Why the Canucks should think about being sellers
everyone is concerned about the year at hand… but the Vancouver Canucks have so much promise for next year its discusting they have a good core group and with guys like Naslund and Morrison who are going to have to take a pay cut to stick around it looks all the more promising.. picture the Canucks with 3 extra scoring forwards next season… this is a possible reality but there are many factors that lead up to this… Dave Nonis has a choice he can sell the farm to pick up a player to go for a cup run against very low odds… he can sit on what he has do nothing maybe make the playoffs…. or he can sell.. if he sells he gives himself a possible young talent that can help this club in the future and he also probably picks up trade bait for next years deadline in draft picks.
The Canucks have about 34mil rapped up for next year already the players that are under contract include
Ryan Kesler
Daniel Sedin
Henrik Sedin
Taylor Pyatt
Jeff Cowan
Mason Raymond
Alex Burrows
Jason Jaffray
Jannik Hansen
Willie Mitchell
Sami Salo
Mattias Ohlund
Lukas Krajicek
luc Bourdon
Alex Edler
Kevin Bieksa
so by this its obvious the Canucks are ok on defence the cap is likely going up to 53million i could be wrong but i belive its something along those lines this leaves nonis with roughly 16 or 17mil to spend assuming he doesnt want to ride the cap. Luongo is good for most of the games for the year so my guess is Moose starter Drew Macintyre will be the new backup giving prospect Cory Schneider the starting job on the farm.
now the canucks need to consider something before they go and spend all there money on free agents… who is due for a raise the next year.. well the first two are obvious the sedin twins.. but they are not worth 7mil each if they want to stay on the same team they will resign for about 5mil a piece this takes 3mil away from the 16 for the following year which means it can still be used on a one year contract for a veteran player also lets assume that alex edler is going to be looking at about a 2 million dollar raise or possibly more this takes another 2mil of the next seasons budget leaving the canucks with about 11 or 12 mil to resign old and new free agents.. now what should they do?
the key free agents that contracts are up are
Markus Naslund
Brendan Morrison
Matt Cooke
Trevor Linden
The canucks probably need about 4 forwards signed in the off season
lets say they can resign morrion and naslund for about 5.75 mil this leaves the canucks with about 5.5- 6.5 mil
this is where Nonis finds a gun what are his options
Marian Hossa
Kristian Huselius
Jaromir Jagr
those are the really big names that could be signed long term he also has options at the 2-4 million dollar range.. where he could sign two at long term
Vaclav Prospal
Radim Vrbata
Mike Knuble
Cory Stillman
Miroslav Satan
Mike Comrie
Michael Ryder
Pavel Demitra
Brian Rolston
Ladislav Nagy
Dan Cleary
Nicklas Hagman
Andrew Brunette
Sergei Samsonov
Now what does he do… well the obvious thing to start off with is to make a pitch at either Hossa or Huselius… but those are probably long shots he might have better luck trying to snap up a couple of the other guys… what Nonis wants is young and upcoming talent… lets say he tries to lang two of these three players
Nicklas Hagman… a goal scorer for Dallas.. put this guy with some guys that can set him up and he will have 30-40 goal potential exactly what the canucks need
Radim Vrbata…. this guy has 45 points and 25 goals with Phoenix… if he can do that with them imagine what he can do on a line with the Sedins!
Dan Cleary……. 40 points on a Detroit team where he is not getting top line minutes
these guys can prob had for 3-4mil two of these guys would look nice in canuck uniforms…
lets say we get vrbata for 3.5 and hagman for 2.75-3mil now all the money is gone right… WRONG! we still have the money that would be used for a raise for the sedins…
Lets give a guy like Samsonov a one year contract or maybe Satan or Brunette.
lets say its Samsonov give him a shot and sign him for 2mil one year
so lets add it up we signed
Naslund and morrison for 5.75
hagman and Vrbata for 6.25
and Samsonov for 2mil letting
say Linden retires or resigns for cheap and cooke is gone
they started at 34million and now sit at 48million for the cap
now what does this have to do with selling at the deadline you might ask?
well if they sell at the deadline they have lots of picks and prospects available for next years deadline day where they will be prepared to make a very serious run at a stanley cup… lets look at the lines
vrbata sedin sedin
samsonov morrison naslund
hagman kesler pyatt/raymond
burrows linden/cowan/pyatt/raymond
mitchell salo
edler bieksa
ohlund krajicek
Bourdon
Luongo
macintyre
and on top of all this they can pretty much do whatever they want at next years deadline… if nonis was smart he would sell now to he can buy next year.