The waiver wire was good to the Vancouver Canucks on Monday.
Not only did the Canucks get their goaltender back but also their newly acquired puck-moving defenceman cleared waivers, allowing both to be re-assigned to the AHL.
Jiri Patera bounces back from the Bruins
The Canucks placed goaltender Jiri Patera on waivers a week ago but, to their great surprise, he was claimed by the Boston Bruins, who needed goaltending insurance when contract negotiations with Jeremy Swayman turned sour.
Those negotiations were resolved on Sunday when Swayman signed a lucrative eight-year contract with the Bruins with a cap hit of $8.25 million. That's a lot to pay a goaltender who has yet to start in more than 43 games in a season but Swayman may well live up to the deal. His .919 save percentage over the last four seasons is better than that of Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy, albeit in around 100 fewer starts.
With Swayman back in the fold, the Bruins had no more need of Patera. They already have Joonas Korpisalo as their backup in Boston. So the Bruins placed Patera back on waivers and the Canucks re-claimed him.
Since the Canucks were the only team to file a claim on Patera and since they were the team that initially waived him, they can send him directly to the AHL without him having to once again clear waivers.
That clears things up nicely for the Canucks' goaltending situation, as Patera can back up Nikita Tolopilo with the Abbotsford Canucks until Thatcher Demko returns from injury. At that point, the Canucks may have to reassess their goaltending situation, as Arturs Silovs would be the most likely candidate to get sent down to the AHL, creating a logjam in Abbotsford. That's a problem for the future and one that could be moot if further injuries strike.
Erik Brannstrom clears waivers, heads to Abbotsford
Patera was one of five players claimed off waivers on Monday. Fortunately for the Canucks, Erik Brannstrom was not one of those four other players.
The Canucks traded for Brannstrom on Sunday from the Colorado Avalanche in a move that was less about acquiring Brannstrom and more about clearing Tucker Poolman's cap hit from their books so the team could avoid having to use LTIR to be cap compliant. The Canucks sent Poolman with $500,000 retained to the Avalanche, along with a fourth-round pick and received Brannstrom in return.
While clearing cap space was the intent of the trade, Brannstrom could still be a valuable piece for the Canucks in the future. With 266 NHL games under his belt, Brannstrom has more than twice as much NHL experience as the four other left-shot defencemen the Canucks have in the AHL put together.
As an undersized defenceman with limitations in his defensive game, Brannstrom certainly has flaws, but he's also a fantastic skater and decent puck-mover who can effectively transition the puck up ice. That's something the Canucks' blue line lacks beyond the top pairing of Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek.
There's also a question of how healthy the left side of the Canucks' defence in the NHL can be this season. Carson Soucy was limited to 40 games last season, while the newly-acquired Derek Forbort played just 35. The Canucks can hope that both stay healthy for the entire season but odds are they will face injuries on defence at some point. If and when that happens, having Brannstrom waiting in the wings is a major step forward in terms of depth.
The question now is how the Abbotsford Canucks will divvy up the ice time between all of their defencemen.
Brannstrom will join veterans Christian Wolanin and Guillaume Brisebois, as well as prospects Kirill Kudryavtsev and Elias Pettersson, and AHL signing Layton Ahac on the left side. While Brannstrom has experience playing on the right, Abbotsford also has Cole McWard, Jett Woo, and Christian Felton on the right side.
There is some question of when Cole McWard will be ready to return from his offseason surgery, so that will temporarily ease the logjam, with one of the six left-side defencemen shifting over to the right side until he returns.
