In the first part of this series, I contemplated how the Canucks could achieve their “Rebuild on the Fly” goal of winning now while incrementally moving towards becoming a contender again. I argued that the Canucks should look to move Chris Higgins, the rights to Shawn Matthias, and 2016 UFA’s Radim Vrbata, Kevin Bieksa, and Dan Hamhuis in exchange for draft picks (2 x late 1st, 2 x 2nds, a 5th and a prospect) and free up $16.6M in cap space. 

Many of the comments from the initial post were around the hole left on defense, with the departures of Bieksa and Hamhuis. In this part, I’ll look at the RFAs the Canucks should resign and UFAs the Canucks should target, with a focus on replacing Hamhuis and Bieksa with experienced defensemen who can help mentor the younger members of the Canucks defensive corps. 

Read past the jump to see how Vancouver can address their defensive issues this offseason.

The theoretical moves I made in Part 1 left the Canucks roster looking like this: 

With five open spots, not to mention two rookies in the top 9, there’s lots of work to do. I’ll start with resigning key RFAs. 

All of the players in the table below showed enough to earn a new contract with the Canucks. In the Tanev and Kassian RFA negotiations last summer, management showed they’d be unwilling to overpay for RFAs, so I’ve assumed that the new contracts for these players will come in 25% higher than their 2014-15 salaries. Of course this won’t be exact, as some players (ie Yannick Weber) have shown they deserve a higher bump, while some players (ie Baertschi, Clendening) haven’t shown demonstrated enough at an NHL level yet to earn more than that. 

That would leave the Canucks with 21 players under contract:

Clearly, if the goal is to win in 2015-16, this roster is not nearly good enough. In terms of the defense, Edler, Tanev and Weber all met the expectations for a top four defensemen, but Corrado and Clendening, while promising, are unproven. Sbisa has so far proven to not be a top 6 defenseman, so that will need to be addressed as well. 

Up front, there’s also a number of questions to be addressed. Linden Vey has shown he’s likely better suited to the wing than center, and Baertschi, Virtanen and Shinkaruk are all every bit as unproven at the NHL level as Corrado and Clendening are. Kenins was outstanding in the second half last year, but it remains to be seen whether he can maintain that pace. 

There are a number of quality defensemen that are currently unsigned by their teams. I expect Paul Martin, Marek Zidlicky, Mike Green, Andrej Sekera, and Lubomir Visnovsky will be able to command top dollar, so I’ve excluded them from the outset. Similarly, a quick look at the San Jose Sharks cap situation would indicate that they won’t likely have any problem re-signing Matt Irwin, who is slowly proving to be a reliable top four quality defensemen. That leaves five defensemen I’d recommend the Canucks focus on. 

The Blues have a challenging salary cap situation on their hands. They currently have roughly $14M in cap space, but that’s before re-signing top-ten scorer Vladimir Tarasenko, as well as Jackman, Michalek, and Jake Allen. What’s more, David Backes and Jaden Schwartz will need to be re-signed next summer, so the Blues will have to be pretty careful how they spend their money this summer. With $19M in cap space tied up in four defensemen (Pietrangelo, Bouwmeester, Shattenkirk, Gunnarsson) it’s likely the Blues won’t be able to re-sign both Michalek and Jackman, and at 34 and 32, respectively, neither are likely to be in the Blues long-term plans. 

Jackman and Michalek are both players who fly a bit under the radar, with neither player recording over 20 points in a season since 2008-09. However, when it comes to defensive defensemen, both players continue to excel. By the goals against replacement stat, a single stat designed by the team at waronice.com to measure the value a player brings as compared to a replacement level player, Jackman scored a 8.19, while Michalek measured a 3.62. By comparison, Bieksa, Hamhuis, and Sbisa, measured -3.1, -3.67, and -10.19, respectively. 

For those who aren’t fans of the “single stat to rule them all’ approach, here’s a look at how both players compare to rate across a number of key statistics: 

Both players rate extremely well in terms of driving possession and scoring chances relative to their teammates. Here are their even strength stats: 

Expected Deal Structure: $4-5M each on a two year deal. 

Similar to the Blues, the Predators will have a challenge going into this offseason, with Mike Fisher, Matt Cullen, Craig Smith, Colin Wilson, Mike Ribeiro, Anton Volchenkov, and Franson all in need of new contracts. Shea Weber, Roman Josi, Seth Jones, Ryan Ellis, and Matthias Ekholm are all under contract for next season, so I would expect that Franson could be available via free agency, especially after recent comments by David Poile. Just as the Canucks have been successful in the past at bringing in BC born players, this may be the year to land the other defensemen from Sicamous, BC. 

Franson had a goals above replacement ranking of 3.49 last year, and compared well to a 1st pairing defensemen across every key metric except ice time and shots on goal. 

Similarly, Franson’s possession and scoring chance metrics compared were strong relative to his team mates: 

$5-6M on a 5 year deal. 

Even with a top 4 minute cruncher like Michalek, Franson, or Franson signed, the Canucks would have to consider bringing in some insurance. The Flames have seven defensemen under contract for next season already, so Schlemko may be looking for his 4th home in the last 12 months. At 28, he may be looking for a longer term deal, which is warranted based on his play. He’s been a favorite of us at Canucks Army for quite some time, which is evidenced when looking at his key metrics: 

While he’s played on weak possession teams throughout the year, you can see that Schlemko performed well in comparison to his peers; 

Expected Deal Structure: $2-3M on a 3 year deal

It’s likely the bidding war for Cody Franson may get a little frothy this summer, but landing a Michalek and Schlemko combo isn’t too much of a stretch, and could likely be an overall upgrade from what Hamhuis and Bieksa provided the Canucks with last year. 

In the next installment of this series, I’ll look at at forwards available that could help fill the void from the theoretical loss of Matthias, Vrbata and Higgins.