July 8th, 2024
Alex Rickman
While several of the Canucks primary targets came off the board in the early hours of free agency, causing a mild panic among some fans, Patrik Allvin and Co managed to weather the storm and come away with several valuable additions to their ranks. Let’s take a look at the newest members of the Vancouver Canucks organization and how they may play into the team’s plans for the 2024-25 season.
Jake Debrusk
Easily the biggest move the Canucks have made in free agency was the signing of former Bruins winger Jake Debrusk to a seven-year, $5.5 million AAV contract. This was something of a surprising move, with reports linking the Canucks to wingers like Jake Guentzel, Tyler Toffoli, and Chandler Stephenson rather than Debrusk, but ultimately may prove to be the best fit of any of the available options. Debrusk’s forechecking stands out more than anything as a perfect fit for the style of hockey the Canucks expect to play, and many within the organization believe that Debrusk is still yet to hit his full potential and could break out playing for a coach that should love his game.
Debrusk has lacked consistency at times in his NHL career to date, but the Canucks clearly feel that this can be worked out if he’s given opportunities in the right situation. Debrusk seems very likely to slot in on Elias Pettersson’s wing, which seems at this stage like a match made in heaven. Jake Debrusk has scored 25-plus goals several times in his career, so becoming a consistent 30-goal scorer as one of the focal points of the Canucks offence is not entirely out of the question. Ultimately, the seven-year term given to Debrusk may scare some fans, but with his age and the potential he has shown for a breakout year, it’s hard to fault the Canucks front office for taking a chance on the former Bruin after Guentzel came off the board.
Vincent Desharnais
Possibly the most surprising signing the Canucks made on July 1st was the acquisition of Vincent Desharnais on a two-year, $2 million AAV contract. On the one hand, with Desharnais’s size, physicality, and penalty killing, it’s easy to see why the Canucks would want to bring him into the fold. However, Desharnais has been little more than a depth defenceman in his time in the NHL, and the Canucks have now committed multiple years at several million dollars to him, while also likely forcing Tyler Myers onto the second pair. This signing seems very dependent on not only Desharnais’s ability to work some of the mistakes out of his game but also the ability of Tyler Myers to remain consistent when playing top-four minutes for a full season.
The good news here is that if the Canucks coaching staff have shown themselves to be good at one thing, it’s helping defencemen work on cleaning up their game. Not only did Tyler Myers have his best season as a Canuck last year, but players like Nikita Zadorov, Noah Juulsen, and even Quinn Hughes had been accused of being overly error-prone in the years before Tocchet, Adam Foote, and Sergei Gonchar joining the coaching staff. The transition isn’t always the smoothest, as was evidenced by Juulsen’s rough start last year, but sure enough, as time passed, all of these defencemen improved their play. If Desharnais can work the errors out of his game, and Myers remains consistent, there’s no reason to believe this won’t work out. The Canucks could still use another puck mover on the back end, but for now, Desharnais profiles as the exact make of defenceman that Rick Tocchet likes on his teams.
Derek Forbort
Remember that Jets defenceman who tried to kill Nils Höglander that one time during his rookie year? Welcome to Vancouver, Derek Forbort, former Jets defenceman and one of Hoggy’s newest teammates. Awkward. But that’s in the past now, so what does Forbort bring to his new team? Like Desharnais, Forbort is a very physical, penalty-kill specialist defensive defenceman. Forbort can, and will, go months at a time without finding the back of the net, but will severely limit the chances of the opposition to do so in the process, be it at even strength or down a man. Forbort effectively profiles as an upgrade on Ian Cole and will do the same job for quite a bit less money, costing the Canucks a mere $1.5 million on a one-year deal.
Forbort can be turnover prone, but as was mentioned with Desharnais, the Canucks coaches have a way of helping defencemen clean up some of the rougher edges of their game. Forbort is also significantly better than Cole at staying out of the box and will be needed on the ice when the Canucks are down a man. While it provides little to no flash to speak of, a bottom pair of Derek Forbort and Vincent Desharnais will be nothing if not hard to play against, as both of these players will bring the Canucks some much-needed physicality on the backend while playing some sturdy defensive hockey, especially if the two can clean up their games with their new coaches. Forbort is far from an exciting player to watch, but any contending team needs to have some players like him, so Canucks fans will come to love the man who was once hated in Vancouver for his attempted murder on a young Nils Höglander.
