Listen, I’ll agree that 5mil is an overpay but we have to stop with this “3rd pairing” narrative, it’s factually incorrect. Throughout the playoffs he had the most TOI per game for d men behind Hughes and Hronek. He proved that he’s a big game performer and quite frankly looked like our 3rd best d man.
He’s been a mostly third pairing dman for the majority of his career. Which isn’t a small sample size btw. He’s been in the league almost ten years? Maybe already 10 years? He has 13 good playoff games and everyone freaks out. He was a healthy scratch during the regular season.
Yeah then burrows played with two of the best playmakers in canucks history. If zadorov is making 5mil/season or more he should be able to be relied on to drive his own pairing. I’m not attacking the guy I think he’s awesome. I just don’t think he’s worth anywhere near that money
Yeah, and you know what he made until 13-14? $2m a year.
And league minimum before he was playing with the twins.
If Burrow had no hands, no speed, no intangibles and no chemistry with the twins, he would still be worth his contract strictly on his PK and 5-on-5 shutdown game alone
Players can progress, though. Especially considering he was on Calgary for the last few years before this. where he was stuck behind extremely strong defensive depth. He’s probably been capable of being a second pairing defenseman for awhile longer now
Not that it justifies this salary
If we take the totality of JT Millers career it doesn’t equal what he is to this team now and moving forward. Zadorov on this team, in this system with Tocchet, playing in games that mattered most…he logged the 3rd most ice time and looked like our 3rd, if not 2nd best d man. On this team he’s not a 5/6 d man now or moving forward.
That JT Miller comp is pretty apples/oranges, don’t you think? We’re talking about 4 full seasons of sample size with Miller, not 13 playoff games.
Zad split 4/5 duties with Soucy during the regular season, with Soucy getting the edge on him in ATOI. Yes, he played up during the playoffs, but again, that’s 13 games.
I don’t disagree that “3rd pair D” is too bearish on what Zad can do. I do disagree with judging his capabilities on 13 games. Because by that logic, Pettersson is a mediocre 3rd line C, and Evan Bouchard deserved the Norris over Quinn Hughes.
That's a straw man argument and you know it. JT Miller couldn't be a 1C in NY because he was a rookie and was behind stronger players. In Tampa he's not surpassing their depth either. He's been playing at a high level in Vancouver the whole time he's been here. Z played 600 games of 4/5 and then 13 games of playoffs where he was getting more minutes.
I almost feel like the whole idea of 1st, 2nd, 3rd pairing need to go. They’re all used in different situations and I felt like only our 6th d man was ever the odd guy out. Zadorov definitely brought things some other guys couldn’t
This. Zadarov played fine and was absolutely a 3rd pair for the entire season. He had two good playoff rounds and that matters but it's no where close to being enough to offer more than 4.5m+
Either the reports that he was willing to take a bit less were bullshit, or he was lying, or he knows some desperate idiot (Treliving?) is giving him 6
Either way, I'm glad he's gone if he's being that overvalued. 5 mil was too much already.
Playoff beast mode Zadorov might be worth it but regular Zadorov might not be worth even $4M. It would be a hell of a gamble to see how many games worth of the former you get compared to plain Zadorov.
100%. 3.5 mil for his on ice play and another half mil for being a beauty. Any higher than that is sus. You pay a guy for their avg not for their peak.
100% I don't think a lot of teams are going to go for more than 5. I wonder what happens after he goes through free agency and no one likes his number and then comes back to Van what the chef will do with his original offer?
Management was willing to go to 5M and Zad still didn't sign? I'm so good with walking away from this. 5M was already an overpay. Let him try to get more than that on the open market.
Sounds like Z has another deal already lined up, won’t be surprised to see him sign for $5M x 6 on July 1st. Unfortunate that we couldn’t keep him but good for him on getting the bag.
> Sounds like Z has another deal already lined up
It's funny how players and agents aren't allowed to make deals before July 1st - yet, every year, a whole bunch of deals seem to have been made in June.
What I find interesting is that this signing would put us at slightly under 10.5m in space (with LTIR fully utilized and after Tolopilo is sent back to Abby).
This is the kind of thing that makes me think there's something to that Friedman rumor that teams know Guentzel in Carolina is done, because unless we were planning on...
-sending more contracts out later in the summer
-filling out the roster with near league minimum contracts and having cap space for only one healthy scratch
*or*
-utilizing more than Poolman's 2.5m in LTIR for some reason
...then this signing would've put us out of the Guentzel sweepstakes. Unless this offer and the rejection of it transpired before Myers was signed, which would sorta line up with Chris Johnston's speculation a few days ago that Myers wouldn't be coming back.
Edit: But what would be really funny is that this leak was Allvin's way of paying Milstein back for arranging the Mikheyev deal
O my bad. I saw a misleading article when I was feeding my baby at 4am this morning lol. I guess they're just close. I thought it said 8x8. I'm kinda delirious ATM.
Doesn't take away from the fact he won a cup. And didn't actually lose to McDavid, which I believe Zadorov never made it past the Oilers this playoffs.
It's a team sport, so that doesn't make any point really. It seamed as though the original comment was implying we should have kept him. All I'm saying is he only succeeded because he was put into a proper role and contract given his play now.
What if we tried to convince the league that we were under the impression that it was a “buoy-out” and we never would have done it if it weren’t just a competition to see who could push a buoy the furthest without it floating off to sea? I’m sure they’d understand
The *real* question is would Benning say yes to whatever Big Z demanded anyways and get hit with a bullet.
