Micheal Ferland is an effective middle-six option, a goal-scorer with size that teams generally covet. He’s particularly great at getting into dangerous areas and creating chances, though not so strong at drawing penalties and staying out of the box.

Based on the contract projected for him, Ferland looks like he could be relatively affordable for his skill-set and should command more for what he brings to the table. At 27, age isn’t as large of a concern relative to other UFA’s.

But there’s a definite reason for reserved skepticism and that comes with the difficulty of his minutes. Last year in Carolina, Ferland spent 69 percent of his 5-on-5 time next to either Sebastian Aho or Teuvo Teravainen (or both). The year prior, it was 82 percent next to Johnny Gaudreau or Sean Monahan. He compliments and works well with great players, but there’s a chance that his strong results are the product of who he plays with and not actually his own ability. In 1385 minutes with those star players, Ferland’s teams have scored 3.42 goals-per-60. Without them on the ice, that falls to 1.78 goals-per-60 in 438 minutes. Before becoming an option on the Flames top line, Ferland looked mostly replaceable and it shows when he’s apart.

That would give me plenty of pause with Ferland, but if he can be surrounded by talented offensive drivers, he could still provide underrated value in a team’s middle six at the right price. Those expecting and paying for more will be disappointed.

You know he really could be a Burrows for us. That'd be sick.

Boeser should be a true team player and show up lebanc by signing to a qualifying offer of 874k

Fair assessment I would say.

He will be given every chance to shine.

I am happy with the signing. You get grit in the top 6. It adds another dynamic. If the plays are not there he can just crash the net. Another option on PP strategy as well. You need to be able to win games in more than one way.

With him and Miller added I see the Canucks having enough talent in the top 6 while being gritty/defensively responsible enough to compete.

Burrows as others have said saw his stats balloon playing with the Sedins. Samuelsson and Vrbatta as well. We got Brock, Petey and Horvat. They are good enough to elevate those around them as well. I think his numbers will turn out to be quite solid because the skill of the aforementioned players combined with his size

should open up the play and create lots of chances. He has enough skill to finish in front of the net. I can see him getting those tap ins and garbage goals if he can just have a decent hockey IQ and be able to create space.

This post was edited by Killingyouall on Jul 15 2019 08:24pm

inb4 playoff berth next year #lmk

gross

Small victory: the Canucks aren’t in the bottom five. They’re extremely close though and it comes from their unfettered desire to be big players in free agency despite their contention window not being open yet. Through that avenue they acquired Loui Eriksson in 2016, then Antoine Roussel, Tim Schaller and Jay Beagle last summer, and this summer signed Tyler Myers, Micheal Ferland and Jordie Benn. In total, the team is spending $86 million on those players. The return on investment: 6.7 wins over the life of the respective deals, a cost of $12.8 million per win. Overall, the team is bottom five in how much money they spend per win and those deals are a big part of it. Almost all of that value comes from Roussel, Ferland and Benn too – the lone deals that look like they might be OK. The others are a disaster; dead cap space waiting to happen.

The Canucks already rate pretty high in that they have $11.2 million of dead money on the books, but they add to that with the players they spend it on. You can add Brandon Sutter to that list too. He’s one of four Vancouver contracts in the D-range, a distinction that ties the team for most such contracts in the league.

There are some good values here that mitigate some of the issues like Bo Horvat’s sensible contract, J.T. Miller’s courtesy of Tampa Bay and depth signings like Josh Leivo, Oscar Fantenberg and Alex Biega – but overall it’s pretty bleak. It somehow leaves Vancouver – one of the worst teams last season – with a limited amount of cap space to sign Brock Boeser. If not for Elias Pettersson doing god’s work on an ELC, this team wouldn’t have much sense for optimism. Even with him, I’m not so sure thanks to their inexplicable lack of cap flexibility.

pretty hilarious that Pearson came from a cap dump exchange and yet his contract is numerically better than most of Benning's UFA splashes

surprised to see Tanev a negative and Bae a positive tho

This post was edited by Hizkuntza on Jul 17 2019 07:56pm

With these advanced statistics it just seems as a general rule free agent signings are terrible value unless you go for the unheralded players on cheap contracts.

Some teams managed to do well with bigger names, but for the most part it looks terrible on paper when you go after the big fish in the fa market.

I will always like Tanner Pearson because we got rid of Gudbranson in that trade.

it makes sense as free agency is basically GMs trying to create value without giving any existing asset, but in a weird way the negotiating power of FAs means they can in fact lose assets if a contract turns out bad.