I had to reach out to resident Collective Bargaining Agreement expert, Ryan Biech, to tackle this one. It’s his understanding that the team cannot buy out a standard player contract, but that they have that option for amateur or professional tryouts. I’m inclined to believe Biech on this matter because the CBA is kind of his thing.
If the Canucks have another season like last year, I’ll be surprised if Canucks general manager Jim Benning has a job by its completion. That’s a hard sell to the fans.
Assuming Adam Gaudette continues on his excellent post-draft trajectory, I think the Canucks can expect a player who can play in all phases of the game and in their middle-six at evens. I wouldn’t describe him as someone with more upside than Bo Horvat, but that’s more a credit to Horvat than a knock on Gaudette. I could see Gaudette replacing Brandon Sutter.
I think it’s more likely that Erik Gudbranson’s camp is making some demands that are out of line with the Canucks’ budget for the player than anything else. I’m sure the Canucks feel let down by Gudbranson’s short debut as a Canuck, but if they could sign him to a contract that they deemed reasonable, I’m sure they would have by now.
I don’t think there’s any coach that rolls his lines to quite the extent former Canucks head coach Willie Desjardins did in his time as a Canuck if that’s what you’re striking at with your question. As for Canucks head coach Travis Green, I’d defer to one of Jeremy Davis or Biech on this one. I just don’t watch the Utica Comets enough to speak with much authority on this question.
In general, I think Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon is lashing out against some of the “analytics moves” made last off-season. That combined with a need to cut salary has made for a peculiar offseason in Sunrise if there ever was one. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Panthers next season, and how the rest of the league interprets their success or failure. Somehow I think the “analytics guys” end up in the media’s crosshairs regardless of the outcome. Won’t that be fun?
I’m not going to take the time to look into this (sorry), but I don’t think the Canucks number of “unproven” forwards with one way deals anything out of the ordinary. Consider for a moment that Vancouver had Brandon Prust and Chris Higgins playing out half a season with the Utica Comets while making $2.5-million each, and the contracts of those three won’t seem an issue at all.
His best option for the foreseeable future regardless of any other circumstances is to move Chris Tanev. The most realistic outcome is that the Canucks move Ben Hutton, given his handedness and the team’s language about the young, charismatic defender. That’s especially true if Olli Juolevi makes the team in October, and I wouldn’t rule that out.
I can’t run that exercise because I don’t have full access to the database and don’t feel inclined to pester Jeremy Davis for this information. At a glance, Brandon Sutter’s production doesn’t align with how highly the Carolina Hurricanes drafted him. I would expect his pGPS relative to the expected pGPS of an 11th overall pick are a little out of place.
It would be far better for the Canucks if they had a fourth line that was all about speed and secondary scoring, just as a rule. I don’t think you’ll see either of Sam Gagner or Nikolay Goldobin on it (for different reasons) but I like the idea.
Considering Juolevi plays the opposite side of defence as Tanev, I don’t see a connection between the two. With or without Juolevi in the lineup next fall, I don’t see the Canucks trading Tanev.

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