Canucks claim D Ryan Stanton off waivers

This seems odd, unless Ryan Stanton is secretly a centreman. I’d assumed that the Canucks would play with seven defencemen, and they were mostly locked in after Frankie Corrado was cut and sent to Utica. Evidently not, as the Canucks will carry around a 6’2″, 196-lb defenceman who has recorded 256 penalty minutes in his last two AHL seasons with the Rockford Ice Hogs.

I don’t pretend to know a lot about Stanton other than he shares a name with baseball’s most powerful home run hitter Giancarlo:

This is a move that gives the team “toughness” or whatever, but I have a hard time thinking that he’s better than any of the seven defencemen the Canucks currently have on the roster. Stanton was undrafted after five seasons in Moose Jaw and doesn’t boast noteworthy offensive numbers in Rockford.

Unfortunately, he is not Giancarlo Stanton.