Canucks face difficult decision with Zadorov's looming free agency

VANCOUVER — With nine unrestricted free agents on the Vancouver Canucks’ season-ending roster, no one expected assistant coach Mike Yeo to be the first significant name to leave.

The off-season will surely have other surprises for the Canucks. 

There may be other disappointing exits, too, as general manager Patrik Allvin tries not only to retain but improve a 50-win roster while shackled again by the National Hockey League salary cap.

Yeo is going to be fine.

The widely-respected former head coach balked at the Canucks’ offer of a single-season extension to continue as a senior assistant on Rick Tocchet’s staff. Hired by Allvin two summers ago in an attempt to bring some structure to Vancouver under previous head coach Bruce Boudreau, the 50-year-old Yeo is expected to join Travis Green on the staff of the Ottawa Senators.

Green and new Ottawa general manager Steve Staios, yet another former Canuck, have the ability to offer Yeo something the Canucks felt they could not.

It probably won’t be the last time that scenario plays out in Vancouver with free agency looming on July 1.

Allvin and Tocchet should be able to replace Yeo. Efficiently replacing free agents like defenceman Nikita Zadorov will prove far more difficult under the cap.

Among the nine potential UFAs, Zadorov’s situation is fascinating.

Acquired from the Calgary Flames on Nov. 30, the 29-year-old was regarded as a rental-plus. Mobile and rugged, he was always going to deepen the Canucks’ defence and make them a bigger, tougher team for the Stanley Cup playoffs. Anything beyond that was going to be a bonus.

But when the six-foot-six Russian had a thunderous playoff run, elevating his game and his minutes while contributing four goals, eight points and 45 hits in 13 games, the “bonus” of more Zadorov started to feel like a necessity for the Canucks.

Sure, Zadorov was a 17-minute, third-pairing, 20-point defenceman in the regular season. But he was a lot more than that in the playoffs, and with his rare combination of size, toughness and mobility, he looks like a defenceman who will help the Canucks win.

Zadorov also became a massive (literally and figuratively) fan-favourite.

He is the kind of player whose high regular-season salary may make sense only at playoff time.

But at what salary? Of course, that is the root question. Unless, the question is term.

“For me, the main focus is the term, for sure,” Zadorov told Sportsnet in a one-on-one interview after last week’s year-end press conferences. “I feel like I can play until 35 or 36 easily, on a high level. I think my body can do that. It's not like I'm injury prone. I feel like I can get to another level of leadership and hockey as well when I know I'm in this team (long-term). It's just going to be easier mentally and physically as well, so I don't have to move my family around.”

Zadorov's reference to family is noteworthy.

After criticizing Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine during an interview last summer, Zadorov told reporters in Calgary in September that he will be unable to return to Russia as long as Putin is in power.

“I’d be in Siberia the next day,” Zadorov said last week.

He is a player without a country.

Zadorov’s off-season home is in Miami. But he said his wife Aleksandra and their daughters, Sophie and Stephanie, loved their six months in Vancouver.

The family likes the city, the culture and the Canucks.

Vancouver could become home for the Zadorovs.

“Obviously, there's a lot of interest in the family stuff,” the defenceman said. “But the main interest is to win the Stanley Cup. (This was) my fifth playoff... and I haven't been past the second round. I think for me, it's just to find a team or home where I have a chance to win a Stanley Cup. That's the main focus, for sure. And I believe Vancouver is one of them.”

Zadorov’s expiring contract carried a salary of $3.75 million. According to CapFriendly.com, he has earned about $20 million during his NHL career since being drafted 16th-overall by the Buffalo Sabres in 2013.

But at age 29, and coming off his stellar playoff run, this could be Zadorov’s last, best chance to earn a fat, long-term contract.

DailyFaceoff.com, with the help of AFP Analytics, estimates that Zadorov’s free-agent value merits a five-year contract at $5.3-million per season. The Canucks will not want to go that high for a bottom-four defenceman, but could they pay less in exchange for the six- or seven-year term that Zadorov desires? How much does he want to stay in Vancouver?

“We want to be a competitive team... so there's only so much I can pay certain individuals,” Allvin said at his press conference last Thursday. “I think the longer you have a player and the more you see them in critical games, the more you get to know about them. I was very pleased with a lot of (their) performances here. As I said to each one of them, my preference is to keep them, but I've also got to find a way to keep them where money is going to make sense for us in order to be competitive moving forward.”

The GM later added: “It's not about giving one guy all the money; it's about finding ways to be competitive and finding ways to have players that are able to improve as we saw this year.” 

Allvin used the example of power forward Dakota Joshua, another of the Canucks’ key unrestricted free agents, who signed as a raw project in Vancouver two years and under Tocchet this season became a play-driving, middle-six winger who scored 18 goals in 63 games. And like Zadorov, Joshua, 28, proved himself a physical force in the playoffs.

“We’ll find the next Dakota Joshua here for the coaches to work with,” Allvin said.

Finding the next Zadorov would be extremely difficult.

There are some wildcards for Allvin. Arbitration-eligible defenceman Filip Hronek, a restricted free agent, could fetch $7- or $8-million on his next contract. But that’s an awfully steep price to pay a No. 2 defenceman to complement Quinn Hughes. 

Trading Hronek would give Allvin cap space and a lot of options.

Zadorov believes — as 103-point Canucks centre J.T. Miller did before signing his seven-year, $56-million extension two years ago at age 29 — that he is still going to get better.  

“After Game 7, I pretty much didn't sleep that night,” Zadorov said of the Canucks’ elimination by the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup quarter-finals. “I had so many thoughts in my head. A lot of anger. Anger makes you obsessed with winning. You have a goal, you have a dream, and you see it. It's close. It’s right there. 

“Like, I mean... we're human beings. But you don't even think about your life during the playoffs. It makes you obsessed and your mindset is totally different. So when one day, you lose Game 7 and everything drops, it feels like you have no purpose. But that anger makes you stronger, and I feel like it makes me more motivated right now to stay here — or find a different fit if it doesn't work out — and then put everything into it. Put all my soul and all my energy and everything into trying to win the Stanley Cup.”

That attitude, at least, is priceless.