VANCOUVER – A trade-deadline seller for most of his time in charge of the Vancouver Canucks, general manager Jim Benning couldn’t wait to be a buyer this season. Seriously, he couldn’t wait.
Benning made his big move on Monday when he acquired winger Tyler Toffoli and his expiring contract from the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for college star Tyler Madden and a second-round draft pick. The trade came after a weekend in which Canucks winger Micheal Ferland’s aborted comeback from a concussion coincided with medical news that sniper Brock Boeser was likely done for the regular season with a rib injury.
Benning told Sportsnet in December that he wanted to add another top-six winger, but Toffoli is more of a replacement than an add. He became a necessity, not a luxury, which is why Benning paid a steep price to get the 27-year-old former Stanley Cup winner who has been in excellent form the last two months.
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Since Toffoli essentially replaces Boeser on the top line, it stands to reason the Canucks could still use another winger. But Benning has now spent the most valuable assets he’s probably willing to give up, which makes another impactful move before Monday’s trade deadline highly unlikely.
The GM sent a first-round pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning last June to land winger J.T. Miller, although Vancouver can defer payment until the 2021 draft if the Canucks miss the playoffs in April for a fifth-straight season.
They’ve also been looking for a defenceman to strengthen the bottom half of their blue line, and the Toffoli trade means Benning will have to shop for that in the clearance bins.
“We’re going to continue to work the phones and look at the market,” Benning told reporters on Tuesday. “We could be done. We don’t have our first- and second-round pick right now for the draft, so I don’t foresee us trading any more picks. But if something makes sense maybe with one of the young players (in the system) where we feel we have enough depth at that position, we’d maybe look to do something like that.”
The Canucks need to be careful there. They’ve got some excellent young players working their way towards the National Hockey League, but the franchise isn’t at the point where it can afford to sacrifice more prospects like Madden for short-term help.
Pending Free Agents
UFAs Tyler Toffoli, RW, 27, $4.6 million
Chris Tanev, D, 30, $4.45 million
Jacob Markstrom, G, 30, $3.67 million
Oscar Fantenberg, D, 28, $850,000
RFAs Troy Stecher, D, 25, $2.33 million
Jake Virtanen, RW, 23, $1.25 million
Tyler Motte, LW, 24, $975,000
Adam Gaudette, C, 23, $917,000
Zack MacEwen, RW, 23, $848,000
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Potential Assets to Move
Nikita Trymakin, D, 25 The six-foot-seven blueliner had an NHL career laid out for him by the Canucks, but bolted home to Russia after his 2016-17 rookie season. Now he’s unhappy there, too, and wants to return. The Canucks still like him, but have a couple of defence prospects ahead of Tryamkin and may be able to leverage a draft pick in exchange for his NHL rights.
Troy Stecher, D, 25 Now in his fourth NHL season, Stecher has shown he is a solid defenceman with enough skill to perhaps earn a bigger role somewhere else. The Canucks aren’t looking to trade Stecher, but may not qualify him in June at $2.33 million with their salary-cap issues and so risk losing him for nothing, as they did last summer with Ben Hutton. Better to get something than nothing. But Stecher is a lineup regular on a team trying to make the playoffs, and trading him could be a toxic blow to the dressing-room environment.
Draft picks (See Benning above). Already without first- and second-round picks, it is hard to imagine the Canucks further handicapping themselves at the 2020 draft. Unless they can acquire more picks, the team is down to four selections in June because its seventh-rounder went to Anaheim last season in the rental of defenceman Luke Schenn.
The Canucks will soon be the next up-and-coming team faced with difficult choices about which young stars to keep, and Boeser looks to be in an uncertain spot long-term with Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat and Quinn Hughes ahead of him. A trade involving Boeser, who comes with the cost certainty of two more seasons at $5.88 million ahead of restricted free agency, would be a blockbuster. But Boeser is injured, which removes the trade deadline as a pressure point, and the Canucks hope the winger who scored 55 goals his first two seasons may yet be able to help them in the playoffs this spring. Given the ramifications of trading one of the NHL’s top young scorers, the Canucks are far more likely to contemplate this kind of blockbuster in the off-season.
I Think the Team Should Not…
… sacrifice an asset for Wayne Simmonds. After Toffoli, Simmonds is the player who has been most linked to the Canucks in trade conjecture because Vancouver could use more toughness and playoff experience in its lineup. But the hard miles Simmonds has logged as an NHL warrior is evident in his sharp decline by age 31. He scored once in 17 games after a deadline trade to Nashville last season, and has seven goals in 59 games this season for New Jersey after signing a one-year, $5-million contract. Seriously, how is Simmonds supposed to help?
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced cookie brand Oreo as the team’s helmet sponsor for the upcoming NHL season.
The new helmet will debut Sunday when Toronto opens its 2024-25 pre-season against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena.
The Oreo logo replaces Canadian restaurant chain Pizza Pizza, which was the Leafs’ helmet sponsor last season.
Previously, social media platform TikTok sponsored Toronto starting in the 2021-22 regular season when the league began allowing teams to sell advertising space on helmets.
