Faber’s Friday Round-Up: Nils HoglAHLnder, Vasili Podkolzin dekes through COVID-19 and it’s rumour season

It’s been a quiet but busy week in Canuckland.

Free agency is just a couple weeks away and their is a lot of news from overseas as well. Let’s get into the wild week that was.

There have been a handful of COVID-19 outbreaks in the KHL this past week.

Vasili Podkolzin is getting a front-row view of it as his team (SKA St. Petersburg) is the latest to have a big outbreak. His game on Wednesday featured the youngest team that SKA has ever iced, with an average age of 21 years old. Five of their top eight scoring forwards were absent in the game and the entire coaching staff missed the game due to COVID related illnesses.

I later heard that it was over 10 players who had contracted the virus and we should expect to see another young lineup in today’s game.

It’s another crappy event in what will be a long season for Podkolzin. He did play a regular season high 17:29 in Wednesday’s game. That really isn’t the big story though.

The KHL is looking to continue on with their season with fans in the stands and teams travelling at a normal rate. The league seems to believe it is too powerful for the virus and they can overcome it.

This is clearly not happening as SKA is not the only team affected by COVID illnesses. There was a game cancelled earlier in the week when Lokomotiv did not show up for their game against Sochi. Lokomotiv had three players test positive for COVID-19 and decided to self isolate instead of travelling with their healthy players.

There’s been one COVID-19 death in the KHL already this year, so let’s hope for their employees’ safety that something changes and the health of these players and employees are made priority number one.

Earlier this week I spoke with some sources around Nils Höglander that talked about him being more interested in playing in the AHL than he was back in April when he signed with the Canucks.

Höglander is on a two-month loan with Rögle and will come to Vancouver between December 13-20. His main goal is to make the Canucks in December, but his camp and my sources from the Canucks have said that the AHL is more in play than it was in April.

The only problem is that the Utica Comets season is in jeopardy if they are not able to have fans in the arena.

It’s obviously great news to hear that Höglander wants to get to North America as soon as possible. The original belief was that if he did not make the Canucks in December, then he would return to the SHL to finish his season.

From what I’ve heard, that has changed.

If Höglander were to come to North America and not make the Canucks he would be interested in time with the Comets because if there is an injury to one of the Canucks’ top nine wingers then Höglander would likely be the player called up over players like Kole Lind, Jonah Gadjovich or Sven Baertschi.

The relationship is more sour than people know between the Canucks and Baertschi, and Höglander is higher than Lind and Gadjovich on the organization’s depth chart for NHL ready wingers.

My editor and I spoke with Nils Höglander this week if you’d like to hear the interview here.

The Canucks have been in an 18-month negotiation with their back to back MVP Jacob Markstrom. The deal is not getting closer to being done. This was reported by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman this week.

From speaking with agents and those in the know of NHL free agency. Markstrom is on the top of a handful of teams lists in free agency. If the Canucks can’t get the deal done by October 9th, the money from other teams should be enough to draw Markstrom away from the Canucks.

The holdup in the negotiations has been a no-move clause and the term on the contract. The Canucks want to have options with their goaltending situation at the time of the expansion draft, and Markstrom’s camp believes he has done enough to earn that no movement clause. Quite frankly, they are correct.

Markstrom will be a highly touted free agent and will get his big payday if he chooses to walk away from the Canucks’ best offer.

The Canucks are trying to get this deal done but if the contract doesn’t work with their future then they will have to walk away from one of the NHL’s top starting goaltenders.

The Canucks are apparently very close to inking a deal with their right winger Tyler Toffoli.

He was the big trade deadline acquisition and the team wants to lock him down to a 3-5 year contract at up to five million dollars annually.

If the rumours are true and Toffoli is interested in signing at under five million dollars, the Canucks should hand-deliver that contract to Toffoli down in California.

The Canucks’ top six will be the strength of their team for the next few years and potentially longer with prospects like Höglander and Podkolzin on the way.

Ken brings the heat every week with his questions.

This is another great one. There are a handful of names to go with here but I’m going to stick with my guns and go with Brogan Rafferty and I’ll tell you why.

Next season the Canucks need one of Rafferty, Olli Juolevi or Jack Rathbone to make the opening night roster. With Chris Tanev likely walking away to explore free agency, there is an opening for someone to be a second or third pairing defenceman.

Rafferty has all the skills that you would like to see play in that role. He may not have a ceiling as high as Rathbone but he is the most NHL ready defenceman that did not play for the Canucks last season.

After an AHL all-star season where he totalled up 45 points in 57 games during his first professional season, he should be near the top of the depth chart at the beginning of camp.

Jim Benning will want it to be Juolevi or Rathbone who makes the team out of camp but I am most confident in Rafferty being the guy who makes the roster next season. He has all the skills but needs to prove he can execute them at the NHL level.

His defensive positioning needs improvement. Harman Dayal, David Quadrelli and I recently had a conversation about this in a recent episode of the Canucks Conversation podcast. We all want to see Rafferty be given a shot and I think we will see that chance be given this Winter at training camp. Rafferty had a great training camp this year and a bad one as well. At the first one in Victoria, he was excellent, but failed to impress anyone at the second camp for the restart of the NHL postseason.

He will get that shot this year and could be an excellent college free agent signing if he brings the confidence that he built up at the AHL last season.

For more on Rafferty, I wrote a deep dive on his season a few months back which you can read HERE.

Well, that’s another week in the books for my Friday round-up. Next week should be a doozy, I think we will have a contract or two to discuss. See you then!