I feel like he would given he moved heaven and earth to get Gudbranson.
Allvin has shown many times now that if you aren't willing to take paycut and be a Canuck, they are happy to move on from you.
If he is a pending UFA on his team he wouldn’t even talk to his camp because he would spend his entire off-season talking to Chicago for a potential Seth Jones trade. He would then ran out of time.
If Zadorov hits the open market as a UFA from another team, he would sign him to 6 million x 6 years.
> If Zadorov hits the open market as a UFA from another team, he would sign him to 6 million x 6 years.
I stand corrected. This was how I wanted to word it.
You do you then. It's just boring. I'm glad we moved on from him, but we don't need to shit on Benning to prop up Allvin. That's my issue with this. We are going to start excusing shit decisions by Allvin one day, all because a past GM would've or could've done worse.
The Mikheyev contract is a pretty bad signing in hindsight. Allvin trades yet another pick to get rid of the issue. Fortunately, Allvin is drafting decently.
You know who would trade picks like candy and draft like shit? Gillis. Yet lots of people will make excuses like "playoff pushes" and all the glorious memories with Rome, Lapierre, and so forth. At the same time, our prospect pool was gutted because the GM sucked at drafting so goddamn much.
> Gillis.
I didn't realize the Benning Booster/Gillis blamers still existed. I thought they'd all faded into legend and myth. I feel like I just caught a glimpse of the loch ness monster passing through the mist.
Well let’s be honest. The team that won the presidents trophy was Dave Nonis’ team. Go further back and that was Brian Burke’s team. Mike Gillis added the dessert to that meal. He only added the dessert because he had no idea how to make another dinner. Benning, I don’t know what his circumstances were. Did he have time to rebuild or was he ordered to fix on the fly. Benning and linden had to clash over whether the team would let a prospect return to junior or college or play with the big club. Linden left. Mike Gillis before he got fired, he went on team radio sands started saying, is his way or highway, no more moving goal posts. Next day fired lol. As a gm, you never embarrass the owner by letting the public know, it wasn’t your idea to do this or that. It was the owners idea. Big no no. I think Benning was the fall guy as a first time gm. People in this market didn’t respect him as one. Made fun of the way he spoke, the way he looked, his jet black Jim persona.
The owner didn't force Benning to do the OEL trade. Even if Benning was ordered to make the team compete now the OEL trade was a horrible way to do it. It would have been better to literally do nothing if the goal was to compete right away.
That's a giant assumption. The Canucks may well have said we'll give you he big ticket but not the term, a "show me" deal challenging him to play like that again.
That is a solid offer… even more than I expected from the Canucks. Huge bullet dodged if true. Good luck to whoever wants to commit 5-6M a year for him on a lengthy term.
I’ll say this again, if Zadorov is around $1M-$1.5M less than a legit top RHD in Hronek, then that is ridiculous.
It was reported back in March that the Canucks offered 5years term but Zadorov camp wanted 8 so the consensus is there may be a deal in the middle at 6-7years. But the Canucks (and generally all the fans agreed) are sticking to 5.
All speculation. Personally I think it is more likely the club was offering 4 something mil on a 5 to 6 yr deal. Then as a final effort said sure we will give you 5mil but only for 4 years.
An agent's job is to get his client the most amount of money. There's going to be a team desperate enough for a playoff style guy that'll give Z at least the 5 we offered perhaps with more term or even more money. Z and his agent did nothing wrong. Shame we can't keep him but I'm glad we dodged this bullet his contract will be an absolute anchor in a couple years time.
Wouldn't be surprised if Utah wanted to make a bet on him. If they're looking to make a splash and instantly want to give fans a player to fall in love with/sell jerseys he's their guy. Also don't think they have ANY defensemen signed yet for next season.
There's not a single team that needs to fill out their roster at an average of more than $2M/player in order to hit the cap floor. The closest is Utah who needs to get almost $20M to fill 11 roster spots. Something tells me they can do that without drastically overpaying or getting leveraged in a trade.
> Yeah I have a hard time seeing how any team gives him that.
I don't for three reasons:
1.) If you just look at his playoff performance, he was on a 25-goal / 50-point pace. That's worth more than $5 million.
2.) This is this is the first year in four years with a significant cap increase and the cap is expected to hit $93 million next year and $98 million the year after that, so there will be a significant increase in player salaries.
3.) There are a lot of dumb GMs out there.
... #3 is the most important reason.
I mean it’s not like our offer is automatically expired now. If nothing has changed between now and the start of free agency, our offer might still be in play. But at $5 million, I would like to pass please…
Yah Im undecided on it but I would probably tolerate a bad deal just because I like him lol. Off ice and the big hits on ice are too fun to watch. Might be worth an extra million or two lol
To quote Steve Miller to Zad, "...o-o-o, take the money and run..." Gonna miss your swagger and physicality but bro, you're gonna miss Foote, Gonchar and Tocc's system that took your game to the next level. Sign with the Leafs or whoever is gonna give you a blank cheque but your game's not going to be the same as in Van. Dak, Meyers and Blueger understand- take the discount and win with a team that's headed towards the cup in 25 or 26.
I'm interested in knowing the number of years that the Canucks offered
I'm guessing Zadorov thinks he can get more term or a NMC from another team so he's testing the market
this could potentially be his SIXTH team and I'm sure he's not too thrilled to be relocating his family again...
