Trades at the Deadline vs End of Season (Discussion)

[A NEW BEGINNING]

Well, I am in a dilemma. I really don't know what the Canucks should do, on one hand our team is playing some decent hockey and needs all hands on deck, on the other hand if we do not move talent, we risk the reality of having some walk away free.

As we know it right now, I believe we have 26 players on the big club and Markstrom in Utica, this presents several problems.

A). Moving players right now will hurt our chances of going to the playoffs

. Not moving them will cause them or others to be lost by July 1, 2015

C). Signing the UFA's now, will force us to trade or wave others by the beginning of next season.

Here are our players:

Under Contract after July 1, 2015

H.Sedin, D. sedin, Vrbata, Burrows, Higgins, Hansen, Bonino, Kassian, Edler, Bieksa, Hamhuis, Miller, Horvat and Lack

RFA's as of July 1, 2015

Vey, Sbisa, Tanev, Corrado, Clendening, Stanton, Weber, Markstrom, Kenins and McMillian

UFA's as of July 1, 2015

Richardson, Matthais, Dorsett

So dealing with problem #1 ..........we have Richardson, Matthais and Dorsett. Do we keep them and attempt to sign them before July 1st?

Problem #2 is depending on who we keep as UFA's, how much money do we have to spend our RFA's. Tanev being the most expensive, with all the rest expecting qualifying offers to start with.

So then we can send down Horvat, Kenins, but I don't think Corrado, and we can loose Mcmillian

That makes 24 contracts.........do we consider one of Stanton or Weber expendable? Can we afford all our UFA's? And still get under the cap"

Is it worth rolling the dice on those UFA's hoping they will sign......If I was Matthais.........I would be gone to free agency...........

Markstrom has to clear waivers at the beginning of next season to send him down......he won't last!

So, what do we do and when do we do it? My guess is 2 or 3 players leave before March 2, 2015

But who? Any Idea's?

Remember Lack is a UFA after next year...as well as Vrbatta, Hamhuis and Bieksa

[Time Lord]

That logjam of RFA D-men interests me.

3 lineup spots, and up to 2 depth spots open.

Tanev takes one.

Clendening will obviously stay, and most likely be a regular

I like Weber for his role but he has to go, probably gone by the deadline.

We could sign all 3 of Stanton, Sbisa, and Corrado, but 2 would have to sit. Or would Corrado be okay with staying in the AHL? I'm not his biggest fan, but he's probably NHL ready next season. Sbisa is the most expensive of the three.

[Derp...]

It's a good question, but I have no idea what JB will do.

Best guess is move 1 Goalie (injury could prevent this)

Move 1 D man (same issue here)

Move 1 UFA (Again we are banged up like no other)

The only thing we need to do is get to the deadline without putting anyone on waivers and were good, but I expect Benning to make one minorish deal at the deadline and probably 2-3 medium deals at the draft.

Keep Matthias

Move Richardson (before deadline only if we can get something good ie 2nd or early 3rd)

Move Weber as we have Biega and BoSang to help us out now too. Weber for a 3rd if we're lucky if not then a 5th probably.

Depending on the cap our RFA's will have to take smallish contracts from about 600K-1.5Mill with the exception of Tanev and Sbisa

We should be trying to acquire a second and third round pick this year.

[sinphase]

The injuries on D have been advantageous since its given a lot of players an opportunity to play more considering that Tanev might not be able to be resigned to a favourable contract.

I'm sort of hoping that Sbisa and Clendening can play well enough to show JB that Tanev can be traded at the deadline.

[J.I.A.H.N]

Derp (sorry my quote tab doesn't seem to work)

Yeah, I am really interested in the decisions Benning will have to make, One thing that keeps ringing in my ear is that other teams are somewhat in the same boat as the Canucks. This Canadian Dollar being down has really changed the dynamics of equalization payments, therefore , inadvertently holding the cap down.

I am sure by now, the NHL and it's teams have a pretty clear understanding of what the cap will look like in the 2015-2016 season, and I have some trouble thinking it is going up much. This will stall a lot of trades this deadline and will probably lower the return on UFA's and the trading bigger contracts.

If you look at our Canucks, with Tanev going to demand north of 4 million, (4.5) I believe, and Matthais demanding a bigger pay check, this will put a lot of pressure on the lesser RFA's. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't a qualifying offer include a 10% raise in pay??? Maybe someone can correct me on that, if I am wrong.

But what I am concerned with is that our team, will become one of the teams, such as the Bruins that will have to give away some of their players or let them walk away as in the case of the UFA's, just to keep under the cap. This will be the great equalizer of talent in the NHL over the next couple of years, as higher cap teams are forced to use more of their farm team to keep cap under control.

I would not be surprised to see Markstrom, Richarson, Lack, Higgins, etc being traded for less than what we think, in terms of picks, as picks will have more value in this cap space world, never mind strong or weak drafts, they will just be worth more, and so you will see less of them moved.

It will be an interesting balance, and I don't look forward to the results....sure hope Benning has a couple of aces up his sleeve.

Is everyone sure we shouldn't trade Vrbatta? The question really is trade a big contract aka Vrbata (1 year left on his contract, and 33 years old) or trade Tanev (young,top defensive defenseman).......I know which one I pick!