Quoted:
Cap crunch left little wriggle room for the Canucks to negotiate with Tryamkin
The Canucks retain Nikita Tryamkin's NHL rights as he wraps up a season in the KHL, and his agent says his client looks at the current state of the club "positively."
Tryamkin the giant blueliner re-signed with Avtomobilist for one more year.
Diamond said his client is disappointed. “But we never got into any substantive discussion (with the Canucks) in any case."
Benning had said previously he was interested in bringing Tryamkin back. Benning is known to favour big players and Tryamkin certainly fits the bill at 6-foot-8. Tryamkin played 79 games for the Canucks between 2015-17, primarily as a third-pairing defenceman.
According to Diamond, he and his client simply ran out of time. And Automobilist was a chance to get back on the ice with a team he knows.
The cap-crunched Canucks couldn’t fit Tryamkin on a one-way, one-year deal into their current cap situation for 2020-21, Diamond said. “We know they have a mess on their hands, with the flat-cap world, with Luongo's $3-million cap recapture penalty etc. Also the fact the Canucks signed the under performing Eriksson and signing Beagle and Sutter to big contracts didn't help matters either. The Canucks hold Tryamkin’s rights through the end of the 2021-22 season. Diamond has long maintained that Tryamkin wants to return to the NHL. That’s still his desire. And given the Canucks still hold his rights, the preference remains in Vancouver.
“If he wasn’t committed, we wouldn’t have waited,” Diamond said. “We take a realistic view of things — and he knows Vancouver as a city. He’s comfortable with it.”
He pointed out that next summer Baertschi, Benn, and Sutter's contract comes off the books.
“This gives Vancouver another two cycles to make the moves they need to make. There is a bit more flexibility next year,” he said. “The thing Jim Benning needs is time.”