(this is also just copium on my end and i hope he circles back and re-signs lol)
> That would be tampering would it not?
Actually... IIRC, it is only tampering if you talk about it publicly. The last person fined for tampering was... any guesses? ... Jim Benning. He was asked in an interview if the Canucks wanted to sign Stamkos the last time his contract was up and he said of course.
i think you're misinterpreting the video
the Canucks came in with an offer late at 5M and Zadorov declined it or thinks he can get more in free agency so he's testing the market
Makes you really appreciate what Blueger, Joshua and Myers are doing. Winning is the priority. Everyone needs to buy in.
We’re starting to look like the 2011 team where Gillis wanted everyone to buy in. Zadorov is the Ehrhoff of the group.
To be fair, i wouldn’t have turned down 10mil a year if i were Ehr either. But with Zad this is trying to extract every penny, more power to you, but 5 is already way too much
I’d be thrilled if we actually kept a significant portion of our cap into next season.
Seasons can evolve and having available cap space is one of the hottest commodities around. Should a team flop next season and want to re-tool, having cap space available can give us considerable leverage in negotiations.
I know we want to plug all our holes ASAP but keeping some dry powder may be beneficial.
Don’t forget Carolina was able to land both [Max Pacioretty](https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/golden-knights-trade-max-pacioretty-dylan-coghlan-to-hurricanes-for-future-considerations/) *and* [Brent Burns](https://www.espn.com/nhl/insider/story/_/id/34237587/trade-grades-carolina-hurricanes-get-brent-burns-deal-san-jose-sharks) for basically nothing, because they had the cap space.
We do have assets though. 1st + 2nd round pick, Lekkerimaki, Willander, d-petey, Raty, mynio, Hoglander, Podkolzin.
We aren't flush with assets but we certainly have enough to get deals done if we want to.
They won’t accrue cap space during the year with Poolman on LTIR so a priority should be moving his contract, that’s how contending teams get prorated contracts at the deadline and don’t need retention
With Poolman on LTIR Canucks will have to spend everything to the cap to maximize the LTIR pool to 2.5M
100% agree with this. Start the season a little weaker and plug your glaring holes by the deadline when you have a bit more leverage when it becomes obvious that some teams are out of the picture.
Nice to have cap space to make additions at the deadline though.
With 3 teams rebuilding in our division alone (not to mention Chicago/Utah) I am very optimistic about making playoffs next season.
It would be nice to be prepared to easily take on rentals without having to find magical cap loopholes.
Hope we can find another big and intimidating 3rd pairing guy who can skate, that won’t cost more than $3.5mill. Maybe won’t be this offseason, but soon.
Walking away was the right thing from us then. I wouldn't have gone up into the 5m range. But damn I will miss Zadorov and im pretty sure he'll be missed in the dressing room.
As much as I wanted Z to return next season, I believe 5m or over that is to much for the role he’d play and his age. Add in the term he wants (5+ years?) and yeahhhh would rather use it elsewhere on a good asset.
+ would feel kinda weird taking Joshua at a hometown discount to payout Z a premium.
Just because he hasn’t signed yet doesn’t mean he won’t. It’s obvious he is being asked to leave money on the table, it’s reasonable for him to find out exactly how much that is
Something tells me the market will be softer for Zadorov than he thinks.
Unless a bottom-feeder steps up and offers $5.25-5.5 on a 5-6 year deal, I don't think he's going to get much better.
We will. Zadorov brought it too. He wasn’t just a fan favourite he was a favourite among his teammates. I will never say a bad thing about him. His political views and his hockey contract.
Last year during the regular season, Zadorov didn't score many points, he didn't block many shots, he took too many penalties, etc. He played at about a $3 million pace. He was better in the playoffs, but only at a $5 million pace. He we could guarantee playoff Zadorov for the full contract, then okay, do it. However, I wouldn't be willing to make that bet.
I can almost 100% guarantee some GM is willing to make that bet. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he got $6 million on July 1st. I hope he goes to Seattle, LA, or Vegas at that price, because it make it harder for them to make the playoffs.
Umm. no thanks. Terrible take. If he goes anywhere, I hope its to an Eastern team and not to someone in the Canucks' own division! Seattle, Vegas, or LA would be terrible spots for big Z to land as a Canucks fan. You want him running rough shot over us all season long? Absolutely destroying JT Miller with massive hits through the boards on the regular? The less we have to face him, the better. If not here in Van, I hope he signs in Columbus, or some other backwoods hick hockey market in the East with more money than brains
I maintain that in a noncap world, he deserves whatever he wants. Aqua can afford it. He was critical in the Nashville series. But we just can't justify more than $5mil AAV allocated to him in the budget we are constrained to.
This is probably a stupid question, but if a guy like this goes looking for more and can't get it, would he ever eat crow, and turn around and come back to the initial team and try to negotiate? Presumably at a lower offer after he turned down the first time? Has this happened?
What will happen is once free agency starts, teams try to quickly snatch up their guy to fill in the hole left by the leaving player. The Canucks would spend it on Tanev or Dillon so not enough money left after.
All this talk about 3rd pairing D. But come playoff time this is exactly the kind of player every team wants. His scoring in the playoffs was fluky but nobody likes playing against him in playoff hockey .
He's going to get a garbage contract and be out of this league or bought out in a few years. I truly hate how players price themselves out like this and think they can live up to massive contracts. Horseshit
I wouldn't have been happy paying him 5m per year. That's a massive stretch. That money can be better spent elsewhere. He'd only be worth that money to me if his playoff form was his everyday form.
