According to Blake Price of TSN 1040, the Vancouver Canucks are meeting with NCAA free agent Alex Kerfoot today.
Kerfoot, the native of West Vancouver and product of the BCHL’s Coquitlam Giants, became an unrestricted free agent on Aug. 15 after spending four seasons with the Harvard Crimson. He was drafted in the fifth round of the 2012 NHL Entry Draft by the New Jersey Devils, but never signed an entry-level contract.
This is an interesting development because Grady Sas of DailyHive reported back in late July that Kerfoot had ruled out joining the Canucks organization. Sas said that while Kerfoot would be attracted to the possibility of playing for his hometown club, he didn’t want to be stuck behind a logjam of centres ahead of him on the depth chart.
The Canucks indulged into the free agent market on July 1st by signing Sam Gagner and Alexander Burmistrov. They were added to a mix of centres that already included Henrik Sedin, Bo Horvat, Brandon Sutter, Brendan Gaunce, and Michael Chaput. Throw in prospects Elias Pettersson and Adam Gaudette into the fold, and it becomes apparent that there isn’t a ton of room for Kerfoot to blossom based on skillset and size, and the abundance of bottom-six forwards within the organization.
Kerfoot will also reportedly be meeting with a handful of other teams in the next few days before making a decision.
If he does sign, the Canucks will add yet another decent prospect from the NCAA to their pool, which is essentially like getting a bonus second round pick without giving anything up. He isn’t a game-changing prospect by any means, but Kerfoot recorded an impressive 45 points in 36 games as the captain of Harvard in his senior season.
Canucks Army’s Ryan Beich wrote about Kerfoot back in March.