“Cory Conacher 2013-05-17” by Michael Miller
Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Death, Taxes and Cory Conacher on waivers.  For whatever reason, Cory Conacher has seemed like
a promising young player, but can never stay with a team for long.  Having moved from Ottawa, Buffalo, Tampa and
New York Islanders, Conacher is back on waivers again.  This makes us ask if the Canucks should put
a claim on him, and if he would fit with the Canucks?

Read past the jump!

Cory Conacher went undrafted, most likely to his smaller
size at 5’8”.  He spent four years with
Canisius College in the NCAA scoring 147 points in 129 games (good for a 1.14
ppg rate).  Since then, he went to the AHL and played for a number of teams, having scored 114 points in 118 games (good
for a 0.97 ppg rate).  He’s showed
success at the lower levels but for whatever reason he’s never been kept long in
the NHL

He’s currently 24 and at his peak.  His NHL scoring has never been very strong;
over 141 NHL games, Conacher has only scored 58 points (good for 0.41 ppg)
suggesting he is a bottom third liner or a fourth liner.  His 5v5 Points/60 this year have Conacher
ranked 382nd among forwards, which is not very good.

Courtesy war-on-ice.com

When we look at his underlying numbers, it looks that a large
part of this production is that his usage does not favour offensive success.  The last two full seasons, Conacher has had a very
defensive-leaning zone start rate while playing with weaker teammates, yet he is still generally coming
out with positive numbers. 

This year has not been very good for him.  In a very small sample size he only has 3
points in 15 games, negative possession numbers in a much more sheltered usage,
and a very low on-ice PDO at 97.4%.  The
PDO is likely not sustainable, and given his possession numbers in a much large sample
size the last two years I imagine this year’s Corsi rel (-2.3%) will improve.

His cap hit this year is only $600,000 so there’s definitely
room for him in the line up.  The
question then becomes who comes out? 
He’s probably better than Bo Horvat at this very moment, but Vancouver won’t demote Horvat as Horvat isn’t eligible for the AHL and he’ll be unable to play another NHL game this season if he’s sent back to the London Knights.  Conacher’s also better than Tom Sestito, but is there a
point to claim someone just to have him sit in the press box? If you claim Conacher, you may have an upgrade on Brad Richardson or Derek Dorsett in terms of 5-on-5 play, but Richardson has pretty significant utility on the PK and Dorsett brings the meat and potatoes that Jim Benning and Willie Desjardins seem to covet. 

Though Conacher is a useful piece for any team’s bottom-6, the most obvious role for him is in the spot currently occupied by Linden Vey.  At the same time, the Canucks already have Vey taking this spot and are committed to building him into an NHL player. Besides, with Bo Horvat’s proficiency on faceoffs in the 4th line centre role, it’s hard to see Vey remaining in the lineup once Shawn Matthias and Zack Kassian are healthy.

This isn’t like one of Bo Horvat’s closet draft year comparables Kyle Chipchura passing through waivers, as there’s not really an area where Conacher would clearly step in and help the Canucks. Although he’s cheap and talented, It’s not likely that Vancouver puts a waiver claim in on Cory Conacher. They need help, but there are other areas that are of bigger concern than bottom-6 depth on the wings.