Danton Heinen
Hailing from Langley, BC, Heinen is another winger who Rick Tocchet will love coaching. Heinen’s motor is a hallmark of his game and is part of what makes him an effective player in nearly every area of the game. Heinen kills penalties, can play up and down the lineup, and is willing to get physical and go to the dirty areas, all of which are essential elements of the hockey Rick Tocchet teams play. This, combined with the fact that Heinen took a discount to play for his hometown team, is aligning to make this look on the surface like the perfect signing for the Canucks middle six. Heinen is a player who many, myself included, expected to command more than the $2.3 million AAV he’s set to make as a Canuck, so adding a player who can bring what he does to the lineup at that price point is a major credit to the front office.
At the moment, it’s unclear where exactly Heinen will slot in for Vancouver, but it’s not out of the question that he could end up playing on Elias Pettersson or JT Miller’s wing. Assuming the Canucks don’t want to break up Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua on the third line, Heinen will almost certainly play in the top six, where he will be given possibly the biggest opportunity of his NHL career. Like Debrusk, the Canucks are likely anticipating that Heinen will undergo something of a breakout on the west coast, so by giving him a chance to prove himself alongside a player like Pettersson or Miller, maybe we see a Danton Heinen that we are yet to see in the NHL. And, even if it doesn’t work out in the top six for him, Heinen is a proven bottom six staple, so no matter what happens, the Canucks should be able to find a way to bring out the best in the former Surrey Eagles captain.
Kiefer Sherwood
Out of all the signings that the Canucks made on July 1st, this may be the one that gets looked back on as the best move the team made this offseason. On the surface, this seems like a fairly minor move, giving the Canucks an aggressive fourth-liner who will hit anything that moves and provide some secondary scoring. Sherwood was also a thorn in the side of Quinn Hughes during the first-round series against Nashville, so bringing a player like him into our ranks should excite fans who will recognize what he can bring to the table. However, a deeper look into how Sherwood plays the game makes this an even more exciting move, and, with some luck, could perhaps have been the signings that give the Canucks the next Dakota Joshua.
Not only do Joshua and Sherwood play with similar bite, with both of them finishing top 20 in hits during the regular season last year, but both possess some traits that seem to have been underutilized by previous teams that could make the Canucks believe in the possibility of a further breakout. Sherwood has a very good shot and combines his excellent skating with his solid frame to play a heavy brand of hockey, which is very reminiscent of the style Joshua plays. Finding the next Joshua was always going to be a tall order for the front office, as players who can break out the way he did don’t exactly grow on trees, but Sherwood gives them as good a chance as anyone would be the bargain bin acquisition who becomes an important cog in the lineup of a good team. And, if not, then the Canucks have simply found a rock-solid fourth-liner on a very reasonable contract.
Looking at the Canucks roster right now compared to where it was at season's end, it’s hard not to say that the Canucks have taken a noticeable step forward up front, while perhaps taking something of a minor step back on the blue line. Jake Debrusk, Danton Heinen, and Kiefer Sherwood all seem like perfect acquisitions for a Canucks team that know how they want to play the game and understand the importance of giving the coach the kind of players he believes will fit his brand of hockey. Meanwhile, the loss of Nikita Zadorov is hard to replace, but the Canucks managed to avoid signing any contracts that seem likely to handicap them long-term, with Desharnais’s 2x2 deal seeming to be the riskiest contract that they signed.
Overall, the Canucks seem to be emphasizing the importance of two things: fit and value. Rick Tocchet wants forwards who will forecheck to no end and defencemen who are not afraid to bring the boom. So, the Canucks made a point out of getting those kinds of players and avoiding putting themselves into another situation like the Andrei Kuzmenko kerfuffle, where a talented player had to be traded away as a result of his not fitting the scheme. The Canucks also may not have signed any of the big fish on the market but added players who have the potential to outplay the contracts they signed, an essential element to the success of any team. We won’t know for sure how any of these players will do in Vancouver until we’ve seen them play, but, at this point in time, it’s hard to be upset with the moves made by Patrik Allvin to this point in free agency.