Ovechkin Lands in Vancouver

After a summer of blockbuster trades that included the acquisitions of Zach Parise, David Backes and Bobby Ryan, it seemed like Vancouver Canucks GM Travis Fleming was finished wheeling and dealing before the start of the season. However, it turns out the crafty manager had one more move up his sleeve.

Fleming made a huge splash earlier this week when he acquired superstar wing Alexander Ovechkin. The trade sees long-time Canucks Adam Henrique, Cam Atkinson and Eric Nystrom heading to St. Louis, along with a 6 round draft pick next year. Torrey Mitchell and Andrew Desjardins were also sent to Vancouver in the deal.

“I honestly thought I was done trading too,” said Fleming after the deal was made. “After we brought in Backes and Parise I was pretty satisfied with our team. We had some cap space to work with and I was confident we could fill the rest of our holes in free agency.”

It turns out the wallets of the EHE’s GM’s were a little deeper than Fleming expected though, and the GM had to change gears to complete his roster.

“The offers that were being tossed around were crazy,” said Fleming. “I mean, good for you if you have that kind of cash available and are willing to make a third liner your highest paid player. But I just didn’t have the cap room or the willingness to overpay for guys to compete in free agency.”

The Canucks were able to sign veteran defenseman Brayden Coburn to a three year deal, filling a glaring hole on their defense. But his inability to sign the forwards he needed forced Fleming back to the phones to talk trade.

The Canucks acquired Bobby Ryan for young AHL’er Nicolas Aube-Kubel, prospect John MacLoed and a second round pick in 2018. Then to shore up the third line Fleming added defensive forward Nikolay Kulemin in exchange for disappointing prospect Mirco Mueller and a fourth round pick in the upcoming draft.

“I keep saying I’m done trading prospects and draft picks, and then I go and do it again” said Fleming with a laugh. “In all seriousness though, it’s not something I like to do. I know it seems like I ship these assets out the door willy-nilly, but I’m fully aware of how important it is to plan for the future. However, we’re in a position to compete for the cup this year, and I’ve worked way too hard to enter the season with holes in the roster. At this point we’re going to do whatever we have to do to make this team as good as it can be for this season.”

At that point Fleming thought his work was finished, but it turns out he wasn’t done quite yet.

“I got a call from Shaun (Stephens) last week and he’s like ‘I want Henrique and Atkinson,” and I’m like ‘yeah right.’ And then he said ‘I’ll give you Ovechkin’ and I’m like ‘oh, let me think about that.’”

Over the next few days a deal was hashed out, and on Sunday it was finalized. Alexander Ovechkin was heading to Vancouver.

“I’d like to say I thought this one up myself, but Shaun just came to me with the deal. He knew what he wanted and although it was wasn’t easy giving up those two guys I thought it was a fair price for the best goal scorer in the game. It’s not often you have a chance to acquire a guy like Ovechkin. So when someone offers him to you and the price isn’t outrageous, you take it.”

It’s safe to say that the Canucks will enter the season as one of the favourites to win it all. With the likes of Ovechkin, Shea Weber, Max Pacioretty, Zach Parise, Ryan O’Reilly and Tuukka Rask on the roster this is about as good of a line-up as you can fit under the EHE’s $67.3 million salary cap. Of course, anything can happen in sports, but regardless of the outcome it should be a fun season in Vancouver.

The Canucks projected line-up for the 2016/17 season is as follows:

Max Pacioretty – Ryan O’Reilly – Alex Ovechkin
Zach Parise – David Backes – Bobby Ryan
Kris Versteeg – Matt Cullen – Nikolay Kulemin
David Jones – Torry Mitchell – Andrew Desjardins

Shea Weber – John Carlson
Andrej Sekera – Brayden Coburn
Brett Pesce – Ben Hutton

Tuukka Rask
Al Montoya