We are back with another Monday Mailbag and we are back to living in a flat-cap world.
The Canucks and every other team in the NHL would benefit from the cap going up more than one million dollars but NHL commissioner Gary Bettman explained that the escrow situation will likely only translate to around a one million dollar bump in Salary Cap space for NHL teams.
It’s not what you want to hear if you’re the Canucks, who are already technically over the cap for next season. A rise in the salary cap’s upper limit could very easily impact the winger trade market and should also affect how contracts are signed over the next 12 months. The Canucks have a lot in play here with wingers like Brock Boeser, Conor Garland, and Anthony Beauvillier being potential trade targets for other teams — especially if there’s a rise in the cap.
The Canucks also have to get Filip Hronek and Elias Pettersson new contracts after the upcoming season.
Bettman said that there will be a “more normal” increase in the cap for the following season but it looks like we are going to see the cap jump up just one million dollars for the 2023-24 season.
You’ve got questions, so let’s get to them.
Here’s what the wonderful people of #CanucksTwitter had to ask this week and my answers to those aforementioned questions.
No more wasted words.
Let’s go.
We are absolutely going to do our own Canuck-centric draft. It’s going to be a series that we run over the coming weeks as the draft is now just three weeks away.
Our goal with the series will be to come out of the draft with some defencemen, some centres, and likely the best available player at 11th overall.
An interesting wrinkle may be something like exploring some trades and seeing why they make sense for the franchise. An example of this would be trading down from 11 or potentially packaging up some third and fourth-round picks to get into the second round of the draft.
There’s lots of draft coverage coming as we roll our way up to the draft.
And we are also happy to announce that CanucksArmy will be in Nashville for the 2023 draft and a big reason for that is the growth we have seen on this site over the past year. Continue to comment, like, share, or just tell a friend about CanucksArmy. Thanks to you, we will be there in Nashville to cover the draft in person and it will alow us to bring you the best draft day coverage possible.
We’re always guessing with the 11th overall pick because it will really depend on what happens with the first 10 picks of the draft.
For a while now, we’ve been guessing that the Canucks will take Dalibor Dvorský. Until we hear rumours of someone else, we are going to stick with the belief that if Dvorský is available, the Canucks will get him at 11.
Dvorský is a 6’1″ centre who has a tremendous scoring touch and put up six goals and eight assists in 38 Allsvenskan games this past season. He also played 10 games in the J20 Swedish league, where he scored 10 goals and added 11 assists.
His Allsvenskan team was one of the worst in the league last season so we’d be very interested in seeing what his team looks like next year. He may be a candidate to sign with an NHL team and report to the AHL club. With Abbotsford within shouting distance, this path of development is something we would love to see with whoever the Canucks select with their first-round pick. Some other players who are around the 11th pick and may go to the AHL next season include David Reinbacher (RD) and Eduard Sale (RW).
As for the second part of your question, one million dollars added to the cap isn’t going to make much of a difference to the Canucks. It may allow them to grab a little better quality defenceman in free agency, but that also may just not matter because now every team has an extra million dollars of cap space. Even with the one million dollar bump to the cap, the Canucks are $668,750 over the cap.
They don’t have a lot of wiggle room but the one million dollar bump will make balancing their checkbook a bit easier.
Nivy, I saw that you replied with aside from Nils Höglander and that’s correct, he’s the most obvious one.
You could make an argument for Arshdeep Bains if he has a huge summer or Linus Karlsson if head coach Rick Tocchet wants to use him on a fourth line.
But my guy is going to be Arturs Silovs.
Silovs is coming off being the MVP at the World Championships and that news spread like room-temperature butter on a freshly toasted bun. Silovs clearly has a bright future with the Canucks and could win the backup job in camp even though he has only played in 55 AHL games, five NHL games, and 10 ECHL games.
There are multiple question marks in the Vancouver Canucks lineup for the 2023-24 season but no question mark looms larger than Thatcher Demko’s partner between the pipes.
