The Vancouver Canucks have signed centre David Kampf to a one-year deal worth $1.1 million. General manager Patrik Allvin announced the signing Saturday afternoon.

Kampf, 30, has spent the last four seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs. His best season came in 2022-23,  when he tallied 27 points in 82 games. Prior to joining the Leafs, Kampf spent four seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks. Kampf played four AHL games with the Toronto Marlies this season, and earlier this week, the Leafs and Kampf mutually agreed to terminate his contract, which had two years left on it at $2.4 million annually. This made Kampf an unrestricted free agent, free to negotiate a new contract with any team he wanted to go to.

The left-shot centre scored five goals and eight assists for 13 points with a minus-one rating in 12:24 minutes of average ice time in the NHL last season. Through his eight seasons in the NHL, Kampf has been a mainstay on his teams’ penalty kills, averaging at least 1:28 minutes of shorthanded ice time per game in every season, including over two minutes in six straight seasons.

With the Canucks’ penalty kill struggling, and their woeful lack of centre depth — especially ones head coach Adam Foote can trust to take defensive zone draws — the Canucks were an obvious fit for a defence-first centre like Kampf. While Kampf has spent most of his career on the fourth line, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him be deployed like a second-line centre on this Canucks team. Lukas Reichel has seen his ice time diminish greatly as of late, and while Aatu Räty and Max Sasson have both done good things this season, Kampf’s veteran presence will be a welcome addition to the Canucks’ centre corps.

The addition of Kampf should allow the Canucks to stop leaning so heavily on Elias Pettersson to take defensive zone draws, freeing up the Canucks’ number one centre to get more opportunities in the offensive zone, where hopefully he can put the puck in the back of the net.

Check out our deep dive on Kampf’s game below!