The Vancouver Canucks have signed RW Mikael Samuelsson to a three year $7.5m contract.
I'm not sure about this one yet. Considering how little cap room the Canucks will have over the next few years (assuming Luongo is re-signed) $2.5m seems like a big chunk of cap space for a 40 point player who will be 35 at the end of the deal. Of course there are also some positives, Samuelsson is a versatile two-way forward who will bring some much needed playoff experience to the Canucks.
The main question mark about Samuelsson is weather his offense (19g 21a) was a product of playing with talented players in Detroit's system, or is he capable of producing more given more opportunity, specifically more even strength ice-time. Samuelsson picked up half his points on the power play last season (I believe he played the point fairly often so that should help the Canucks) while he was limited to only 12:37 per game at even strength. It's likely he will play more for the Canucks, maybe even with the Sedins, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that his point totals could increase to the 50+ range.
The Canucks are either going to get a solid 3rd line player who will contribute 30-40 points, or if things work out they could get a guy who gels with the Sedins or Kesler and puts up 50-60 pts. A solid addition at a questionable price.
It will also be interesting to see how this affects some of the other forwards like Raymond and Hansen...
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