i am not a pro-scout, have not watched him closely and so i don't know if there is any upside to reilly or wysiwyg. based on what i see him being a hutton seems like the worst case scenario (as well as being the most likely situation). maybe a slightly better hutton. as i said, he has managed to earn significant minutes in three organizations and there are possible extenuating circumstances for the fact they have all moved on from him. his third team, boston, thought he was worth $3m which means they certainly didn't think they were acquiring a hutton.
if you compare that to hutton, the verdict is more clear: both vancouver and la walked away from him even though he played big minutes for both, and he spent lengthy periods unsigned after both teams passed. pro scouting has spoken. his resume is worse than reilly's.
as for a hutton type minute munching 6d being a waste of a slot, i disagree. the canucks have many needs and limited cap space and limited trade options in the market. they need an experienced blueliner who can eat minutes both to support hughes and as insurance against a hughes injury. they also have significant but inexperienced depth with upside at lhd. if they make a significant investment in a dman behind hughes right now those guys are logjammed fighting for one slot. if they acquire reilly, with one year left on a $3m deall, he can be pushed down the depth chart if other guys earn it. we've seen it before.
so i'd have a hard look at reilly if i was the canucks. maybe he's junk but he actually seems like he might be a good fit if they have faith in their younger guys developing.
I mean, at one point...Vancouver paid Hutton a near as makes no difference, $3M multi-year contract.
They're both just the type of player that gets bumped up the depth chart when a team runs out of other options, and they're generally in a bad spot where the team isn't really competitive, or they have real stud defencemen to keep that player somewhat afloat.
The extenuating circumstances are on the other end of this sort of scenario. It's extenuating circumstances that cause a team to play a Mike Reilly or Ben Hutton 19 minutes a night out of desperation and a lack of other options.
There are probably worse guys to take on in a depth role so you've got them
in case of that sort of dire situation. But they can't be a "Plan A" or even "Plan B" penciled in for Top-4 minutes if you want to ice a competitive blueline. Especially valid acquisitions if they come cheap...maybe after Boston buys him out for instance. But i'm not sure what we're lacking is even really decent depth defencemen who can play minutes in a pinch. Especially if we end up stuck with Myers on the 3rd pairing all year. Maybe Reilly at $900k as the #6/7D makes sense. Though probably more upside to just letting a guy like Wolanin have an opportunity there.
I think the problem with guys like Hutton/Reilly, is that when you push them down to that depth role and minutes that make sense, they tend to be pretty unsteady there, because they play a riskier game more in line with a Top-4 puck mover in style and demeanor. Which means they're going to have a lot more brainfart risky play mistakes and turnovers than you want out of your low event 3rd pairing. Especially when we'll already have Myers to do inexplicable things on that pairing.
Calgary is imploding and Andersson would be a fantastic addition.
Might be able to get him for a strictly futures package, and could probably unload a contract as well.
If Calgary really does go scorched earth and puts Andersson on the market, he'd be an incredible addition to play with Hughes. On a fantastic contract as well.
But he'd be the sort of piece that would very likely start with giving up our 11th overall pick. That's really the only asset we have that i think would get us in the door to that bidding war. We'd be up against heavies with all sorts of futures assets like Buffalo.
I also feel like a 26/27 year old Top-3 RHD locked up with some term is probably one of the last guys the Flames would look to move. Seems more like Hanifin is on his way out, probably Tanev as well. Zadorov as a rental probably. Weegar maybe if they could find a taker for his contract. All before i think they'd move Anderson. Some of those other guys wouldn't be a terrible add either though.
What about Gudas or Mayfield, a cheaper option for the 3rd line with some grit.
Gudas might still be reasonably cheap, but i'm not sure how he'd do outside of that weird Florida vortex where defencemen massively outperform expectations for some reason. He's coming off a pretty solid playoff run and he's been decent for Florida in general, but prior to that, he was a pretty big liability for the most part. He's also very old, so you'd have to be getting him on limited term.
Mayfield probably isn't going to be anything resembling "cheaper" though. He's a 31 year old big stay at home RHD that everyone is looking for, who has spent his entire career on budget deals. This is his big and probably only chance to cash out. I think he's going to end up at least in the $4.5M range with significant term that probably takes him through his 35 or 36 year old season.
I kind of bounce back and forth on whether he might be worth it. I think he's got the potential to be a fantastic partner for Hughes for 2-3 years. So you're probably getting what you want for half that contract. But it's not great to go into a contract expecting half of it to be a bit of a boat anchor. Especially if his already kind of lagging mobility starts to fade.
