Green on his future with the Canucks
Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet: Head Coach Travis Green (entering the final year of his contract) on if he’s confident that he’ll be part of the Vancouver Canucks future.
“I understand it. I’ve had some dialogue with Jim and kicked some things around. For me, the biggest thing is that we’re always on the same page, and we have been from Day 1. The fact Jim wants to extend me fits with what I want to do. When I first came to Vancouver, we talked about building this team up and taking the proper steps to do it.
Obviously, you have to be aligned with your general manager and your ownership, and we have been the whole way. I still want to coach this team and win in Vancouver, not just now and not just next year but for the long term. We’ll see how this plays out during the pandemic and revisit it.”
Hurricanes and Hamilton to talk extension soon
Tom Gulitti of NHL.com: The Carolina Hurricanes and Dougie Hamilton haven’t started contract extension talks yet. The 27-year old defenseman is set to become an unrestricted free agent after the 2020-21 season.
Hurricanes GM Don Waddell said that talks should start soon and that he hopes to have a deal in place with Hamilton before the season starts.
“We’re getting close to talking about it,” Waddell said Thursday. “Dougie’s not back here, yet. He’s still up in Toronto. He’s coming back here I think at the end of the week. … He is a UFA at the end of the year, so we’d like to get that one done sooner than later. That one, you would have doubts if you play out the season, so it makes sense to try to get something done before the start of the season.”
The salary cap will remain flat for a couple of years, which changes things.
“You’ve got a flat cap for the next two years, we know that,” Waddell said. “We also know that the market’s changed. I’m not saying we’re not going to do a long-term deal, but the long-term deals, if you look at free agency, you’ve only got a few guys that got more than three years in the whole market. … So I think the market has changed and it should change because of the situation we’re all in.”
The Hurricanes are deep on the blue line and also haven’t closed the door on current unrestricted free agent Sami Vatanen. Waddell spoke with Vatanen last week and told him to keep them posted.
Waddell said that contract extension talks with Andrei Svechnikov were put on hold since early October giving the Hurricanes time to get through the draft and free agency. Svechnikov will be an RFA after the 2020-21 season, with Waddell confident a deal will get done eventually.
“… Nothing is easy, but this one will get done. Andrei wants to be here. His agents want him here. We want him here. Once we get down to some serious talks, I think it will get done fairly quickly.”