Vancouver Canucks: 5 burning questions for 2018-19 season

VANCOUVER, BC - April 3: Teammates look on as Daniel Sedin #22 and Henrik Sedin #33 of the Vancouver Canucks skate off the ice during their NHL game against the Vegas Golden Knights at Rogers Arena April 3, 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)"n /

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WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 21: Tyler Johnson #9 and J.T. Miller #10 of the Tampa Bay Lightning fall to the ice against Lars Eller #20 and Jay Beagle #83 of the Washington Capitals in Game Six of the Eastern Conference Finals during the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Capital One Arena on May 21, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

4. Will these fourth line deals come back to bite them?

Canucks general manager Jim Benning made some … interesting moves in free agency this summer as he always does. He signed Jay Beagle and Antoine Roussel to four-year contracts worth $3M per season. They’ve both been career bottom six players, most notably Beagle who was the Capitals fourth line center in their run to the Stanley Cup this season.

Beagle is known for being a very good penalty killer but not so good at even strength. He had seven goals and 22 points this past season for Washington after he came off a career high of 30 points the season before. Before that, the most points he had in a season was 20, which came in 2014-2015. His possession was also bad this past season as it dropped to 39.2 percent. Overall, he’s been a 45.6 percent possession player throughout his career. This isn’t the kind of player a team should be throwing money to but the Canucks liked him well enough to go ahead and do it.

The same can be said for Roussel, who they signed out of Dallas. He had five goals and 17 points this season, which is a big fall from his usual numbers. It was the first time he hadn’t scored over 10 goals in a season since his rookie season in 2012-2013. Other than that, he’d average around 13 goals a season with the Stars in a bottom six role. It wasn’t bad there considering how much talent the Stars have, but he’ll be asked to do more here with Vancouver. He has decent possession at 51.4 percent overall, but he’s going to be playing on a team where there aren’t a lot of weapons offensively. Again, giving out that kind of money to a career bottom six player isn’t usually the smartest thing to do, especially when the player is almost 30.

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