Gudbranson for McCann: a short term win for the Canucks
7 years ago
Call it a win for the Vancouver Canucks — in the short term. Acquiring hulking right-handed defenseman Eric Gudbranson from Florida offers an immediate upgrade to a Canucks blueline desperately in need of help. So as the dust settles on Wednesday night’s deal, the Canucks have bolstered their defense corps at the cost of a player — Jared McCann — who may not have made Willie Desjardins’ hockey club out of training camp. In that sense, player for player, the Canucks are a better team today than they were yesterday.
However, National Hockey League deals involving young players and draft picks are not done for one season nor will they be judged after just one year. That’s where things may very well swing in Florida’s favour.
A year from now Gudbranson will need to get paid as he plays the 2016-17 season on a recently signed one-year deal that will see him earn $3.5 million. With the potential of unrestricted free agency as early as 2018, it’s likely the Canucks will attempt to lock Gudbranson into a long-term deal and we’ll have to see how far they’re willing to go financially for a player who offers size and muscle, but one whose ceiling appears to be that of a second pairing defenseman.
He’s already been slotted in by general manager Jim Benning on radio as Ben Hutton’s partner giving the Canucks an intriguing duo of under-25 year-olds who, on paper at the very least, have the kinds of games to complement each other. The sophomore Hutton will perhaps be freed up to explore the offensive instincts he displayed this past season confident that Gudbranson will have his back tending to his own zone. The hope from the Canucks perspective has to be that Gudbranson’s arrival will foster Hutton’s development, although it’s far too soon to know if that will, indeed, be the case.
So Gudbranson will help the Canucks. That’s not the issue. Given the players they had on their blueline most nights last season, he represents a marked improvement. The concern is the cost to the Canucks once McCann fully develops and should the player selected 33rd overall in this year’s draft become a legitimate NHL’er.
At this time next year, McCann will have just turned 21 and will have another year of professional experience and development under his belt. He will have had more time to bulk up and adapt to the pro game whether he cracks the Panthers line-up or is forced, at some point, to spend some time in the American Hockey League.
McCann showed flashes of the skill that made him a first-round pick early in his rookie NHL season and, despite his youth, possessed one of the best shots on the Canucks. That will surely be missed in the years ahead. He struggled mightily in the face-off circle (he owned one of the worst face-off win percentages among natural centremen in the NHL over the past decade) and was shuffled to the wing after a slew of injuries decimated the Canucks and forced the team to abandon the so-called McCann Plan of sitting him down on selected nights throughout the season to shelter him from particular opponents. Still through the growing pains experienced by so many NHL rookies, particularly those on troubled teams, McCann gives every indication he will score goals in the league for years to come and will be an offensive contributor for the Panthers.
That has to be a concern to Canucks fans because now, like Hunter Shinkaruk before him, McCann has been removed from the list of former first round picks once believed to be part of the next wave of scorers expected to fill the massive offensive void hanging over the team whenever Daniel and Henrik Sedin decide to call it quits. There was never any guarantee that Shinkaruk or McCann would become team leaders in scoring, but in their place the Canucks now have Markus Granlund and Eric Gudbranson and they certainly don’t address the team’s desperate need for scoring now or down the road. That places more pressure on Brock Boeser and whomever the club selects with the fifth overall pick in next month’s draft to become elite NHL scorers.
The acquisition of Gudbranson gives the Canucks added depth on defense and there’s no problem with that. If all goes well, he’ll provide the Canucks a physical presence they can certainly use to combat the size that exists throughout the Pacific Division and Western Conference. They needed help on defense, of that there was no doubt. However, they still need someone to run a power play and the hope of many seemed to be that if the team was going all in on a deal, the Canucks would find a way to acquire right-shot pointman who can inject some instant offense. Gudbranson may be many things, but he’s surely not that guy. On that level, the deal just seems underwhelming and overpriced for a fairly one-dimensional player who addresses a few of the team’s needs, but not the most pressing one.
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