Welcome back to this sporadic column, which highlights the minor Canucks offseason news items that just weren’t big enough to get their own dedicated article, but are still worth making note of.

Along with Jalen Chatfield’s contract negotiations, this was an interesting story to follow. Justin Bailey tore up the AHL last year and was a key part of the Utica Comets group.

On Thursday, the Canucks signed him to a one-year two-way contract worth $750k ($250k if he plays in the minors).

Bailey potted 28 goals and added 19 assists for a total of 47 points through 53 games. That’s not bad at all, and in a normal, non-pandemic year, that may have made Bailey a UFA teams looked to take a flyer on, and perhaps even offer him a one-way deal, which would guarantee him an NHL salary regardless of if he was in the AHL or not. This was echoed by The Athletic’s Thomas Drance:

Bailey was described by both Cory Hergott and Chris Faber as the fastest player in the AHL and at 6’4, you would hope Bailey could find success at the NHL level with that skill set.

He appeared in just two games for the Canucks last season — he played just over ten minutes total — and didn’t look all that comfortable in an NHL game. Granted, he was skating on the fourth line alongside Jay Beagle in a role he’s certainly not used to, and was late arriving to a few defensive zone assignments, which was certainly noticeable.

The key for Bailey will be to continue to excel at the AHL level this season and cash in on that elusive one-way deal next offseason when hopefully the market is somewhat back to normal.

This one doesn’t require much explanation, newly acquired defenceman Nate Schmidt proposed to his longtime girlfriend Allie Reinke… and she said yes!

Reinke played on the women’s soccer at the University of Minnesota, which is how she and Schmidt — who was on the men’s ice hockey team at the time — originally met.

Congrats to Nate and Allie!

Faber and I are cooking up a good episode of Canucks Conversation this week. We will be joined by Canucks prospects Jack Malone, Aidan McDonough, and Brogan Rafferty along with Kevin Woodley of InGoal Magazine.

We’ve completed most of the interviews so far, and Faber talked with Rafferty, who is motivated to earn a spot on the third pairing right out of training camp.

The entire episode will be posted Saturday, but there was something in there that is interesting to note: Rafferty claims he’s added ten pounds of muscle over the extended break. At six feet tall, he’s not really a smaller player per se, but it’s relatively well-known that internally, the Canucks have reservations about Rafferty’s defensive game.

Perhaps beefing up and being able to throw his weight around a bit more while being a more imposing presence when clearing out opponents from in front of the net could help his chances of making the big club.

It was a normal Thursday afternoon, and then TSN’s Frank Seravalli dropped this bomb on everyone:

This is undoubtedly going to be the biggest story to follow for the foreseeable future. In an attempt to avoid federally mandated two-week quarantines, the Canadian Division was all but guaranteed, but it appears now that there is a real possibility that teams will be forced to go down to the US and play out their seasons in different cities.

This has already been seen with the Toronto Raptors, who are now in Tampa Bay; as well the MLS, who moved all three of their Canadian clubs south of the border for their respective seasons. The big difference of course is that the NHL has seven Canadian teams to account for, rather than just a few.

My understanding of the situation is that if the Canadian teams do in fact make the move down south, the division realignment will no longer go through. The league would almost certainly move the divisions back to the way they were, which could be good news for the Canucks, who would play the Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, Arizona Coyotes and Los Angeles Kings much more than was originally anticipated.

Meanwhile, the Public Health Agency of Canada released this statement:

We will keep you posted on this situation as more details arise.

There you have it folks, you’re now caught up to date with everything surrounding your Vancouver Canucks!