Silovs works extremely well with Ian Clark and ultimately, the decision on who the two NHL goalies will be is going to be influenced by Clark. If he believes that Silovs gives the team the best goaltending possible, then we will see Silovs in the NHL to begin the season.
We haven’t given up on Spencer Martin and he is likely the betting favourite. But what Silovs did at the World’s caught a lot of people’s attention and Silovs getting the chance to work with Ian Clark every day while also learning from Demko is a pretty good situation for a 22-year-old.
Defenceman take longer to develop and first-round picks get many more opportunities.
We’d expect Jonathan Lekkerimäki to make his NHL debut before Elias Pettersson (D-Petey). There may be a world where both make their debut together on opening night of the 2025-26 season.
If D-Petey has a tremendous year of development this season, we may end up seeing him first, but it’s likely to be Lekkerimäki.
All the rankings seem to say Axel Sandin-Pellikka is better than both, but I’d pick Tom Willander of the three. Dmitri Simashev will go somewhere in the 15-25 range but has a lot of potential to be the best defenceman in this draft. In general, I’d try and trade down from 11 if my only options were ASP, Willander or Simashev but if you made me pick, I’d go with Willander.
Oliver Moore is my favourite of your next trio. I just believe he has the highest ceiling of the three. Brayden Yager would be two and Nate Danielson is number three. Don’t be surprised if the Canucks’ scouting staff really likes Danielson though. He keeps popping up in mock drafts at 11 to Vancouver and some of these mockers are talking to a lot of NHL scouts.
Matthew Wood or Colby Barlow is the battle of a higher ceiling versus a higher floor. Wood could be one hell of a scoring winger at the NHL level, but he may never figure it all out and live up to his potential. As for Barlow, he is a very well-rounded winger with explosiveness, toughness, and a great release on his shot that helps him finish from anywhere on the ice. I’m likely going with Barlow but may end up looking silly if Wood can pop off in a few years.
BPA is probably the route but I don’t really believe you are ever 100% certain that the player you are selecting in that spot will end up being the best player available. If you had a time machine and could look 10 years into the future, this would be easy, but if there are two players that are very close in your scouting department’s internal scoring system, you should go with the C/RHD. Just don’t reach — that’s the key.
Speed Round
https://twitter.com/WhatTheNuckPod/status/1665447746462167040?s=20
Arshdeep Bains, Jett Woo, and Linus Karlsson will probably all get some NHL games. Maybe Nikita Tolopilo sees a start at some point if he rips it up in the AHL. Josh Bloom might get a chance too.
Granville Island has plenty of great options for lunch but I also like Jo’s Italian Deli. Breakfast at The Gray Olive in beautiful North Burnaby is great. Dinner at Pepino’s never disappoints.
Jack Rathbone, Cole McWard, Akito Hirose, Filip Johansson, Guillaume Brisebois, and Jett Woo would be my guess for the six defencemen.
Vincent Arseneau was a tremendous person and player for an AHL team and he will be missed big time. His level of physical play will be near impossible to replace and I hope that the AHL team doesn’t get too soft and allow the opposition to take shots at their young stars. The Abbotsford Canucks need to beef up.
Have not heard anything about this but there’s a 25-year-old named Hank Crone, who just put up 49 goals and 56 assists in 69 games. It was a nice rookie season for him and he surely will get an AHL contract with someone.
Probably Oliver Ekman-Larsson and his no-move clause.
If they trade down, yes. Trading up will be difficult unless it’s somewhere in the very late parts of the second round. They could maybe move some combination of fourth and third-round picks to get there. I’m just not sure if I’d give up two swings in the 75-120 range for one swing at 58-64. The more I think about it — if there’s a player they really like sitting there at 60th or so, I could see if happening.
I’ll guess eight. I assume they trade down somewhere and pick up a seventh-round swing while moving down some slots from a mid-round pick.
That wraps up another Monday Mailbag here at CanucksArmy. Thanks to everyone who sent in a question this week and be sure to keep and eye out for the call every Sunday afternoon.
See you all next Monday.