Report: Canucks will target defencemen Carson Soucy and Ian Cole in free agency
10 months ago
It looks like the Vancouver Canucks are going to be aggressive in retooling their blueline when free agency opens on Saturday morning.
Following the buyout of Oliver Ekman-Larsson and not extending a qualifying offer to Ethan Bear or Travis Dermott — plus with Kyle Burroughs heading to the open market — the Canucks have some cap space to play with and some holes on their blueline to go with it.
And according to a report from Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal at The Athletic, the Canucks plan on being “big-time players” in signing defencemen Carson Soucy and Ian Cole. Here’s part of what they had to say:
“Our team and league sources, who were granted anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, expect the Canucks to try and land at least one of Cole and Soucy. With Bear not qualified, however, internal discussions on Friday turned toward the possibility of perhaps pursuing both players to bolster the size, toughness and defensive IQ of Vancouver’s blue-line group.Landing either Soucy or Cole, or both, will surely require deals in the two-or-three year range, with compensation beginning at a $3 million AAV at least for both players. The Canucks have the cap space to pull it off, particularly now that $2.2 million of additional flexibility has been formally cleared up.”
Soucy is a 28-year-old left shot defenceman that Seattle claimed in the expansion draft from the Minnesota Wild. Listed at 6’5 and 208 pounds, Soucy is a big body who showed an ability to play a bottom four role on a disciplined and defensively sound Seattle defence corps.
As for Cole, he’s a tad older at 34 years old but won a cup with Patrik Allvin, Jim Rutherford, and Rick Tocchet in Pittsburgh. A defence-first defenceman, Cole played last season with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Both Cole and Soucy can play the right side and both bring solid penalty killing abilities to the table.
Currently, just three of the Canucks’ defencemen under contract are on one-way contracts: Quinn Hughes, Tyler Myers, and Filip Hronek. It’s no surprise that this Canucks’ management regime seem eager to restructure the subpar blueline that they inherited from Jim Benning’s management group.
Drance and Dhaliwal mentioned other targets as well, and Dhaliwal made a point of telling fans to “keep an eye on [Max] Comtois.” Comtois is a 24-year-old forward who didn’t get a qualifying offer from the Anaheim Ducks earlier today.
We’ll see what the Canucks get up to on Saturday, and will of course keep you posted on all the latest!
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