He’s earned the right to see what other teams will offer, the only NHL team he’s ever known claims
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The writing does seem to have been on the wall for a while for Brock Boeser, although we have never been sure if it’s written in chalk or pen.
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If you are placing a bet, it’s about definitive now that Boeser, a Canuck since 2017, a guy who has made it plain his preference is to stay, will be available to sign with any of the NHL’s 32 teams when free agency opens on July 1.
Word is that the Canucks have told Boeser, who scored 25 goals this past season, the second-highest goal total among Canucks wingers, that he has earned the right to be a free agent.
In other words, “Go ahead and check out the market. You know what our offer is.”
That said, in my seven years of full-time hockey reporting, you just never say never. And nothing is done until it well and truly is.
So the Canucks say that they are happy to hold the door open for him to go out and see what’s out there, but they won’t be locking the door behind him in case he wants to come back and chat again. But you can’t help but wonder how firm the Canucks actually are in that position.
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“We could lose those players,” Canucks president Jim Rutherford conceded Monday when asked about the summer, with both Boeser and Pius Suter as pending free agents. “(But) we might not. It’s one of the reasons that we didn’t trade them at the deadline, so we got a longer runway to make that decision.”
Suter, who is coming off a career year after an impressive turn as the Canucks’ No. 1 centre late in the season after the Canucks lost Elias Pettersson and Filip Chytil to injury, and Boeser are both in a forward-depth equation that the Canucks know they have to solve.
How many players do you think you need to add this summer, Rutherford was asked. The veteran hockey boss laughed and said, “Three.”
“Because I know you’re going to hold me to it,” he said with a smile.
Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin recognize they need to find a top-flight centre to work in a top-six rotation with Pettersson. And to do so, they know they will almost certainly have to make a trade.
But they also want to add wingers. And finding wingers won’t be easy.
They can go shopping on the free-agent market, but the top wingers available will already come at a premium price. Given the Canucks’ challenges, their agents will know they can bleed the Canucks’ coffers. The Canucks need the players more than the players need the Canucks.
And so we come back to Boeser, whose price the Canucks well know. And whose performance they well know.
He is not an elite winger, but he is a very good winger. He is good for 25-30 goals per season. He’s a reliable forechecker and a much improved two-way presence. He is not the world’s greatest skater, but he’s become a very wise player and he will only get wiser and more efficient in his play.
NO CHARGES — In answering a question about Quinn Hughes’ long-term future with a dose of realism — Hughes can be a free agent in two years’ time — Rutherford made a quip Monday about how the captain dreams of playing with his brother Jack and Luke, who are both with the New Jersey Devils. As Jim Benning can tell you, the NHL is wary of managers of opposing teams musing openly about acquiring other teams’ players. Benning got in hot water in 2016 for admitting to interest in P.K. Subban and was fined heavily by the NHL for his comments. Some wondered if Rutherford would be in trouble with the NHL for his Hughes-family comments, but CHEK-TV’s Rick Dhaliwal reported Tuesday that no discipline from the league was forthcoming. Apparently, the powers that be understood the joke.
pjohnston@postmedia.com
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