Who would you have wanted Benning to pay more for forward help?

[Verviticus]

Sounds wonderful, but why would a UFA whose main wish is to win a cup come to Vancouver to be flipped at the deadline? (do you seriously think he wouldn't have a NMC?). Miller had his shot in St. Louis and no one is going to go looking for him again to win them the cup - hence he's willing to take high $ on a short-medium term knowing that he's there to hold the fort while Lack develops. Iginla was never a realistic option for the Canucks.

none of the players you sign at the 2-4m range need to be aware of the plan, and its literally better for iginla than for him to choose now. dallas did it with jagr. sign an older dude, flip him at the deadline to the best team in the league. easy

i mean if you dont understand it, i can break it down into simple terms vOv

 

[LeftCoast]

When I see the salary and term that were handed out today, I'm glad we didn't get into the bidding wars. The players I had targeted as possible FAs were Ehrhoff, Niskanen, Moulson or Iginla.

• Iginla - at $5.3M for 3 years, I'm glad we didn't get him.
  
• Ehrhoff - was a steal at 1 year and $4M, but it was a sweetheart deal that probably wasn't available to any other team. He will play with Crosby, Malkin and Letang, put up gaudy numbers and cash in next year.
  
• Moulson - 5 years, $25M is a fair deal that we could have at least matched. He's 30 years old, so it is not a horrible term. But should we really prioritize a scoring winger? Moulson would be immediate help, but probably not enough to get out of the Pacific.
  
• Niskanen - $5.75M for 7 years is too rich. He's only 27, but that is too much term, too much salary.

So if these were the deals that were available, I don't much see the point of outbidding other teams to over pay for these guys.

 

[CanucksSayEh]

Might have been okay with Cammel at a higher hit, less term.

 

[biturbo19]

Realistically...most of the really desirable guys i would've loved to get today were guys who were picking on "location" and "situation" and just weren't coming here no matter how much money you threw at them. I thought there might be an outside shot at Ehrhoff based on the great success in his history here.

Surprising to me is that Grabovski is still out there, as he would've been one of my top targets today. He'd fill a huge hole for us.

 

[denkiteki]

I would go for Brad Richards, 1 year, say 3mil. Worth taking a flyer on him as a relative low risk, decent reward for next season. He struggled in NY but was great before NY and could regain his form again.

 

[bossram]

I don't us contending at all, so I'm happy Benning stayed away from tying up a lot of money in overpriced FAs.

I didn't even want Miller, but 3 years isn't terrible.

 

[Havre]

I would go for Brad Richards, 1 year, say 3mil. Worth taking a flyer on him as a relative low risk, decent reward for next season. He struggled in NY but was great before NY and could regain his form again.

Not even worth 3m, but you are right in the sense that we got little to lose at this stage. Spending those millions on Miller has basically ruined our chances to do well this year in my opinion. After resigning our RFAs we will probably only have a couple of millions left - won't make much difference either way.

Could spend them on Richards or just have that cap space available if for whatever reason an odd trade happens later this year.

 

[biturbo19]

I would go for Brad Richards, 1 year, say 3mil. Worth taking a flyer on him as a relative low risk, decent reward for next season. He struggled in NY but was great before NY and could regain his form again.

Yeah. I would've been pretty happy with something like this. But one-upping the Hawks by a million bucks was probably not enough to lure Richards here over Chicago anyway, unfortunately. Prior to last year with the Tortorella disaster? Yeah, we were a team in a position to make those sort of deals...but not anymore.

 

[biturbo19]

Not even worth 3m, but you are right in the sense that we got little to lose at this stage. Spending those millions on Miller has basically ruined our chances to do well this year in my opinion. After resigning our RFAs we will probably only have a couple of millions left - won't make much difference either way.

Could spend them on Richards or just have that cap space available if for whatever reason an odd trade happens later this year.

I don't think you've run the math on what our cap situation is if you think we'll only have a couple million left after locking up our RFAs.

