Team: 2022-23 Vancouver Canucks

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 8, 2021

Published: Jun. 8, 2021

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Based off of moves I made in a team called "come back in 2022". This is catharsis since I'm sure we're going to do something short-sited this offseason that would prevent 2022 from looking like this. This was merely an exercise to see what the team could look like in 2022 once most of the really bad contracts are up.

Assuming Ferland and Edler have retired at this point. If Edler is still wanting to play, he will only do so at a league min or $1 mil and as the 7th guy.

Not going to explain moves that were made in the previous team. If you're curious, please check those out. A year was subtracted from those deals. Seattle expansion draft also took place. The Jake Virtanen buyout is tricky to include but we'll assume the cap is 500000 less for the season because of it.

Let's assume we end up with a key injury or two and are behind the 8-ball in 2021, so we trade off Tomas Nosek, Nick Bjugstad and Luke Schenn for mid to late round draft picks that will help us later.

I'm going to make a few random assumptions about our prospect group for the sake of this exercise. I will tend towards pessimism because that reflects the most likely outcome:

I assume Kole Lind will fail to pan out, maybe we trade him for another depth role player. Gadjovich I think is unlikely to make it unless he makes improvements to his skating that might already require a miracle since he is 22. Lockwood I assume will pan out as useful 3rd/4th line depth. Let's hope Viktor Persson kills it in junior, so he makes the AHL team. Dmitri Zlodeyev spends time with Dynamo Moskva and pans out as a potentially useful depth centre, and he agrees to start in Abbotsford following a good showing in camp. Similar situation for Aidan McDonough who has another strong year at Northeastern and get's a two way entry level. Ditto for Arvid Costmar, who goes to Abby. Joni Jurmo doesn't ever clean up his defensive deficiencies at the men's level, so he stays on the reserve list. The rest stay in their marinades for the year.

Rathbone is completely impossible to predict. He could have a breakout year and necessitate a pricey sophomore contract. He could fizzle and end up without the defensive acumen to stick in he NHL. His breakout passing is really good as is his skating. He has a some issues with defensive zone assignments and is a bit of slouch along the boards. Remind you of someone? He reminds me of Quinn Hughes. I don't really think we can afford to have both of them on the left side unless they get some Nils Hoglander fire-hydrantness to their games to be better on the boards. Maybe one of them does. I'm going to see if we can look to trade one.

In 2021 we get Mason McTavish with the 9th pick who turns out to be a total workhorse who fits in perfectly alongside a similar player in Vasily Podkolzin. The potential for that to be a skilled, energetic 3rd line is incredibly exciting. Throw in Hoglander and you've got a potentially incredible combination of grit, forechecking and energy.

DiPietro is up, and it's time for him to take the roll of backup for his own. We'll give him a slight raise.

Boeser will deserve a huge raise if he has another year like the one he just had. I can see north of $7 million. Let's hope for "only" a 5y*$7.5 mil gets it done.

I really like Scott Mayfield but we'll assume Seattle picked him up. We'll make an aggressive move to acquire him.

Now we make a few moves that are just for fun. First we sign local boy Morgan Reilly to a lot of money and suddenly our left defense can move the puck as well as any in the league. We definitely don't need Rathbone anymore so we use him to get a guy that belongs on the 2nd pair in Grzelcyk who will be able to handle top matchups with Hamonic while the other D-pairs go to town.

We have so much cap space left we can add something significant to our top 6. I went with Filip Forsberg as I'm assuming Nashville will be thinking rebuild in a couple years time, but a top 6 winger on the free market doesnt come cheap. Luckily, Forsberg will still be pretty young in 2022, so fingers crossed he doesn't do any Eriksson like things.

To make even more space for depth Tyler Myers needs to go. I think Colombus is teetering with the idea of a full rebuild so I'm thinking they are a likely cap dump destination. Unfortunately, it would cost a significant piece given the highly questionable nature of Myers contract, especially assuming he takes another step back in 2022. But we're in win now mode. I like Texier's work ethic so we add him to the bottom 6 of what should now be a low-end contender. We might just look to add a Sam Reinhart instead but I think I will make a full on fantasy team for 2022 based off another 2021 I did.

This exercise made me realize that Myers and Schmidt are really going to make or break this team. If they improve, we'll be very well off. If they continue their regression, The d-core will be really difficult to improve.

Either way, we will have the cap in 2022 to add a significant player to the top 6 on either defense or to the forward group. If we're lucky, both.

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