The Art of Finding Depth

The Vancouver Canucks showed the flip side of the UFA frenzy over the past few days. The Canucks are locking up depth players at phenomenally good prices (Isbister at $525k, Ritchie at $600k, Sanford at $600k, Jeff Cowan $700k). As it stands now they have 18 guys under contract and have only committed about $44 million. What this means is that even if GM Dave Nonis keeps his promise to maintain a $2 million reserve, they will have about $4 million for the final three spots. If you pencil in one of Ryan Shannon or Trevor Linden and a depth d-man at about $600k a piece, that leaves $2.8 million for a very decent top six forward, allowing them to sign a player in the financial neighbourhood of the contract Dainius Zubrus signed with New Jersey...which would not at all be a bad thing at all. There are rumblings about Alexei Yashin, but our bet would be they'll want a very skilled playmaker who can feed Naslund the puck. Don't be surprised if they make a run at Jason Allison. If that's the case then you could probably pencil in a 15-20 point increase for Nazzy next year.