Canucks finally trade Kevin Bieksa, to Anaheim, for 2016 2nd-round pick
8 years ago
Photo Credit: Kelvin Kuo/USA TODAY Sports
On Tuesday evening the Vancouver Canucks dealt veteran defender Kevin Bieksa to the Anaheim Ducks for a 2016 second-round draft pick.
This past weekend, on the draft floor in Florida, the Canucks failed to net the 2015 second-round pick they reportedly coveted in a deal involving Bieksa. So on some level it sure looks like they had to settle for a second-round pick in 2016. That’s the uncharitable take.
The more charitable take is that after a deal with the San Jose Sharks fell apart in the 11th hour, the Canucks scrambled and still managed to complete a complicated three-dimensional transaction with the Ducks involving a highly paid and aging 33-year-old defender with full no-trade protection. In return they’ve acquired a decent draft pick, and have freed up a not inconsiderable amount of salary cap space ahead of July 1.
It’s not a pure win, obviously, but it’s a decent outcome all things considered. Sometimes both the charitable and the uncharitable takes have some merit.
At least it gives what’s occurred with the organization over the past week – as sloppy and frustrating as it has occasionally been to observe – the vague feel of a long-term plan. At least it puts what was becoming an extremely awkward situation squarely in the rearview mirror.
“It’s always a difficult decision to trade a player who’s been such a big part of an organization for so long and we wanted to make sure we did what was best for both Kevin and the Canucks,” Benning is quoted as saying in a team release. “Kevin was a leader for us and will always be connected with our fans and the Vancouver Canucks because of all he did for this province and team. We wish him and his family the very best.”
During his Vancouver tenure, Bieksa established himself as one of the better Canucks defenseman of all-time. If you’re putting together an all-time Canucks top-six blue-line, he’s definitely in the conversation.
Yeah that’s not the highest bar to leap over, but he’ll probably be in the ring of honour someday down the road. A bona fide top-pairing defender in his prime, Bieksa was a key contributor, a big personality, and a time-on-ice leader on some of the best Canucks teams in franchise history.
In recent years the quality of Bieksa’s defensive game had begun to atrophy pretty significantly, and his two-way results fell off a cliff this past season. Part of that was likely related to his defensive partners, but some of it was probably related to the fact that he’s getting into his mid-30s. It was becoming difficult to ignore the larger trend.
As the Canucks seek to get younger and faster on the back-end, it had become apparent that Bieksa wasn’t a fit anymore. He was also taking up $4.6 million in cap space (though his salary is significantly lower at $2.5 million, something which probably makes him more attractive to an internal budget team like Anaheim) to play a third-pairing role, which is highly inefficient, particularly for a team pressed up against the upper limit of the salary cap.
Clearing Bieksa’s cap hit from the ledger frees up the Canucks to perhaps do something interesting in free agency, particularly along the blue line, even if it’s simply retaining Yannick Weber.
It might also allow the club to make a trade with a cap strapped team in the next 18 hours or so before the market opens. The second-round pick is valuable too, even if it’s likely to fall in the mid- to late-50s based on the fact that the Ducks are a damn good hockey team.
All around it’s a tidy trade for Vancouver, even if it’s not quite enough to remove the bitter aftertaste of the organization’s clumsy work on draft day.
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