VANCOUVER, B.C. – Expectations were high back in October for the freshly stacked Canucks roster, but it took a brilliant January for the team to start getting the kind of consistent results that GM Mike Gillis and coach Alain Vigneault had hoped for. Despite major injuries to defensemen Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa, the Canucks have been trudging steadily along, and this season to date’s 23-7-1 home record has seen the team persevere confidently through the current record road trip. With the trade deadline looming, it’s hard to predict how involved Gillis plans to get, since for the first time in years the Canucks are a team sitting nicely on a playoff spot without any gaping holes to fill.
Arguably more important than trade issues are the restricted free agents whom Gillis has put off making deals with until the end of the season. Nail-biting fans watched him operate this way last year when he put off re-signing Daniel and Henrik Sedin until after the playoffs. But when ten million people in North America watched Ryan Kesler dive emotionally to score maybe the prettiest empty-netter in recent history for Team USA Feb. 21st, Gillis may have broken into a little sweat realizing how crucial it will be to find the cap room to secure Kesler, who is asking somewhere in the neighborhood of five million a year. Gillis has reported that the Canucks organization have also temporarily cut off contract talks with Kesler’s line mate Mason Raymond, who at just 21 has come into his own this year with 43 points in 61 games.
Why the procrastination? The trouble is how little cap room the Canucks currently have, which leads one to ponder that Gillis may be planning a move near the deadline to create some room for Raymond and Kesler. With the newer generation of Canucks defensemen like Christian Ehrhoff and Alex Edler showing no struggle picking things up while Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa have been injured, Mitchell, an unrestricted free agent come summer, could be valuable trade bait. Mitchell has clocked in 4 years as a Canuck, has 100 career assists, and despite injury is still one of the best shut-down defensemen in the league, but he could very well find himself in a similar position to Mattias Ohlund last year. Ohlund was the longest serving Canuck as of the 08/09 season, but last year found himself in Tampa Bay with a 24.5 million seven-year contract. Mitchell, a local BC boy, might be more willing than the Swedish Ohlund to take a hometown discount, but Gillis might feel that it is time to let him go.
One rumor that is circulating in Vancouver involves Canucks top prospect Cody Hodgson and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Hodgson, a 19-yr-old Toronto native who was an all-star forward in the 2009 Junior World Championships, was once considered the golden boy of the Canucks top prospects, but after a disappointing training camp and a lengthy back injury that only recently saw him picking up play with his Brampton Battalions, the Canucks’ interest may be waning. With Hodgson announcing he will not be training with Canucks player development director Dave Gagner this summer and both Vigneault and Gillis publically brushing off Hodgson after the disappointing training camp and Hodgson’s tendency to speak up against the organization to the media, a certain rift has grown between Hodgson and the Canucks.
The rumor has it that the Canucks would be interested in exchanging Hodgson for leading-scorer defenseman Tomas Kaberle. While Kaberle is no doubt valuable, the trade would be an anomalous one for the Canucks, who have strong offensive blue-liners in Ehrhoff, Salo, and Edler. If there is truth to the rumor, more shuffling in the existing Canucks roster of defensemen might be necessary. To be sure, stranger trades have come out of Toronto recently.
Despite the disappointing play of Steve Bernier, Vigneault seems mostly happy with him on the 3rd line with Kyle Wellwood and Pavol Demitra. Since it’s unlikely that there is a GM out there willing to shell out for Bernier, hopefully Demitra’s impressive Olympics play will give the line a boost, though if Demitra’s post-injury game continues at the rate we have seen for him on Team Slovakia and he is moved up, he is effectively replaced by Tanner Glass. Wellwood is heavily-criticized for his few and far between goals, but Vigneault dutifully sends him out nearly every game, and we’ve seen just enough pretty Wellwood plays to know that Vigneault believes he has it in him to improve his performance.
Ryan Johnson has been a healthy scratch for many a recent game, and despite his incessant injuries due to his fearless style of play and blocking martyrdom, Vigneault claims the decision to bench him has not been due to health. Johnson is a fearless player who performs on ice even as he arrives at the rink in a walking boot, but in 40 games this season Johnson has only four assists and ten shots on goal. The Canucks would lose a special player in Johnson were he waived at the trade deadline, but his season has been an unfortunate one, and though many fans hope the Canucks will keep the high-character player around, Johnson might have lost his chance to prove himself to Gillis.
However Gillis plays it, Canucks fans have a solid prognosis for the post-season, and with Kevin Bieksa reportedly having found all the time he needs to heal during the break, the team is remarkably healthy and ready to reclaim their home ice in Vancouver.
Contact the writer at gabrielle.pope@prohockeynews.com
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