Even pitching Kassian @ $2M and Tanev @ $3M which are pretty high end ballparks, we're still probably talking some $6M in cap space to kick around. There is most definitely not a $6M player still out there. We still have plenty of cap flexibility.

 

[Havre]

I don't think you've run the math on what our cap situation is if you think we'll only have a couple million left after locking up our RFAs.

Even pitching Kassian @ $2M and Tanev @ $3M which are pretty high end ballparks, we're still probably talking some $6M in cap space to kick around. There is most definitely not a $6M player still out there. We still have plenty of cap flexibility.

Signing Kassian brings us up to 11 forwards.

I guess you are right if we signed Miller after we lost out on everyone else. Then Miller, for this season, did no harm. Longer term he will in my opinion.

Even now I would much rather have left Miller out going after Grabovski, Ribeiro, Alfredsson, Vrbata etc. We might have been unsuccessful at that, but at least we wouldn't have been tied up with an expensive goalie. What if Lack really proves himself this year? We will then have 6m in a back-up role next year. And even if Miller plays really well he won't be enough to carry us with the forwards we got. Lose/lose.

Not for "tanking", but if we hadn't found any good deals and Lack had shown during the upcoming season that he couldn't manage the role as a first choice - then we would have gotten a high pick and one more year on a pretty decent set of young players already in the organization (obviously at a cost in terms of years from the Sedins etc., but still).

 

[Scott Hall]

Though not signed yet, I would like the Canucks to take a run at Setoguchi. He could fit through the line-up and shouldn't be too expensive to bring in.

That should leave enough room to get another C, like Grabovski.

 

[carolinacanuck]

When I see the salary and term that were handed out today, I'm glad we didn't get into the bidding wars. The players I had targeted as possible FAs were Ehrhoff, Niskanen, Moulson or Iginla.

• Iginla - at $5.3M for 3 years, I'm glad we didn't get him.
  
• Ehrhoff - was a steal at 1 year and $4M, but it was a sweetheart deal that probably wasn't available to any other team. He will play with Crosby, Malkin and Letang, put up gaudy numbers and cash in next year.
  
• Moulson - 5 years, $25M is a fair deal that we could have at least matched. He's 30 years old, so it is not a horrible term. But should we really prioritize a scoring winger? Moulson would be immediate help, but probably not enough to get out of the Pacific.
  
• Niskanen - $5.75M for 7 years is too rich. He's only 27, but that is too much term, too much salary.

So if these were the deals that were available, I don't much see the point of outbidding other teams to over pay for these guys.

good post.

despite your logic, some on these forums will still scream...'we should have got more scoring!!!'

it was a pretty bad UFA crop. glad the canucks stood pat and stuck to the plan.

 

[Tiranis]

good post.

despite your logic, some on these forums will still scream...'we should have got more scoring!!!'

it was a pretty bad UFA crop. glad the canucks stood pat and stuck to the plan.

The UFA crop was excellent compared to previous years. The bigger issue is that most of the players went to locations that they chose for reasons other than money.

But really, there's no issue in Benning not signing these guys. I would've preferred that he not sign Miller either.

The real issue is with the process and Benning, prior to the start of free agency, thinking he could build a team in it. There's an issue with single-mindedly focusing on Iginla. There's an issue with asking for 'now' pieces in the Kesler trade and acquiring Dorsett when we then couldn't fill out the rest of the holes on our roster.

The team as it is currently is neither here nor there.

 

[Jack Tripper]

in the top 6 at the moment, the canucks have two top-6 forwards in the sedins, a guy we all hope will produce like a top-6 forward in kassian, a guy who's top-6 days may be behind him in burrows, a guy who for some reason management believes is a 2c in bonino, and a question mark

way too many unknowns to make goaltending the #1 fa priority...after finishing 29th out of 30 teams in goals for, you'd think it'd be a no-brainer to upgrade the forward position

we'll see what kind of fa's benning signs to fill out the roster, can't say i'm optimistic about the process so far

 