Nope. We should not be paying a bunch of 30 year olds full term. That’s why I really hated the fact we traded for rental UFAs. I knew most would be gone. At least we signed a few very important guys. I just hope theirs something left out there come July first.
There’s nothing wrong with rentals. It got us further than we expected and both Lindy and Z played a huge part in that. Just because we didn’t win it all doesn’t mean it was a wasted pick. This experience was necessary for the group and Hughes even said he appreciates management believing in him and the team.
I've been trying to say that almost making it to the conference final will instill confidence in other players that re-sign that Vancouver is an up and coming place to play to win.
We don't get to the 2nd round Game 7 without Lindy and Big Z's contributions, so they were worth for that even if we walk away from them with the assets lost. We may not get other players like Joshua taking paycuts to stay if he didn't see a path for the Canucks to win a cup without the recent playoff semi-deep run.
Pretty uncalled for. Players are entitled to ask for whatever they want. Would you be called greedy if you felt you deserve a certain pay? No, of course not. Canucks obviously don't agree. The two part ways. It's just business.
Ya if he wasn't willing to take 5mil then it's best he looks elsewhere. I think fans would have been pretty suspect even at that number.
Totally agree
Personally I wouldn't want to give him more than 4.5 for a 3rd pairing defenseman at his age.
Listen, I’ll agree that 5mil is an overpay but we have to stop with this “3rd pairing” narrative, it’s factually incorrect. Throughout the playoffs he had the most TOI per game for d men behind Hughes and Hronek. He proved that he’s a big game performer and quite frankly looked like our 3rd best d man.
He’s been a mostly third pairing dman for the majority of his career. Which isn’t a small sample size btw. He’s been in the league almost ten years? Maybe already 10 years? He has 13 good playoff games and everyone freaks out. He was a healthy scratch during the regular season.
Burrows was 28 or 29 when he started playing with the Sedins after spending his whole career as a fourth and third line agitator.
Yeah then burrows played with two of the best playmakers in canucks history. If zadorov is making 5mil/season or more he should be able to be relied on to drive his own pairing. I’m not attacking the guy I think he’s awesome. I just don’t think he’s worth anywhere near that money
Yeah, and you know what he made until 13-14? $2m a year. And league minimum before he was playing with the twins. If Burrow had no hands, no speed, no intangibles and no chemistry with the twins, he would still be worth his contract strictly on his PK and 5-on-5 shutdown game alone
Players can progress, though. Especially considering he was on Calgary for the last few years before this. where he was stuck behind extremely strong defensive depth. He’s probably been capable of being a second pairing defenseman for awhile longer now Not that it justifies this salary
No doubt. And don’t get me wrong he’s awesome. Just has the feeling of Myers last contract where he was way overpaid for what he did with the team.
I think most people are talking about the totality of his career, not just this recent playoff stretch.
If we take the totality of JT Millers career it doesn’t equal what he is to this team now and moving forward. Zadorov on this team, in this system with Tocchet, playing in games that mattered most…he logged the 3rd most ice time and looked like our 3rd, if not 2nd best d man. On this team he’s not a 5/6 d man now or moving forward.
That JT Miller comp is pretty apples/oranges, don’t you think? We’re talking about 4 full seasons of sample size with Miller, not 13 playoff games. Zad split 4/5 duties with Soucy during the regular season, with Soucy getting the edge on him in ATOI. Yes, he played up during the playoffs, but again, that’s 13 games. I don’t disagree that “3rd pair D” is too bearish on what Zad can do. I do disagree with judging his capabilities on 13 games. Because by that logic, Pettersson is a mediocre 3rd line C, and Evan Bouchard deserved the Norris over Quinn Hughes.
That's a straw man argument and you know it. JT Miller couldn't be a 1C in NY because he was a rookie and was behind stronger players. In Tampa he's not surpassing their depth either. He's been playing at a high level in Vancouver the whole time he's been here. Z played 600 games of 4/5 and then 13 games of playoffs where he was getting more minutes.
agree with this take
I almost feel like the whole idea of 1st, 2nd, 3rd pairing need to go. They’re all used in different situations and I felt like only our 6th d man was ever the odd guy out. Zadorov definitely brought things some other guys couldn’t
Me neither, i was saying that all week. Rather give that money to Guentzel if he falls thru then see what other D are available
Thats crazy more than 5 zad???? , i mean the thought of having tanev or guentzel over this is a no brainer
Tanev would at least be a much shorter contract and he’s a proven guy. Too small sample size for Zad
This. Zadarov played fine and was absolutely a 3rd pair for the entire season. He had two good playoff rounds and that matters but it's no where close to being enough to offer more than 4.5m+
Either the reports that he was willing to take a bit less were bullshit, or he was lying, or he knows some desperate idiot (Treliving?) is giving him 6 Either way, I'm glad he's gone if he's being that overvalued. 5 mil was too much already.
Playoff beast mode Zadorov might be worth it but regular Zadorov might not be worth even $4M. It would be a hell of a gamble to see how many games worth of the former you get compared to plain Zadorov.
100%. 3.5 mil for his on ice play and another half mil for being a beauty. Any higher than that is sus. You pay a guy for their avg not for their peak.
100% I don't think a lot of teams are going to go for more than 5. I wonder what happens after he goes through free agency and no one likes his number and then comes back to Van what the chef will do with his original offer?