The Oreo cookie consists of two chocolate biscuits around a white icing filling and is often dipped in milk.
Fittingly, the Leafs wear the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s “Milk” logo on their jerseys.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
MacKenzie Weegar wasn’t bitter or upset as he watched friends live out their dreams.
The Calgary Flames defenceman just hopes to experience the same feeling one day. He also knows the road leading to that moment, if it does arrive, will likely be long and winding — much like his own path.
A seventh-round pick by the Florida Panthers at the 2013 NHL draft, Weegar climbed the ranks to become an important piece of a roster that captured the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s top regular-season club in 2021-22.
Two months later following a second-round playoff exit, he was traded to the Flames along with Jonathan Huberdeau for Matthew Tkachuk. And less than two years after that, the Panthers were hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“Happy for the city and for the team,” Weegar said of Florida’s June victory over the Edmonton Oilers. “There was no bad taste in my mouth.”
His sole focus, he insists, is squarely on eventually getting the Flames to the same spot. The landscape, however, has changed drastically since Weegar committed to Calgary on an eight-year, US$50-million contract extension in October 2022.
Weegar has watched a list that includes goaltender Jacob Markstrom, defencemen Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Nikita Zadorov and forwards Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane shipped out of town since the start of last season — largely for picks, prospects and young players as part of a rebuild.
Despite that exodus, he remains committed to the Calgary project steered by general manager Craig Conroy.
“It’s easy to get out of all whack when you see guys trying to leave or wanting new contracts,” the 30-year-old from Ottawa said at last week’s NHL/NHLPA player media tour in Las Vegas. “I just focus on where I am and where I want to be, and that’s Calgary.
“I believe in this team. The city has taken me in right away. I feel like I owe it to them to stick around and grind through these years and get a Stanley Cup.”
The hard-nosed blueliner certainly knows what it is to grind.
After winning the Memorial Cup alongside Nathan MacKinnon with the Halifax Mooseheads in 2013, Weegar toiled in the ECHL and American Hockey League for three seasons before making his NHL debut late in the 2016-17 campaign with the Panthers.
He would spend the next five years in South Florida as one of the players tasked with shifting an organizational culture that had experienced little success over the previous two decades.
“There’s always going to be a piece of my heart and loyalty to that team,” Weegar said. “But now I’m in a different situation … I compete against all 32 teams, not just Florida. There’s always a chip on my shoulder every single year.”
Weegar set career highs with 20 goals — eight was the most he had ever previously registered — and 52 points in 2023-24 as part of a breakout offensive performance.
“I think my buddies cared a lot more than I did,” he said with a smile. “All I hear is, ‘fantasy, fantasy, fantasy.'”
Weegar was actually more proud of his 200 blocked shots and 194 hits as he looks to help set a new Flames’ standard alongside Huberdeau, captain Mikael Backlund, Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman and Rasmus Andersson for a franchise expected to have its new arena in time for the 2027-28 season.
“You have to build that culture and that belief in the locker room,” said Weegar, who pointed to 22-year-old centre Connor Zary as a player set to pop. “Those young guys are going to have to come into their own and be consistent every night … they’re the next generation.”
Weegar, however, isn’t punting on 2024-25. He pointed to the NHL’s parity and the fact a couple of teams surprise every season.
It’s the same approach that took him from the ECHL a decade ago to hockey’s premier pre-season event inside a swanky hotel on Sin City’s famed strip, where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the game’s best.
“From the outside — media and even friends and family — the expectations are probably a bit lower,” Weegar said of Calgary’s outlook. “But there’s no reason to think that we can’t make playoffs and we can’t be a good team (with) that underdog mentality.
“You never know.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept 17, 2024.
Jose Maria Celestino da Costa was named vice-president and head of soccer operations while Marianne Brooks was appointed vice-president of partnerships, Kelly Shouldice as vice-president of brand and content and Joyce Sou as vice-president of finance and business operations.
The new six-team women’s pro league is set to kick off in April.
“Their unique expertise and leadership are crucial as we lay the foundation for not just a successful league in Canada, but one that stands among the top sports leagues in the world,” NSL president Christina Litz said in a statement. “By investing in top-tier talent and infrastructure, the Northern Super League is committed to creating a league that will elevate the game and set new standards for women’s professional soccer globally.”
Da Costa will oversee all on-field matters, including officiating. His resume includes stints with Estoril Praia, a men’s first-division team in Portugal, and the Portuguese Soccer Federation, where he helped develop the Portuguese women’s league.
Brooks spent a decade with Canucks Sports & Entertainment, working in “partnership sales and retention efforts” for the Vancouver Canucks, Vancouver Warriors, and Rogers Arena. Most recently, she served as senior director of account management at StellarAlgo, a software company that helps pro sports teams connect with their fans
Shouldice has worked for Corus Entertainment, the Canadian Football League, and most recently as vice-president of Content and Communications at True North Sports & Entertainment, where she managed original content as well as business and hockey communications.
Sou, who was involved in the league’s initial launch, will oversee financial planning, analysis and the league’s expansion strategy in her new role.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
