Saw a really good post about the Sbisa contract on reddit. I'll see if I can find it.
There's been one observable "vision" to the Benning regime since it took over last summer, and it's filling the organizational void of the 2007-12 draft classes in this team. The combination of dealing away draft picks and poor drafting in previous years has resulted in practically nothing from these draft classes to show for in the Canucks system. Benning has slowly been making moves to patch that "generational gap" per se.
Luca Sbisa fits that age group that the Benning regime has been actively targeting, though he is on the older side of that (2008 draft class). More significantly, however, is that he fills another organizational void too. The fact of the matter is that the Canucks don't have a lot of depth on that left side on the blue line. After Alex Edler and Dan Hamhuis, we're looking at the likes of Sbisa and Ryan Stanton (who's older than Sbisa) in terms of players with NHL experience, or who are ready for NHL action. In the pipelines we have: Ben Hutton (who definitely needs AHL development still), Andrey Pedan (who was the result of another one of the filling the void moves by Benning), Anton Cederholm, Evan McEneny, and Peter Andersson. None of these prospects are blue-chippers by any means, and even then only Hutton and Pedan can be considered to have meaningful NHL upside. This is why there's been comments from Benning in the past that the Canucks are probably looking to take a defenseman in the 1st round of this year's draft - they are very lacking in this position throughout the organization and desperately need a blue-chipper that can poise the franchise for its future.
Therefore, I believe that the Sbisa signing is due to the lack of organizational depth to replace him with another defenseman of the same age group with either NHL experience or proven ability to make the jump to the big league. Defensemen are a sought-after commodity in the market, as teams realise that they are the keys to the NHL game today. We saw against Calgary what a blue-line is able to do in terms of not only breaking up the play, but also jump-starting their offense. Teams are hardly willing to deal away their young defensemen for this reason. The Canucks likely don't have the assets (e.g. prospects) in other areas to acquire a young defenseman via trade, and they don't have other options in-house either. Moreover, Sbisa's previous contracts limited the Canucks negotiation abilities. He had an expensive qualifying offer as a result of his previous contract signed with Anaheim. Despite his play, he's been in the NHL since he was 18, and has 7 seasons of experience under his belt. All that, in conjunction with upcoming UFA status meant the Canucks were in a "tight spot" despite how awful Sbisa's play was.
In the end, it came down to three things:
- The Canucks didn't have the assets to replace Sbisa in the near future (over the next three years, the length of his contract)
The Canucks likely don't have the assets to acquire a young defenseman that can replace Sbisa in the immediate future.
Sbisa's previous contract and career status limited the organizations' options to negotiate away from the contract they ended up handing him.
Though players like David Schlemko who will be on the UFA market this off-season will most likely be better than Sbisa, I'd imagine that given the organization's direction in moving to bring in members from the 2007-12 draft classes, Benning would prefer to keep the latter and hope he develops into something useful. Sbisa's here as an expensive stop-gap in the organization's transition, until the Canucks hopefully bring up another left-handed defenseman through the draft and development. If Sbisa develops into a capable bottom-4 defenseman, that turns into a win for the Canucks. If not, well the pizzaman will be out of town by 2018.