like Edmonton, which has Connor Brown on a $4 million cap hit. He has four goals and 12 points this season.
The key, no matter what direction the Canucks choose, is finding value. Find the right player, and pay him the right amount.
That’s what the Canucks did last summer. Let’s see what Allvin has up his sleeve this year.
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