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canvexsconnen. Canucks got a steal with Raymond

By Garth McLennan

he city of Vancouver, and most

surely Mike Gillis and the rest

of the Canuck management
team, exhaled a tremendous collective
sigh of relief when the team struck
a two-year deal with restricted free
agent, and 25-goal man, Mason
Raymond just minutes before the
Cochrane, Alberta native and the club
were slated to begin an arbitration
hearing that could have turned
disastrous for the Canucks from a
financial standpoint.

When you look at some of the
possible comparables to Raymond
and what they got in contract
bargaining this summer, it wouldn’t

have been outside the realm of
possibility to have foreseen Raymond
earning between three and four
million dollars next year had his case
reached arbitration. After all, in a
world where Nikolai Kulemin can pry
$2.8 million out of Brian Burke in
Toronto for just 16 goals last year, it
wouldn’t have been much of a stretch
in anyone’s mind to see Raymond
getting much more than that.

Instead, someone how Gillis
convinced Raymond that he should
settle for $250, 000 less that
Kulemin’s sum. Raymond agreed
to a two-year pact that will see him
bring in a very manageable $2.55 per
season. Considering how constrained
the Canucks already are heading

into next season, they’re closer to

the maximum off-season salary cap
ceiling then any other franchise in the
NHL, $3.55 million for a 24-year old
winger with top end speed, excellent
penalty killing abilities and the
potential to reach the 35-goal plateau
is a very, very good bargain.

The Raymond deal more than
eases the pain the Canucks were dealt
in their only previous arbitration
hearing this summer, when the team
got taken to the cleaners by Danish
winger Jannik Hansen. Hansen
landed a surprising one-year, one-way
contract worth $875, 000, which is a
pretty decent pay day for anyone who
scored just nine goals last season.
Granted, Hansen skated regularly in

 

the playoffs and established himself
as an effective and reliable penalty
killer, and while his salary certainly
won’t break the bank, it’s higher then
what most people assumed he’d get.
Now Gillis’ attention must turn
to his conundrum on defence. Gillis
went out and fortified his blue line
with the high profile acquisitions of
Dan Hamhuis and Keith Ballard, but
those two deals, combined with the
Raymond and Hansen signings, leave
the Canucks perilously pushed to
the cap limit. The team has already
exceeded the cap maximum for next
year, and during the summer they
can only breach the upper limits of
the cap by ten percent, which they’ re
very close to doing.

17