Photo Credit: Geoff Burke/USA TODAY SPORTS
Now that the party has passed, teams are using the final hours of the NHL All-Star break to take care of unfinished business. For the Vancouver Canucks, it seems, that unfinished business includes locking up one of their pending Unrestricted Free Agents. The team agreed to terms with Alex Biega this evening, signing him to a two-year contract extension.
Biega done – 2 year deal. 700 1st year . 800 2nd year. 1 way deal
— NEWS 1130 Sports (@NEWS1130Sports) February 2, 2016
The 27-year-old native of Montreal has been the unofficial backup plan for the Canucks this season, playing whenever one of the regular members of the top-six are out of the lineup. Unfortunately for the team, that’s been more often than not this season, leading to the former 5th round draft pick making 25 appearances for the Canucks this year, notching four assists in that time.
Biega has been a slightly above average possession player for the Canucks in games that he’s been in though his 56% offensive zone start ratio is well above the team average. His most frequent defensive zone partner this year has been Matt Bartkowski; the two have had better possession numbers when paired together but are getting outscored at nearly a 3-to-1 ratio.
One of the benefits of this contract is that it gives the Canucks room to send him to the Utica Comets without any cap consequence. Up to $950,000 of a player’s cap hit comes off the books once he clears waivers and gets assigned to the AHL; a cap hit of $750,000 would “bury” all of it. Biega benefits too from its structure, as the 1-Way nature means that he’ll retain his full income even if he gets sent down. This is likely a big deal for him, as he currently takes more than a 50% pay cut on days where he’s in the AHL.
At the end of the day, nobody is going to give praise to the heavens for this signing, but given the term and salary, there’s nowhere to really go but up. The team will either benefit in a big way if he ends up being a late bloomer, or be able to easily shove him aside if he doesn’t. Besides, it could be worse..
Biega and the Canucks will return to action on Thursday when they take on John Tortorella’s Columbus Blue Jackets. Puck drop is at 7:00 PM.
