VANCOUVER -- After years of trying to manage their increasing salary-cap pain, the Vancouver Canucks opted for major surgery on Friday and amputated their spending mistakes in a blockbuster trade with the Arizona Coyotes.
They added a first-pairing defenceman in Oliver Ekman-Larsson and a top-six winger in Conor Garland without surrendering a significant player from their roster, instead bundling the final season of bad contracts general manager Jim Benning had given years earlier to Loui Eriksson, Antoine Roussel and Jay Beagle and dumping them on Arizona.
The cost of this salary-cap cleansing was the ninth pick in Friday’s National Hockey League entry draft, a second-rounder next season and the Canucks’ willingness to absorb most of the $49.5 million owed to Ekman-Larsson, a 30-year-old who will have to overcome aging and science if he’s to be worth anything close to his $8.5-million annual cap hit by the end of his contract.
The ninth pick was guaranteed to secure an excellent prospect -- possibly power centre Mason MacTavish or puck wizard Kent Johnson -- capable of helping his NHL team on an entry-level salary in just two or three years.
But Garland, a restricted free agent who had 39 points in 49 games last season, is a 25-year-old dynamo who is still getting better and should fill the void left by Tyler Toffoli when the former Canuck was allowed to leave in free agency last October without even an offer from Vancouver.
Garland for the ninth-overall pick is a calculated risk, a hockey trade that could end up helping both teams (as all trades are intended to do) like the deal the Canucks made for Bo Horvat in 2013 when former GM Mike Gillis traded goalie Cory Schneider to the New Jersey Devils for the ninth pick.
The Devils got a franchise netminder, and the Canucks used the pick to select their future captain, who has become a franchise cornerstone.
That’s a hockey trade.
The obvious risk in Friday’s deal is the money the Canucks took on with Ekman-Larsson in return for escaping the suffocating effects of Eriksson ($6 million cap hit), Roussel ($3 million) and Beagle ($3 million).
But that self-inflicted pain had only a year remaining, $12 million of total cap space that was going to prevent Benning from making the major, immediate improvements he wanted to a Vancouver lineup that regressed badly during this past pandemic season.
Now the Canucks are on the hook for six more years of Ekman-Larsson, whom the Coyotes grossly overpaid under a previous regime because, symbolically, the weakling franchise had to show fans it could keep its best player.
Ironically, it’s possible that the Canucks’ pre-free-agency waltz with the Coyotes over OEL last fall contributed to the team’s astoundingly delayed response to the Toffoli situation.
The @Canucks are trading for Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland in a blockbuster deal with the @arizonacoyotes, per @FriedgeHNIC.
Thoughts on the deal? #NHLonSN pic.twitter.com/FHdFg4Jmh3— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) July 23, 2021
But Benning clearly believed that acquiring the Swedish defenceman would be a game-changer for the Canucks, and nothing the GM saw in the ninth months since then dissuaded him.
Ekman-Larsson is a smooth-skating workhorse who averaged 23-and-a-half minutes during his 11 seasons with the Coyotes, plays in all situations and just about guarantees 40 points per year. But even if he was the best player on a mostly awful team for most of his time in Arizona, OEL was never one of the NHL’s top-10 defencemen despite his top-10 salary and his advanced stats -- generally positive relative to teammates the last decade -- are already starting to dip.
The Coyotes’ willingness to retain $990,000 or 12 per cent of Ekman-Larsson’s cap hit -- Vancouver reportedly wanted 20 per cent retention, Arizona none -- eases the financial impact a little but still leaves the Canucks a cumulative cap charge of $43.56 million over six years.
The savings on the defenceman’s $7.26-million cap hit next season versus what the Canucks owed Eriksson, Roussel and Beagle is $4.74 million, which probably won’t cover the new salary on Garland, who is a restricted free agent.
But he is happy to be joining the Canucks, telling Arizona reporter Craig Morgan: “If anyone ever asks me who I thought was going to be a really good team, I would say Vancouver because I am really high on (Elias) Pettersson, Horvat and (Quinn) Hughes, and I’m from Boston so I saw (Thatcher) Demko play a lot at Boston College. I know how good they are. I want to help them get better.”
Surely, Garland will make the Canucks better. So will Ekman-Larsson, who gives Vancouver’s defence a left side of Hughes, Ekman-Larsson and Jack Rathbone.
But as with most major surgeries, there is a long-term risk to the Canucks.
It’s possible Benning made his team better but will still lose the trade.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiX2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9uaGwvYXJ0aWNsZS9jYW51Y2tzLWltcHJvdmUtdGFrZS1yaXNrLWVrbWFuLWxhcnNzb24tZ2FybGFuZC1hZGRpdGlvbnMv0gFeaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3BvcnRzbmV0LmNhL25obC9jYW51Y2tzLWltcHJvdmUtdGFrZS1yaXNrLWVrbWFuLWxhcnNzb24tZ2FybGFuZC1hZGRpdGlvbnMvc24tYW1wLw?oc=5
2021-07-23 22:53:00Z
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