Canucks re-sign Corrado, Clendening to 1-year deals

Some prospect news has emerged from the woodwork this evening with the re-signing of Frank Corrado and Adam Clendening.  Both were restricted players who were expected to be re-signed, and it was only a matter of days until it happened.  

Corrado and Clendening are both receiving a modest raise, but were limited to signing 1-year deals and both players still face a log jam in front of them at the NHL level.

Let’s take a bit deeper into these guys shall we?

The 2011 fifth-round pick saw the first year of his ELC eaten up back in the 2012-2013 when he played 3 games in the regular season and then 4 games in the playoffs before the Canucks were eliminated in the first round – a move that was questioned at the time.

In the past three seasons Corrado has played 28 games in the NHL, scoring 2 goals, earning a -10 and 4 PIMs.  He has spent the majority of the past two seasons in the Utica Comet’s top 4 where he has amassed a total of 101 AHL games, scoring 10 goals and 23 assists, a high of a +6 and 77 PIMs.  Quite a large resume for a defencemen who only turned 22 a few months ago.

Corrado was signed to a 1 year deal worth $700,000 at the NHL level and $100,000 at the AHL level.

Clendening was traded mid-way through the year for Gustav Forsling, as the Chicago Blackhawks had a depth of young defensive prospects, and Jim Benning saw an opportunity to trade.  Upon being traded to the Canucks franchise Clendening played 17 games with the big club with hopes that he would be able to quarterback the power-play. Though he scored just 2 assists in that time, he was a positive by both the possession statistics and scoring-chance relative statistics.  

Clendening finished the season with the Utica Comets where he was highly touted for the positive skill he brought to the team as they went on their long playoff run.  He played a total of 11 regular season games and 23 playoff games scoring 4 goals and 7 assists. 

Clendening was signed to a similar deal of 1 year at $760,000 at the NHL level and a $100,000 at the AHL level.  Clendening sees a small raise in his AAV, a huge raise in his AHL salary and the overall NHL cash value drop by $57,000.

Both of these young players have been penciled in to make the NHL this season as a regular.  When you look at the current lineup, it begins to be clear that cracking the lineup could prove difficult for these players.  At the NHL level there are currently 6 players ahead of them on the depth chart in Matt Bartkowski, Alex Edler, Dan Hamhuis, Luca Sbisa, Chris Tanev and Yannick Weber.  

It starts to become even more complicated when you start counting left-handed vs right-handed defencemen.  Of those six more veteran defenders, only two are right-handed shooters (Tanev and Weber).  Corrado and Clendening are both right-handed as well, which makes the two of them compete for the same position.