Utica Prospects Question

[Visp]

Since we purchased our own AHL franchise recently, I just have a few questions regarding how exactly it works now.

The way I understand it, with the Wolves, we sent our best prospects to Chicago and moved the rest around different/leagues team. The Wolves management wanted to win so they acquired their own best players possible and often played them if they thought they could gets more wins, as it was made clear the Wolves management was looking to succeed in the AHL rather than just develop prospects.

How does this work now with the Aquilini's owning Utica outright? Looking at the Comets' wikipedia page, the Comets have Mathieu Corbeil, Sascha Guimond and John Negrin signed currently. As I understand it, they are signed to the AHL only and the fact that the Canucks/Comets are together doesn't matter as their contract is strictly AHL only?

Seems to me this is a brilliant situation for the Canucks as they could bascially go over the 50-man squad limit and sign a group of young talented players to Utica to assess and not have them count against the limit/cap.

If a player such as John Negrin was to impress in Utica, signed only to the Comets, what are the options for the Canucks to have him play in the NHL? I would presume we need to sign him to a contract but would we have "first rights" to these players? Is there a way to essentially 'switch' contracts between a Comets signed player and a Canucks prospect in Utica, putting the well-performing Comets player within our 50-man squad and demoting the prospect who isn't succeeding.

If somebody has an idea of how many players Utica will likely sign to have a full team minus the Canucks prospects that will play AHL and not overseas or in junior leagues that would be awesome to know. It just seems a new avenue of opportunity for the team to find at least one 'diamond in the rough' such as Tanev or Burrows without having to use any roster space or spend 'Canucks' salary doing so?

Through signing a 'good-at-delevoping-young-players' coach like Travis Green, will the Comets have any ambition to go out and try and 'win' the AHL or will they be treated as a development team, using Canucks skaters on the forefront to showcase them and improve their skills, filling in the holes with Utica signed players?

Sorry for all the questions but if anyone has any answers, would be good to know

Thx V

[UticaHockey]

Here is my understanding. Since the Canucks completely own the Comets AHL franchise they need to fill the entire roster. That roster will be made up of players signed to two way NHL/AHL contracts and others on just AHL contracts as there is a limit to the number of NHL contracts you can have.

When you were in Chicago they owned the AHL franchise and the Wolves signed some of their own players independently from Vancouver and they tended to be older career minor league guys. With Vancouver owning the AHL team they have the flexibility of choosing who they want to sign to an AHL deal. It could be a few veterans for leadership or younger potential prospects that are still out there as free agents.

Some of these signings by the Comets will likely be assigned to the ECHL to start the season and available to be called up to Utica in case of injuries.

[canuck_trevor16]

less AHL players more prospects and care about development over winning

[canucklax]

Canucks don't have "first rights" to any player signed to an AHL contract, "first rights" only applies to things like RFA's and draft picks where you have exclusive negotiating rights

Contract's can't be just switched out between the two without buying out that player's nhl contract first

By signing with Utica, guys like corbiel and negrin are exposed to NHL scouts and playing at a high level, but at best they can hope that either vancouver likes their play enough to offer an NHL offer, or another NHL team does

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

As noted above, owning the Comets does not give the Canucks "first rights" to sign their AHL players to NHL contracts.

However, what they do have is the staff of an entire AHL organization as their employees and all of those eyes fixed intently on the Comets' players. So if one of the AHL-only signed players (ie: Comets property but not Canucks property) starts to break-out, the Canucks will be the first to know. If someone looks good in practice and does little things that impress the coaches, the Canucks will be the first to know.

Other teams will need to either be scouting the Comets of have them play against their affiliate before they'll get new intel on any of the Utica players.

So, in a way, the guys signed to AHL-only deals are still part of the overall Canucks system.

I suppose that the Canucks could exploit this opportunity by signing a roster made-up almost entirely of prospects to both NHL deals and AHL-exclusive deals and use the Comets to develop as many young players as possible. Then, as the cream rises to the top, the Canucks could swoop in and sign any players who have proven themselves worthy of NHL deals (or who are at risk of being lost to other NHL teams).

I even think that such a roster would probably be fairly competitive (and definitely very entertaining), but most likely would not be as good as one that includes a healthy sprinkling of top AHL veterans who are proven "stars" at that level but who won't ever play a meaningful role in the NHL (Mark Mancari is a recent example of this kind of player who passed briefly through the Canucks system. His career totals to date: 13 points in 42 NHL GP / 480 points in 563 AHL GP).

As AHL team owners, the Canucks have a responsibility to ice the most competitive Comets team they can and try to win for the Utica fans. If they used their AHL affiliate as a purely developmental team for the benefit of only their NHL club, it wouldn't be a very popular move with the local (Utica area) AHL fans or with the league itself.