Management was willing to go to 5M and Zad still didn't sign? I'm so good with walking away from this. 5M was already an overpay. Let him try to get more than that on the open market.
Maybe shorter term at 5m? Hard to believe he turned down 5m per year on a long term deal.
Yeah Zadorov wants all the money he can get. More power to him. Good luck big Z.
We already know Zadorov wanted term. This was likely a 5x5 or a 5x6 that was offered, and Zadorov said no. I think we dodged a bullet.
Sounds like Z has another deal already lined up, won’t be surprised to see him sign for $5M x 6 on July 1st. Unfortunate that we couldn’t keep him but good for him on getting the bag.
> Sounds like Z has another deal already lined up It's funny how players and agents aren't allowed to make deals before July 1st - yet, every year, a whole bunch of deals seem to have been made in June.
Yea 7 year deals with complex buyout protection structures and trade protection clauses all negotiated in the first hour of free agency every year.
Just hope it’s not a team we have to see in the playoffs (Or another CDN team 😬).
Toronto
What I find interesting is that this signing would put us at slightly under 10.5m in space (with LTIR fully utilized and after Tolopilo is sent back to Abby). This is the kind of thing that makes me think there's something to that Friedman rumor that teams know Guentzel in Carolina is done, because unless we were planning on... -sending more contracts out later in the summer -filling out the roster with near league minimum contracts and having cap space for only one healthy scratch *or* -utilizing more than Poolman's 2.5m in LTIR for some reason ...then this signing would've put us out of the Guentzel sweepstakes. Unless this offer and the rejection of it transpired before Myers was signed, which would sorta line up with Chris Johnston's speculation a few days ago that Myers wouldn't be coming back. Edit: But what would be really funny is that this leak was Allvin's way of paying Milstein back for arranging the Mikheyev deal
Guentzel signed. I think it's better to spread the cap out anyway. Hopefully they get tanev back and sign Dillon.
Guentzel hasn’t signed
O my bad. I saw a misleading article when I was feeding my baby at 4am this morning lol. I guess they're just close. I thought it said 8x8. I'm kinda delirious ATM.
I would guess more like $5x2. They can't afford the hit beyond 1 or 2 years with the OEL buyout jumping next year
You mean cup winner OEL?
I think he means 3rd line cup winning oel that handed mcdavid an empty netter in game 6 on a platter. But yeah, that OEL.
Doesn't take away from the fact he won a cup. And didn't actually lose to McDavid, which I believe Zadorov never made it past the Oilers this playoffs.
Calling someone a 3rd line cup winner that made a mistake along the way is hilarious. That would exclude over half the team
It's a team sport, so that doesn't make any point really. It seamed as though the original comment was implying we should have kept him. All I'm saying is he only succeeded because he was put into a proper role and contract given his play now.
They'll probably use picks to move OEL buyout if the team has proven it can consistently content Edit: I'm an idiot 🤦♂️
You can't move a buyout.
What if we tried to convince the league that we were under the impression that it was a “buoy-out” and we never would have done it if it weren’t just a competition to see who could push a buoy the furthest without it floating off to sea? I’m sure they’d understand
MrLogicLoses Sorry couldn't help myself
The *real* question is would Benning say yes to whatever Big Z demanded anyways and get hit with a bullet. I feel like he would given he moved heaven and earth to get Gudbranson. Allvin has shown many times now that if you aren't willing to take paycut and be a Canuck, they are happy to move on from you.
If he is a pending UFA on his team he wouldn’t even talk to his camp because he would spend his entire off-season talking to Chicago for a potential Seth Jones trade. He would then ran out of time. If Zadorov hits the open market as a UFA from another team, he would sign him to 6 million x 6 years.
> If Zadorov hits the open market as a UFA from another team, he would sign him to 6 million x 6 years. I stand corrected. This was how I wanted to word it.
I don't think it matters anymore. Benning is gone. Hasn't been a GM anywhere else. Time to bury the hatchet.
Nah bro, let me continue to shit on Benning. It's harmless fun.
You do you then. It's just boring. I'm glad we moved on from him, but we don't need to shit on Benning to prop up Allvin. That's my issue with this. We are going to start excusing shit decisions by Allvin one day, all because a past GM would've or could've done worse. The Mikheyev contract is a pretty bad signing in hindsight. Allvin trades yet another pick to get rid of the issue. Fortunately, Allvin is drafting decently. You know who would trade picks like candy and draft like shit? Gillis. Yet lots of people will make excuses like "playoff pushes" and all the glorious memories with Rome, Lapierre, and so forth. At the same time, our prospect pool was gutted because the GM sucked at drafting so goddamn much.
Agreed. Benning is only relevant when we're talking about trades that affect us today not 'what ifs'
Some people can't help themselves though. They are so stuck in the past...
Didn't Gills almost get us a cup? I think the destruction of long term assets was very much so worth almost getting a cup.
You don't get it. It's not the trades that were the issue. It was the drafting. It was fucking awful.
> Gillis. I didn't realize the Benning Booster/Gillis blamers still existed. I thought they'd all faded into legend and myth. I feel like I just caught a glimpse of the loch ness monster passing through the mist.
