[Signing] Flames Sign Josh Leivo

[alt kilgore]

On 1/9/2021 at 1:44 PM, mll said:

 

That status was at the start of camp - looks like carried over from his status at the end of last season. He was on the ice from day 1.  He played yesterday and by the sounds of it has looked great.  He visited with Flames doctors before signing.

 

I always thought Leivo looked good here. Especially for the money.  If he says "The Canucks and I didn't really come to what I was expecting.", and he signed with the Flames for $875,000 one year,  how much stingier was JB?

 

People forget how he was playing just before he went down.  Green was using him more and  more, and he was moving up the lineup when needed. Leivo is one of those players that could play well above his pay grade. Leivo is excellent defensively as well. Only one year of his eight year NHL career has he dipped into the negative in +/-  that was his second year @  -1.   Much better than Jake. Every good team needs one or two like that in the lineup to round out their cap. Is his spot replaceable? Indubitably. But its just another example of JB creating more problems for himself.  I'd way rather have Leivo on our taxi squad and send LE to Utica. And he could have been had for peanuts.

 

Gee what positions do the Canucks need filled ideally?   A good 5/6 defenseman (preferably RH), another top six winger, and another good depth forward so we don't have to dip down to Loui if needed.   Tofolli,  Stecher, Leivo.  Perfect.  The team would have felt much more solid and complete if we had manged to keep them IMO.  All of their signings were done by other teams for less than what was projected. Yeah I know.....timing.  You can't tell me that a creative GM could not have, first off, ditched the idea of ever signing Markstrom long ago, should have known it wasn't going to happen, and instead focused on replacing Tanev, which he has kind of done with Schmidt, (albeit a different kind of D and a LH shot), but then also these other pieces.  Pieces who's camps said JB wasn't even communicating, until it was too late.  

I am now hoping and counting on more prospects than expected take a leap to the next level and can stick to the team. That would work too, and even better for the long term stability of the team.