WWYDW: The Rest Of The 2019/20 Season

A week ago, we were idly speculating about moving contracts in the offseason, but now there’s only one Vancouver Canucks-related question on everyone’s mind – is the NHL going to continue the 2019/20 season, and, if so, when?

That’s not a question we can answer today. But what we can do is idly speculate about what shape the remainder of the 2019/20 season will take if and when the league lifts its current hiatus.

Earlier this week on CanucksArmy, we highlighted just one of the many solutions that have been proposed for an impromptu playoff schedule…

…and several others have been floated around Twitter.

But now we’d like to hear from you on the subject, because this week we’re asking:

Last week – which feels like forever ago – we asked:

With 76 comments, the response was strong – to put it mildly.

Some of your responses are listed below, and the rest will show up tomorrow for the rare WWYDW: Part Deux.

Carrying on from yesterday’s WWYDW, here are more of your answers to the question:

Hard to see who would want LE and his contract. It might be a good idea for Benning to look at rebuilding teams with cap space looking for prospects, and/or budget-conscious teams who need to make the salary minimum. In either case, to dump LE’s contract would probably require adding a sweetener, such as a prospect and/or a draft pick to make it work. Benning would have to do a cost/benefit analysis to see if it’s worth the cap space, or if they should just stick it out until June 2022.

 

If LE doesn’t retire this summer, send him down to Utica and let him know that is where he will finish his career. If he chooses, can him and the Canucks mutually terminate his contract like LA did with Kovalchuk? He can sign for league minimum elsewhere if he really wants to play. Can’t see him playing just for the money at this point.

At this year’s exit interview, Loui should be told in no uncertain terms he is absolutely not in the future plans of the team. Let him know there are three options: retirement, mutual termination of the contract, or Utica. The Canucks will pay his $3 mil salary bonus on July 1, then what is best for all parties is for Loui to quietly go away. If Loui really wants to spend the next two years away from his family riding buses from Utica to Laval, so be it, he will never see the NHL again. All parties can suffer if Loui really wants his money. With the majority of his contract already paid, I bet Loui will be more inclined to seek an alternate path.

I still think Vancouver told Loui this last offseason he would not be a candidate for demotion this year to keep things amicable, but if he wants to stay on things would be different next year and he should make his intentions clear at the exit interview – knowing he won’t be in the NHL with that contract next year.

 

Unfortunately, I don’t see much in a way of ridding the team of the contract. I think GMJB frees up money elsewhere and we have a $6 mil fourth liner. He is still a useful player, but nowhere near $6 mil. Unfortunately, that was the going rate – see Lucic – and the Sedins were still good players at the time of the signing.

 

I was thinking the other day that if we got a new GM what would he do. Well, his first task would be to clean up all the bad contracts. So, let’s begin.

First, some of these movies have costs, so what would the new GM spend? We have players, prospects, and picks in 2020 and 2021 as tools of change.

Let’s take our single first round pick off the table, remove top prospects Podkolzin and Hoglander. Also, let’s leave out the Canucks core players.

Eriksson will have two years left at an average of $6 million, but will be owed only $5 million total in real dollars. So now is it costing $2.5 million average in real dollars but counts as $6 million against the cap. He certainly isn’t a $6 million dollar man, but he does provide enough for $2.5. A sweetener will still have to be added, but shouldn’t be too bad after his July bonus is paid out. So, let’s make this deal work, Eriksson, a third round pick, and Guillaume Brisebois, LHD.

Now the new GM cleaning has begun, but there is still Sven Bearcheese ( $2.4 million salary, $3.3 million cap hit) to move out from the minors, and Sutter ($4.5 million salary and $4.375 million cap) off the roster.

That will free up (6M+3.3M+4.375M) $13.675 million and not hurt out team. We will have to add a couple assets move Baertschi and Sutter, but shouldn’t take anything big.

Now on defense we will be losing Tanev and Stecher, but they can be replaced internally by Rafferty, Tryamkin, or Juolevi. That should save another $3-6 million.

 

Loui needs to give some thought to his legacy and how people will remember him, like Naslund did when he couldn’t keep up any more and went back to Sweden with a year left for $4 million on his last NHL contract – very classy. Loui has a No Trade Clause which changes to a Modified-NTC next year, so he is pretty much in the driver’s seat when it comes to the AHL or any move out of town.

 

Maybe they can package Eriksson and/or Sutter with a draft pick and retain a portion. If we don’t resign Tanev or Stecher, that should get us under the cap ($84-85 million) for next season.

 

The Loui contract debacle is totally on Benning, not Eriksson himself. Seems to me Scott Gomez, Bobby Holik, and Rick DiPietro to name a few were signed by GMs jumping the gun by paying too much money to said players – who ended up not improving their clubs fortunes. LE is still owned a lot of sweet coin, so he ain’t walking away from it. In all honesty, would you?