Confirmed with Link: Canucks sign C Teddy Blueger to 1-Year, $1.9M Deal

[Jerry the great]

The Beagle signing is a cautionary tale of inking a career 4th liner to a substantial contract. Blueger is younger than when Beagle was an UFA but I wouldn't bet on him ever breaking 30 points, specially if Allvin cooks so that Lindholm between Joshua and Garland becomes the norm. Good defensive centers are obviously an asset, but if they produce below average they can't really move up the lineup and you don't want to tie 2.5M+ with term for someone you don't like seeing as a 3C.

I think most people penciling him in are contemplating a contract that's ~2.5% of cap for a couple years (based on the estimate provided by AFP). Ironically, this is almost exactly what Washington gave Beagle at the same age and they got pretty good value out of that signing.

 

[VanJack]

Allvin was busy last off-season, signing a bushel of free agents....and guys like Blueger, Suter, Cole, Soucy and Mikheyev gave them decent service for the most part. And they added depth guys like Lafferty, Friedmann and DeSmith via minor trades and re-signed Di Giuseppe,

But longer term, it's an unsustainable strategy. At some point, all successful NHL franchises are graduating players from their AHL farm team who can fill those depth roles on affordable ELC's.

But as we all know, during most of Benning's lost decade, the Canucks graduated hardly anyone from their AHL farm teams in Chicago and Utica. So all you can do is cross your fingers that things are about to change.

And one hopes that young guys like Sasson, Karlsson, Bains, Raty, Silovs and McWard are ready to take the next step. I'm sure they'll all be given a long look at training camp.

At long last, it looks like the Canucks have a real, tangible AHL pipeline.