Canucks Army Preseason GDT #3: Flames @ Canucks (Sans Markstrom)

The Canucks take on the Flames for the second consecutive night this evening. While the expected lineup will hardly resemble the one that took the ice in Calgary on Thursday, there’s one name in particular that won’t be involved in tonight’s festivities despite not having travelled with the team yesterday either.

That’d be Jacob Markstrom, who was amongst the assortment of players that hit the waiver wire this morning. 

Puck Drop: 7 PM PT

TV: Sportsnet ONE

Unsurprisingly, guys like Bonino, Kassian, Burrows, Shinkaruk, and Corrado get the night off after getting their turn yesterday. 

But back to Markstrom, who’s NHL future now hangs in the balance for the next 24 hours. While the general reaction was one of surprise from people looking on from the outside, the timing of the move makes sense for the Canucks. It was just last weekend, after all, that Jim Benning attempted to throw other teams off the scent with a somewhat thinly veiled ploy to throw other teams by pretending as if burning an extra 23-man roster spot on a goalie that would never be used was an option for the team. 

That was a short lived pipe dream. With Eddie Lack playing so well this preseason, and Ryan Miller making all of the money, you don’t need analytical analysis to realize that Markstrom wasn’t long for this roster. What’ll be interesting, though, is if another team out there will prove to believe he has a place on their’s.

Markstrom is set to make $1.2M against the cap this season (on a one-way deal), and at first glance there don’t appear to be very many teams that a) have that type of space on their books, b) don’t already have two goalies in place with one-way deals of their own. 

The Jets, who have supposedly been poking around for the services of Lack, appear to be a potential fit because of how horrendous their incumbent is. But Michael Hutchinson is someone that people are high on, and he’d need to pass through waivers to get sent down to the AHL himself. A more realistic landing spot may be in New Jersey, where the Devils don’t currently have anyone secured as their backup. Oh, the irony of the man traded for Roberto Luongo being relegated to playing behind Cory Schneider.

Without many natural landing spots – not to mention the bloom being off the rose with Markstrom – it’ll be interesting to see whether anyone bites. If they don’t, Markstrom will be sent down to Utica to presumably split starts with Joacim Eriksson. Unfortunately, due to the ‘Wade Redden Rule’ the Canucks would still be on the hook for a $275k hit, bringing their dead cap space in net to $1.075M. Not optimal, but also not all that relevant at this very moment given that they’ve presumably got their team in tow already.

At the very least, this potentially opens the door for another young player to make the team; like perhaps either Hunter Shinkaruk or Nicklas Jensen, who have both had successful showings to-date.