The Vancouver Canucks will pursue signing unrestricted free agent Steven Stamkos.
Steven Stamkos is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. Starting on Saturday, June 25 at 12:01 AM EST, teams can start talking to free agents. Stamkos and his agent will be discussing contracts with a variety of teams and a dark horse has emerged in the Stamkos sweepstakes: the Vancouver Canucks.
Benning says the #Canucks will call Steven Stamkos' agent on Saturday as well as the top wingers in free agency.
— Matthew Sekeres (@mattsekeres) June 23, 2016
Understandably, the Canucks want to try to sign Stamkos, as he is the best free agent in at least a decade and arguably the past twenty years. Vancouver will likely have to overpay Stamkos to get him to seriously consider signing with them since they aren’t a very good team. Can they realistically do so?
The Canucks currently have just over $9.25 million of cap space with 21 players signed. They aren’t expected to re-sign restricted free agent forward Linden Vey and restricted free agent Emerson Etem is expendable. Looking at what Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Toews, two centers of Stamkos’ caliber, have gotten recently, Stamkos will likely command an average annual value (or cap hit) of at least $10 million.
Vancouver can clear some cap space by trading or buying out Alexandre Burrows and Chris Higgins. If both are bought out, that saves them roughly $4 million, which would give them $13 million of cap space. That’s enough to sign Stamkos.
However, Stamkos’ contract would likely hurt their chances of bringing back players like Bo Horvat, Jannik Hansen, and Ben Hutton, all of whom will be free agents after the 2016-17 season.
While the Canucks might try to sign Stamkos, they will likely fail. And that might be best for them in the long run.
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