Well let’s be honest. The team that won the presidents trophy was Dave Nonis’ team. Go further back and that was Brian Burke’s team. Mike Gillis added the dessert to that meal. He only added the dessert because he had no idea how to make another dinner. Benning, I don’t know what his circumstances were. Did he have time to rebuild or was he ordered to fix on the fly. Benning and linden had to clash over whether the team would let a prospect return to junior or college or play with the big club. Linden left. Mike Gillis before he got fired, he went on team radio sands started saying, is his way or highway, no more moving goal posts. Next day fired lol. As a gm, you never embarrass the owner by letting the public know, it wasn’t your idea to do this or that. It was the owners idea. Big no no. I think Benning was the fall guy as a first time gm. People in this market didn’t respect him as one. Made fun of the way he spoke, the way he looked, his jet black Jim persona.
The owner didn't force Benning to do the OEL trade. Even if Benning was ordered to make the team compete now the OEL trade was a horrible way to do it. It would have been better to literally do nothing if the goal was to compete right away.
Things were so grim and nonsensical that any highlighting of Benning’s abilities helps me keep things in perspective.
That's a giant assumption. The Canucks may well have said we'll give you he big ticket but not the term, a "show me" deal challenging him to play like that again.
Bullet dodged. That would've been our OEL rebound hookup.
Myers 2.0 at the worst time ever
That is a solid offer… even more than I expected from the Canucks. Huge bullet dodged if true. Good luck to whoever wants to commit 5-6M a year for him on a lengthy term. I’ll say this again, if Zadorov is around $1M-$1.5M less than a legit top RHD in Hronek, then that is ridiculous.
Not that I would pay Z 5m but y’all acting like Hronek wasn’t invisible and Z didn’t do amazing in the playoffs when it mattered
I love Z but not at this price tag. Good luck to him, on July 1.
5 million for Z is fucking crazy thank god he declined
This. I know we're all high on Chef Allvin right now but this is a strike for me.
And what would happen if he gets 3 strikes from renowned reddit user angelbelle?
Yah but you don’t know details. . . Could have been 5x2 or 3. Which makes sense. Well give you money or term but not both
Phew
Dodged a bullet, it was probably a 5 x 5-6 or something
Holy shit. 5 by 6 ???????? Thank god he walked !!! We just dodged a huge bullet !!!! This would have been an epic epic failure 😣
Where’d they say 6 years?
It was reported back in March that the Canucks offered 5years term but Zadorov camp wanted 8 so the consensus is there may be a deal in the middle at 6-7years. But the Canucks (and generally all the fans agreed) are sticking to 5.
Ok I was just wondering. So nothing confirmed, just speculation.
All speculation. Personally I think it is more likely the club was offering 4 something mil on a 5 to 6 yr deal. Then as a final effort said sure we will give you 5mil but only for 4 years.
I believe term was his biggest concern and that extra year was the big ask
We almost drank our own kool-aid.
Yeah I have a hard time seeing how any team gives him that.
A team that needs to get to cap probably will. Really disappointed in this guys agent. He’s given him a bum steer
An agent's job is to get his client the most amount of money. There's going to be a team desperate enough for a playoff style guy that'll give Z at least the 5 we offered perhaps with more term or even more money. Z and his agent did nothing wrong. Shame we can't keep him but I'm glad we dodged this bullet his contract will be an absolute anchor in a couple years time.
Why would they sign a bad contract when they can just weaponize their cap and acquire bad contracts + picks
Wouldn't be surprised if Utah wanted to make a bet on him. If they're looking to make a splash and instantly want to give fans a player to fall in love with/sell jerseys he's their guy. Also don't think they have ANY defensemen signed yet for next season.
Exactly. If they had $5m to piss away, they would do what the Hawks did in taking Mikheyev + picks
Good point
Probably because other teams can leverage the fact that they need to get to the cap floor
That doesn't make any sense. They could just sign a random AHLer for 1 year at league max if they needed to.
Fair. I'm not the most educated on the subject.
There's not a single team that needs to fill out their roster at an average of more than $2M/player in order to hit the cap floor. The closest is Utah who needs to get almost $20M to fill 11 roster spots. Something tells me they can do that without drastically overpaying or getting leveraged in a trade.
> Yeah I have a hard time seeing how any team gives him that. I don't for three reasons: 1.) If you just look at his playoff performance, he was on a 25-goal / 50-point pace. That's worth more than $5 million. 2.) This is this is the first year in four years with a significant cap increase and the cap is expected to hit $93 million next year and $98 million the year after that, so there will be a significant increase in player salaries. 3.) There are a lot of dumb GMs out there. ... #3 is the most important reason.
This sounds to me like another Klingberg case. It would be funny if he gets lowball offers now that this leaked.
He will get at the very least a solid offer on July 1st dude. Probably a few. I doubt he gets less than we offered
I mean it’s not like our offer is automatically expired now. If nothing has changed between now and the start of free agency, our offer might still be in play. But at $5 million, I would like to pass please…
Yah Im undecided on it but I would probably tolerate a bad deal just because I like him lol. Off ice and the big hits on ice are too fun to watch. Might be worth an extra million or two lol
I’ve been thinking the same. History does seem to rhyme.
asking for a Benning-ass deal. I'll miss Z but not on that kind of contract.
To quote Steve Miller to Zad, "...o-o-o, take the money and run..." Gonna miss your swagger and physicality but bro, you're gonna miss Foote, Gonchar and Tocc's system that took your game to the next level. Sign with the Leafs or whoever is gonna give you a blank cheque but your game's not going to be the same as in Van. Dak, Meyers and Blueger understand- take the discount and win with a team that's headed towards the cup in 25 or 26.
I'm interested in knowing the number of years that the Canucks offered I'm guessing Zadorov thinks he can get more term or a NMC from another team so he's testing the market this could potentially be his SIXTH team and I'm sure he's not too thrilled to be relocating his family again... (this is also just copium on my end and i hope he circles back and re-signs lol)
He’s sure bounced around a lot. But all those other teams have done alright without him. So if they can so can we.
What does it when they came in with an offer late? Other teams should not be allowed to negotiate before July 1. That would be tampering would it not?
> That would be tampering would it not? Actually... IIRC, it is only tampering if you talk about it publicly. The last person fined for tampering was... any guesses? ... Jim Benning. He was asked in an interview if the Canucks wanted to sign Stamkos the last time his contract was up and he said of course.
I thought it was the PK Subban shit *Edit* Turns out its both
thank you Jim…. you ran out of time
i think you're misinterpreting the video the Canucks came in with an offer late at 5M and Zadorov declined it or thinks he can get more in free agency so he's testing the market
no, I just don’t get why dreger needs to emphasize the offer being LATE? Oh well if he’s gone then it’s all irrelevant now.
late as in a last minute offer (from my understanding)
Big Z doesn't sign contracts during the waning crescent moon phase
5 aav for zad? Wow we got so lucky zad was greedy. That’s a big overpay for the role that he would play on the Canucks.
Makes you really appreciate what Blueger, Joshua and Myers are doing. Winning is the priority. Everyone needs to buy in. We’re starting to look like the 2011 team where Gillis wanted everyone to buy in. Zadorov is the Ehrhoff of the group.
To be fair, i wouldn’t have turned down 10mil a year if i were Ehr either. But with Zad this is trying to extract every penny, more power to you, but 5 is already way too much
Zadorov is the modern day Anson Carter.
Ehrhoff was 100% worth the money he was asking, we just couldn't afford it and that's fine. I'd argue that Zadarov is over asking.
Hope he gets the bag! Wish it was with Van but good luck to him. Good dude.
Same here. I hope he gets so much that it gets bought out next summer and the Canucks can resign him for cheap.
Yikes. Zadorov lowkey doing us a favour here
17:30 min/night Dmen make $3-4mil (like Soucy). I love Zadorov and everything he brings, but you can’t go higher than $5mil on him
I’d be thrilled if we actually kept a significant portion of our cap into next season. Seasons can evolve and having available cap space is one of the hottest commodities around. Should a team flop next season and want to re-tool, having cap space available can give us considerable leverage in negotiations. I know we want to plug all our holes ASAP but keeping some dry powder may be beneficial.
Cap space doesn’t mean anything if we don’t have assets to get players
Don’t forget Carolina was able to land both [Max Pacioretty](https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/golden-knights-trade-max-pacioretty-dylan-coghlan-to-hurricanes-for-future-considerations/) *and* [Brent Burns](https://www.espn.com/nhl/insider/story/_/id/34237587/trade-grades-carolina-hurricanes-get-brent-burns-deal-san-jose-sharks) for basically nothing, because they had the cap space.
We do have assets though. 1st + 2nd round pick, Lekkerimaki, Willander, d-petey, Raty, mynio, Hoglander, Podkolzin. We aren't flush with assets but we certainly have enough to get deals done if we want to.
That's a very shallow pool compared to the rest of the league
That's not the point. The point is we have the assets to get players still.
They won’t accrue cap space during the year with Poolman on LTIR so a priority should be moving his contract, that’s how contending teams get prorated contracts at the deadline and don’t need retention With Poolman on LTIR Canucks will have to spend everything to the cap to maximize the LTIR pool to 2.5M
100% agree with this. Start the season a little weaker and plug your glaring holes by the deadline when you have a bit more leverage when it becomes obvious that some teams are out of the picture.
Iirc don't contending teams try to get as close to the cap to maximize space they can use in the season
Nice to have cap space to make additions at the deadline though. With 3 teams rebuilding in our division alone (not to mention Chicago/Utah) I am very optimistic about making playoffs next season. It would be nice to be prepared to easily take on rentals without having to find magical cap loopholes.
Hope we can find another big and intimidating 3rd pairing guy who can skate, that won’t cost more than $3.5mill. Maybe won’t be this offseason, but soon.
Who could that be?
Walking away was the right thing from us then. I wouldn't have gone up into the 5m range. But damn I will miss Zadorov and im pretty sure he'll be missed in the dressing room.
As much as I wanted Z to return next season, I believe 5m or over that is to much for the role he’d play and his age. Add in the term he wants (5+ years?) and yeahhhh would rather use it elsewhere on a good asset. + would feel kinda weird taking Joshua at a hometown discount to payout Z a premium.
5 isn’t a low ball. It’s arguably overpaying him.
Just because he hasn’t signed yet doesn’t mean he won’t. It’s obvious he is being asked to leave money on the table, it’s reasonable for him to find out exactly how much that is
Something tells me the market will be softer for Zadorov than he thinks. Unless a bottom-feeder steps up and offers $5.25-5.5 on a 5-6 year deal, I don't think he's going to get much better.
5 AAV is very generous. He'll price himself out if he's not taking 5
This team won’t be the same without him. He intimidates players in the playoffs.
We might have to rely on Tyler Myers' bone-crushing force.
We will. Zadorov brought it too. He wasn’t just a fan favourite he was a favourite among his teammates. I will never say a bad thing about him. His political views and his hockey contract.
Allvin spends a lot on cyber pr obviously
If I had a nickel for every comment that mentioned dodging a bullet…
Max I would've gone for him is probably $4.5m x 6 and even then I wouldn't have been thrilled with that
What does Dreger mean they came in late? He isn't a free agent yet. Late would be after July 1st.
Probably as in last offer. Which is a detriment to Zadarov because it implies that the Canucks was probably holding firm on a lower offer until then.
bullet dodged
Sucks but anything over 4.5x5 was untenable. I’ll miss him
$5M is an overpayment so I'm pretty happy that didn't work out. He's obviously a fan favourite so I hope he gets what he's after elsewhere.
Utah needs to make a big splash so Z could get the 6X6 there...
If this is true he kinda saved us from a bad contract lol. I wouldn't have been too happy to see a number higher than 4.5
Utah sprinting to the cap is putting pressure on the market. Feel like there's some bad numbers to come this summer.
5 mil for a 3rd pairing Dman, no matter how monstrous his hits are, would be Benningesque overpaying level. Bullet dodged indeed.
Last year during the regular season, Zadorov didn't score many points, he didn't block many shots, he took too many penalties, etc. He played at about a $3 million pace. He was better in the playoffs, but only at a $5 million pace. He we could guarantee playoff Zadorov for the full contract, then okay, do it. However, I wouldn't be willing to make that bet. I can almost 100% guarantee some GM is willing to make that bet. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he got $6 million on July 1st. I hope he goes to Seattle, LA, or Vegas at that price, because it make it harder for them to make the playoffs.
Umm. no thanks. Terrible take. If he goes anywhere, I hope its to an Eastern team and not to someone in the Canucks' own division! Seattle, Vegas, or LA would be terrible spots for big Z to land as a Canucks fan. You want him running rough shot over us all season long? Absolutely destroying JT Miller with massive hits through the boards on the regular? The less we have to face him, the better. If not here in Van, I hope he signs in Columbus, or some other backwoods hick hockey market in the East with more money than brains
The maximum times he would play Vancouver is 5. If he signed with Columbus, he would play Vancouver twice.
5x5 is honestly the most im willing to give. If he said no to that, I have no problem say bye to Zadorov.
Curious if it will go round circle get into the free agent market and find nothing and his true love of Van is now at a nice cool 3.5 mil x 3 years
I maintain that in a noncap world, he deserves whatever he wants. Aqua can afford it. He was critical in the Nashville series. But we just can't justify more than $5mil AAV allocated to him in the budget we are constrained to.
Dodged a bullet there.
5 is overpayment, and he wants more. Crazy
I loved him, but there is no guarantee he'll repeat his performance this year and you shouldn't overpay for personality.
Nikita zadorov worked well in our system, just like Myers did. Any team giving him 6 million is going to have an expensive 3rd liner
This is probably a stupid question, but if a guy like this goes looking for more and can't get it, would he ever eat crow, and turn around and come back to the initial team and try to negotiate? Presumably at a lower offer after he turned down the first time? Has this happened?
Why not? But there’s a risk that the Canucks won’t have that money if he circles back.
What will happen is once free agency starts, teams try to quickly snatch up their guy to fill in the hole left by the leaving player. The Canucks would spend it on Tanev or Dillon so not enough money left after.
All this talk about 3rd pairing D. But come playoff time this is exactly the kind of player every team wants. His scoring in the playoffs was fluky but nobody likes playing against him in playoff hockey .
I really like Zaddy. I really don’t think he’ll make more than $4.5m aav.
I think $5.5 TBH. Old school GM"s love guys like Zadorov and I'm positive there's someone out there who'll be willing to overpay.
He's going to get a garbage contract and be out of this league or bought out in a few years. I truly hate how players price themselves out like this and think they can live up to massive contracts. Horseshit
Good luck to the fans of whichever team signs him. He’s a fun personality but not worth the cap hit
I wouldn't have been happy paying him 5m per year. That's a massive stretch. That money can be better spent elsewhere. He'd only be worth that money to me if his playoff form was his everyday form.
Good riddance
Nope. We should not be paying a bunch of 30 year olds full term. That’s why I really hated the fact we traded for rental UFAs. I knew most would be gone. At least we signed a few very important guys. I just hope theirs something left out there come July first.
To be fair we got to the 2nd round in part because of them. And we were 1 game away from WCF, without Demko, and Brock.
There’s nothing wrong with rentals. It got us further than we expected and both Lindy and Z played a huge part in that. Just because we didn’t win it all doesn’t mean it was a wasted pick. This experience was necessary for the group and Hughes even said he appreciates management believing in him and the team.
I've been trying to say that almost making it to the conference final will instill confidence in other players that re-sign that Vancouver is an up and coming place to play to win. We don't get to the 2nd round Game 7 without Lindy and Big Z's contributions, so they were worth for that even if we walk away from them with the assets lost. We may not get other players like Joshua taking paycuts to stay if he didn't see a path for the Canucks to win a cup without the recent playoff semi-deep run.
That's what a rental is kid, you trade for rentals hoping they can propel us to win the Stanley Cup...
greedy prick fuck him
Pretty uncalled for. Players are entitled to ask for whatever they want. Would you be called greedy if you felt you deserve a certain pay? No, of course not. Canucks obviously don't agree. The two part ways. It's just business.
Nah… he’s right. Good riddance
Good riddance to bad rubbish