Canucks acquire G Marek Mazanec from Rangers for 2020 7th round pick

Appears that the Canucks have addressed their goaltending depth issues this morning after it was announced that they have sent a 2020 7th round pick to the New York Rangers for Marek Mazanec

At this moment, there is no word if it was the own Canucks 7th round pick or the pick acquired from the Anaheim Ducks in the deal that saw Michael Del Zotto head to California.

Mazanec is 7-8-4 with the Hartford Wolf Pack in the AHL and has posted a 3.01 GAA and 0.903 SV%. He is also a pending UFA that is making $650,000 this season.

The Czech netminder has appeared in 31 NHL games, all with the Nashville Predators between 2013-14 and 2016-17.

It seems pretty clear that the Canucks were hoping that Philadelphia would place Mike McKenna on waivers in the past few weeks but the Flyers were exhausting on every option available to them to avoid having to do so. Unfortunately, the team reached a breaking point last night with Michael DiPietro getting the start and the team playing horribly in front of him.

If Markstrom is deemed healthy enough to play, then DiPietro will be automatically re-assigned to the OHL because the organization now has two healthy goalies. If Markstrom isn’t good to go tomorrow against the Ducks, then DiPietro and Mazanec will have to hold down the fort until the Canucks goaltenders get healthy.

Once Markstrom and Thatcher Demko are healthy again, Mazanec will find his way to Utica. (he has 20 days left in his waiver exemption)

The organization was making smart moves in terms of turning their assets into futures but the injury bug came back and combined with losing McKenna on waivers, resulted in them being a real pickle.

There should’ve been a move down much sooner but at the very least they come out slightly ahead with the acquisition of a 2019 6th round pick for Anders Nilsson and then only giving up a 7th round pick for Mazanec. Although the pick value difference is negligible at that point, so they really aren’t further ahead than where they were in early January other than getting Demko up and onto the NHL roster.