Report: Brendan Gaunce Will Not be Taken in the Expansion Draft

Each of the 30 NHL teams that participated in the 2016-17 season are poised to lose a player today to the league’s 31st franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights. For some teams, that’s a bigger deal than others, which is why there has been numerous reported side deals struck between Vegas and teams hoping not to lose specific players that they weren’t able to protect.

For a team like the Canucks, there is a bit less hand-wringing going on. When your team places 29th overall in the standings, your roster isn’t exactly going to be stocked with prime talent, and given that the Canucks are now entrenched in a rebuild, most of the talent they are concerned about is exempt from the process anyway.

Not so with young Brendan Gaunce, the Canucks first round pick in 2013. With three seasons of professional experience under his belt, Gaunce was exposed to the Golden Knights having been left off the protection list. Being that he’s just 23 years old and played most of last season in the NHL, he looked to be a strong candidate to get picked – not it looks as though that won’t be the case, as News 1130’s Rick Dhaliwal has reported that Gaunce won’t be taken.

That’s good news for the Canucks, as even though Gaunce scored a grand total of zero goals last season in 57 games, he excelled defensively and whenever he was on the ice, pucks tended to be headed in the right direction: Gaunce led all Canucks with at least 15 games played in Corsi-For percentage, with a mark of 51.3%, and had the lowest Corsi-Against per 60 minutes among that group, allowing shots at a rate of 49.1 CA60.

Grady Sas laid out several reasons why losing Gaunce would be less than ideal over at the Daily Hive this morning. Among his reasons were Gaunce’s shot metrics, his age, and his versatility, all of which are very good considerations. In addition, I’d note that I think that Gaunce has plenty more offensive potential to give, based on the success he had at the AHL level. That too was a slow build for Gaunce. He had one goal in his first 26 American League games, and 10 goals in his last 28 American League games. Between regular season and playoffs over parts of three seasons, Gaunce contributed 34 goals and 79 points in 149 AHL games, all before turning 23.

While there were other semi-interesting options for Vegas, including Reid Boucher or Andrey Pedan, it seems probable that defenceman Luca Sbisa is the leading candidate to be picked, though nothing is confirmed.

For the Canucks, whichever player they lose is going to be of a caliber that isn’t likely to hurt them in the long run, but it is nice to hold on to the younger asset with more years of team control and solid underlying numbers.