On the Vancouver Canucks …
Rick Dhaliwal: The Canucks now have more cap space available for next season and agents for scoring forwards will be happy. Will the Canucks ‘overspend’ to replace the offense lost by the Sedin’s retiring?
Rick Dhaliwal: Among the UFAs this offseason – James Neal, Paul Stastny, Tyler Bozak, Evander Kane and James van Riemsdyk.
Rick Dhaliwal: Have been told that the Canucks could have interest in free agent center Tyler Bozak.
Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province: The Canucks traded pending free Thomas Vanek to the Blue Jackets at the trade deadline. He would consider signing back with the Canucks this offseason on a one-year contract if it contained a no-trade clause.
“I’ll listen to anything,” he stressed Saturday. “I’ve had an open mind for two months last year (summer). It’s been a good ride here (Columbus) and I’m just focusing on us trying to get in the playoffs and just go from there. I feel easily that I could play for three or four more years and a one-year deal is probably fine with me. I’ll decide next year in the summer.”
On the Winnipeg Jets …
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Bob McKenzie on TSN 1290 was asked if Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba would be more interested doing another bridge contract for if he’s going to look for a long-term deal. McKenzie says that he hasn’t heard anything and that he’d be surprised if there were any in-season talks going on.
“In terms of where they want to go, I think obviously Trouba is a player that the Jets would want to lock up, and then it’s going to be up to Trouba to decide if he wants to make that commitment. Now, there’s plenty of ways of doing that. You can say, ‘Yeah, I want to make a long-term commitment’ and then ask for so much money as to know that there’s no way that they’ll make that long term commitment.”
McKenzie notes that they will also need to sign Patrick Laine and Kyle Connor to contact extensions eventually. They’ve got a lot of their key players locked up to good deals:
“… but Laine’s deal could blow things out of the water and Trouba’s could potentially blow things out of the water. So you know that Trouba is making 2.8 right now, restricted free agent. And I’m not sure where it goes from here. I don’t think if you’re the Jets you want to keep doing bridge deals, and yet he’s going to want to get paid and will probably be looking to drive a real hard bargain.”
Trouba is an RFA after this season, with Laine’s entry-level deal expiring after next season.