That said, I'd hope (and expect) that, whenever it's possible, the Canucks will look to exploit the Utica ownership for the good of the Vancouver franchise. It's almost certain that there will be more potential future Vancouver Canucks players on the Comets roster than were on the Wolves roster (and they will be getting more icetime and more significant roles than they were getting under the previous arrangement).

[Guardian452]

So far the players signed by the Comets to AHL contracts are purely depth players to fill out the roster. This is unlike the situation with the Wolves where they signed 5-6 players who played 1st-line forward, top pair defense and #1 goalie minutes. And even then, Guimond and Corbeil are still young enough to be considered prospects, so there's the remote chance that they could be late bloomers (ala Burrows) and perhaps someday be good enough for the NHL. The Canucks must have seen something in Corbeil that they liked to bring him in as a Black Ace for the playoffs last year.

[GB5]

Reminds me of a few years back with Jason Jaffray on the Moose. He was the best player but he had an AHL contract so he was stuck in the AHL even though the Canucks could have used him. The following year, the Canucks signed him and were subsequently able to call him up to the NHL.

[Psycho_Path]

As noted above, owning the Comets does not give the Canucks "first rights" to sign their AHL players to NHL contracts.

However, what they do have is the staff of an entire AHL organization as their employees and all of those eyes fixed intently on the Comets' players. So if one of the AHL-only signed players (ie: Comets property but not Canucks property) starts to break-out, the Canucks will be the first to know. If someone looks good in practice and does little things that impress the coaches, the Canucks will be the first to know.

Other teams will need to either be scouting the Comets of have them play against their affiliate before they'll get new intel on any of the Utica players.

So, in a way, the guys signed to AHL-only deals are still part of the overall Canucks system.

I suppose that the Canucks could exploit this opportunity by signing a roster made-up almost entirely of prospects to both NHL deals and AHL-exclusive deals and use the Comets to develop as many young players as possible. Then, as the cream rises to the top, the Canucks could swoop in and sign any players who have proven themselves worthy of NHL deals (or who are at risk of being lost to other NHL teams).

I even think that such a roster would probably be fairly competitive (and definitely very entertaining), but most likely would not be as good as one that includes a healthy sprinkling of top AHL veterans who are proven "stars" at that level but who won't ever play a meaningful role in the NHL (Mark Mancari is a recent example of this kind of player who passed briefly through the Canucks system. His career totals to date: 13 points in 42 NHL GP / 480 points in 563 AHL GP).

As AHL team owners, the Canucks have a responsibility to ice the most competitive Comets team they can and try to win for the Utica fans. If they used their AHL affiliate as a purely developmental team for the benefit of only their NHL club, it wouldn't be a very popular move with the local (Utica area) AHL fans or with the league itself.

That said, I'd hope (and expect) that, whenever it's possible, the Canucks will look to exploit the Utica ownership for the good of the Vancouver franchise. It's almost certain that there will be more potential future Vancouver Canucks players on the Comets roster than were on the Wolves roster (and they will be getting more icetime and more significant roles than they were getting under the previous arrangement).

[SamJamIam]

As noted above, owning the Comets does not give the Canucks "first rights" to sign their AHL players to NHL contracts.

However, what they do have is the staff of an entire AHL organization as their employees and all of those eyes fixed intently on the Comets' players. So if one of the AHL-only signed players (ie: Comets property but not Canucks property) starts to break-out, the Canucks will be the first to know. If someone looks good in practice and does little things that impress the coaches, the Canucks will be the first to know.

Other teams will need to either be scouting the Comets of have them play against their affiliate before they'll get new intel on any of the Utica players.

So, in a way, the guys signed to AHL-only deals are still part of the overall Canucks system.

I suppose that the Canucks could exploit this opportunity by signing a roster made-up almost entirely of prospects to both NHL deals and AHL-exclusive deals and use the Comets to develop as many young players as possible. Then, as the cream rises to the top, the Canucks could swoop in and sign any players who have proven themselves worthy of NHL deals (or who are at risk of being lost to other NHL teams).

I even think that such a roster would probably be fairly competitive (and definitely very entertaining), but most likely would not be as good as one that includes a healthy sprinkling of top AHL veterans who are proven "stars" at that level but who won't ever play a meaningful role in the NHL (Mark Mancari is a recent example of this kind of player who passed briefly through the Canucks system. His career totals to date: 13 points in 42 NHL GP / 480 points in 563 AHL GP).

As AHL team owners, the Canucks have a responsibility to ice the most competitive Comets team they can and try to win for the Utica fans. If they used their AHL affiliate as a purely developmental team for the benefit of only their NHL club, it wouldn't be a very popular move with the local (Utica area) AHL fans or with the league itself.

That said, I'd hope (and expect) that, whenever it's possible, the Canucks will look to exploit the Utica ownership for the good of the Vancouver franchise. It's almost certain that there will be more potential future Vancouver Canucks players on the Comets roster than were on the Wolves roster (and they will be getting more icetime and more significant roles than they were getting under the previous arrangement).