Canucks choose not to qualify Schroeder, Dalpe; let them walk

You can now officially add two new names to the list of unrestricted free agents set to hit the market tomorrow morning, as the Vancouver Canucks have announced today that they will not be extending qualifying offers over to two youngish, formerly highly regarded but now vastly underwhelming centers. 

It’s a little surprising given that you figured someone like Schroeder would be worth giving another non-committal, low-risk chance since it seems like guys that were once former 1st round picks get endless opportunities at this level to try and regain what they once appeared to have. 

The Canucks obviously didn’t think so, and quite frankly, it’s hard to get too worked up about it. With Schroeder and Dalpe now gone, that leaves the Canucks with 4 RFAs left.

Despite the fact that Schroeder hadn’t necessarily shown much during his time here to suggest that he’d ever be able to be a useful contributor, it was still thought that the Canucks would walk through the motions with him because they didn’t really have anything to lose by doing so. He wound up with just 6 goals in 56 games for the Canucks, spread over two seasons because he couldn’t stay healthy. 

That was a major problem, as was the fact that he wasn’t really good enough to justify being given heavy offensively deployment in a top-6 role, but didn’t really fit the description of the prototypical bottom-6 NHLer, either. He always seemed to be stuck in something of a no man’s land there, but I wouldn’t be overly surprised to see him get picked up by an Eastern Conference team as a flier and have a few relevant moments. 

After all, what’s really that much different between someone like him and a David Desharnais, for example? They essentially produced at the same rate as in their 22 year old seasons at the AHL level. Moreso than anything it’s just a shame that the time the Canucks decided to invest in a diminutive guy, it happened to be one that wasn’t all that good. You probably shouldn’t search up that 2009 draft to see who wound up going shortly after him, is my advice.

As for Dalpe, his only season with the Canucks was disappointing if only because there was initially some reason for optimism that he’d be capable of contributing with a change of scenery. Whether he’s any good or not remains a mystery. All of his data from last year is confounded by the fact that he spent nearly half of his 5v5 time stuck with Top Sixtito, which surely did him no favours. When together the two had a 40.8 corsi for % and 23.1% goals for rate; when Dalpe got away from him, those numbers skyrocketed to 49.7% and 50% respectively.

He’ll probably have to go to some team’s AHL affiliate and earn another call-up sometime down the road, but we’ll always have the time he got to play third wheel to the Sedins: