The NHL season has already begun overseas for the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres, while the Vancouver Canucks still have preseason games, and the rest of the league is trimming down their final rosters to start the year.
That means there are going to be a couple of players placed on the waiver wire to assign to their AHL affiliates…unless any team makes a claim for their services. With the Canucks looking at some decisions after their preseason finale against the Edmonton Oilers, could they possibly add someone else to the mix?
Vancouver fans are probably familiar with a couple of names on the list.
Michael DiPietro finds himself on waivers after the Boston Bruins claimed Jiri Patera from the Canucks, as the ex-Vancouver draft pick didn’t impress enough to start the season. The netminder posted some decent numbers in the AHL with Providence last year, going 18-9-2 with a 2.51 goals against average (GAA) and a .918 save percentage (SV%). Other than the revenge factor of claiming DiPietro, it should say a lot that the Bruins are opting for Patera off waivers versus DiPietro as they are trying to sort out the Jeremy Swayman situation.
Will Lockwood winds up on waivers from the Florida Panthers, as he was unable to crack their opening night roster. He was pretty impressive with the Charlotte Checkers, racking up 24 points in 32 contests, but only managed 1 assist in 26 games with the Panthers. With the Canucks already pretty set on the wing, it’s unlikely they’ll want to add any more bubble players (at best) to the mix.
One player that could make sense for the Canucks out of this list is a familiar one. Ethan Bear finds himself on waivers bound for the minors. He sat out most of last season rehabbing from surgery before inking a 2-year, $2.062 million average annual value (AAV) contract with the Washington Capitals. Bear wasn’t terrible for them, but he also didn’t live up to the AAV billing, posting just 4 points in 24 games.
With Vancouver missing another defenceman in the profile of Bear, it could make sense for the Canucks to take a second look. He did post decent results – granted, on a pretty rough defensive corps – and showed that he could play with Quinn Hughes without needing to be carried too hard.
Now, the cap situation that the Canucks find themselves in now is very different than in 2022-23 when they had Ethan Bear. Plus, the defenceman is now making just over $2 million a year. It wouldn’t be an ideal number to get him at, and the flaws in his game were enough for the Capitals to send him to the minors just one year after inking him to that deal.
But Vancouver won’t be able to tuck themselves under the cap without the use of LTIR, with Pius Suter, Akito Hirose, and Tucker Poolman all ailing and out. That means they’ll likely be putting a couple of contracts into that space, thus opening up a little room under the cap for them to use at the start of the year.
Adding someone like Bear probably won’t move the needle much, but it offers a dimension on the back end that is a little lacking with the personnel that the Canucks are planning to ice. There’s an element of proven success with the captain of the Canucks, and that element of familiarity could be a selling point for management. He could definitely make sense should Vancouver want to move in that direction, but at the same time, it would be perfectly reasonable to see what this team can do as is.
