On Friday the Canucks dipped a toe into free-agency, at long last, signing Swiss defenceman Yannick Weber to a one year, one-way deal worth 650k next season.

Yannick Weber will turn twenty-five in late September, and he went unqualified after battling injuries and falling out of favour in Montreal this past season. More analysis, but not that much more, after the jump.

Generally speaking Yannick Weber’s possession numbers have been inauspicious. He’s also faced favourable circumstances in terms of playing limited minutes, facing soft competition, and starting most often in the offensive end of the rink. Weber’s mostly been used as a power-play spcialist in Montreal over the past handful of seasons, though he never really morphed into a mainstay on the Habs first unit. 

What Weber has going for him is that he’s still young, he’s got a lot of experience on the power-play, he’s a right-handed shot and obviously the Canucks see some untapped potential. I generally think this is precisely the sort of shot you need to take if you hope to identify the next Aaron Rome-type.

So yeah, it’s something.