[carolinacanuck]

in the top 6 at the moment, the canucks have two top-6 forwards in the sedins, a guy we all hope will produce like a top-6 forward in kassian, a guy who's top-6 days may be behind him in burrows, a guy who for some reason management believes is a 2c in bonino, and a question mark

way too many unknowns to make goaltending the #1 fa priority...after finishing 29th out of 30 teams in goals for, you'd think it'd be a no-brainer to upgrade the forward position

we'll see what kind of fa's benning signs to fill out the roster, can't say i'm optimistic about the process so far

i'm pretty sure management knows they have to score more.

ps....the season doesn't start tomorrow. ride the wave and see where it goes.

 

[DCantheDDad]

in the top 6 at the moment, the canucks have two top-6 forwards in the sedins, a guy we all hope will produce like a top-6 forward in kassian, a guy who's top-6 days may be behind him in burrows, a guy who for some reason management believes is a 2c in bonino, and a question mark

way too many unknowns to make goaltending the #1 fa priority...after finishing 29th out of 30 teams in goals for, you'd think it'd be a no-brainer to upgrade the forward position

we'll see what kind of fa's benning signs to fill out the roster, can't say i'm optimistic about the process so far

I dont think signing Miller took too much time away from addressing the Fwd deficiencies. There just weren't the game breaking players out there to sign at Fwd. We could have signed one or even two of these guys and still been a bubble team. What is the point of that?

Benning is most likely looking to cash in on teams up against the cap who have to unload assests to sign RFAs. If not, it is clear we are either hoping that several players bounce back in a big way, or that they are deliberately icing a roster they believe will be bottom 10 in the league.

 

[Hammer79]

I would have gave Iginla that contract, but I don't think his decision came down to money anyway.

 

[Proto]

As I said in another thread, right now Benning has at best incrementally increased the chances of the team making the post-season and getting slaughtered while greatly decreasing the odds of a Top 5 pick. That's a lose-lose any way you look at it.

 

[SpaceCowboy]

Absolutely not! There are no game breaking forwards available and the money thrown around today was disgusting. There are already a few buy out candidates today around the league who haven't even played a single game for their new clubs. Iwould have puked if the Canucks were attached to any one of the deals signed today.

People need to get with reality and understand that none of the players who were available via UFA today would have changed our chances. There were no game game breaking players or franchise type players. This team is not anywhere close to being able to compete with the top teams in the league, signings today or not.

I'm with you almost entirely. But the Edler contract is fantastic. He would have never signed that here, but god damn.

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

I would have been OK with a selection of Iggy/Vanek/Moulson/Cammy on the deals they got, but I'm not terribly upset we missed out.

I would have offered Brad Richards a bit more cash on a 2 year deal for sure though.

Generally we'd end up being stuck with these guys for a while - not in buyout land or anything, but more just limiting Benning's flexibility with youth for a couple of seasons.

We're just going to get better draft picks to bring in anyway


Miller's term is probably one of the best of all the deals signed yesterday, if you're looking at things objectively.

 

[BobbyJazzLegs]

As I said in another thread, right now Benning has at best incrementally increased the chances of the team making the post-season and getting slaughtered while greatly decreasing the odds of a Top 5 pick. That's a lose-lose any way you look at it.

I think he's just keeping us out of the basement really. This team doesn't deserve another season like last.

 

[wiredmaverick]

Would have easily matched:
Ehrhoff
Downie
Goc
B. Richards
D. Moore


Would have thought about matching:
W. Mitchell
Moulson
Hemsky

 

[Dissonance]

Both Jussi Jokinen (4 years, $16 million) and Matt Moulson (5 years, $25 million) signed pretty reasonable deals with bottom-feeder teams. I would've been happy to match either of those, and I imagine Vancouver could've been competitive in bidding there. But we were likely too wrapped up in trying to woo Iginla to have a shot.

There's no chance we could've matched the Ehrhoff or Richards deals — clearly those players were willing to take less to go to specific situations. Doubt we ever would have had a chance at Stastny or Vanek, either.