Luca Sbisa is the third highest-paid defenceman on the Canucks roster. At best, he’s fifth on the depth chart. And there are a bevy of defencemen trying to take that spot away from him.
Sbisa is the lone Canucks defenceman who isn’t at training camp, as he is playing for Team Europe at the World Cup of Hockey. Well, playing isn’t quite the right word, as he has appeared in just one game, but he still has the chance to watch his European teammates defeat Canada in the best-of-three final and ensure that there will never again be a Team Europe in the World Cup of Hockey.
But he may come back to a Canucks lineup that has less room for him in it than he might expect.
The top four seems set in stone. Alex Edler and Chris Tanev will take top billing, absorbing the toughest minutes and competition. New Canuck Erik Gudbranson is expected to play alongside sophomore Ben Hutton, giving Hutton the freedom to roam offensively with his steady, stay-at-home style.
That leaves the third pairing, with Sbisa presumed to be manning the left side. His most likely partner will be Philip Larsen, for whom I am cautiously optimistic. Neither player should feel particularly comfortable on that pairing, however, as there are five or six other defenceman scratching at their heels like a cheap carpet.
While all of those defencemen are less experienced than Sbisa, that’s not necessarily to his benefit. Because of his experience, Canucks fans (and management) have experienced a lot of Sbisa and haven’t always liked what they’ve seen. While Sbisa got better reviews last season than his first with the Canucks, that seemed less because he was actually improved and more because fans had a worse defenceman to compare him to. With Matt Bartkowski gone, Sbisa’s mistakes and ugly possession game might catch people’s attention once again, leaving an opening for the (slightly) younger defencemen trying to get into the lineup.
First is Nikita Tryamkin, who did not look out of place in his 13-game stint last season after coming over from Russia. Tryamkin is young, massive, versatile—he’s comfortable on either the left or right side—and is a threat to bolt back to the KHL if he gets sent down to Utica.
Clearly, Tryamkin is not going anywhere. His out-clause all-but-guarantees that he’ll be on the Canucks roster to start the season. Fortunately, he’s got the ability to go with that near-guaranteed spot.
Then there’s the Canucks’ other big Russian defenceman, Andrey Pedan, who also played 13 games with the Canucks last year, albeit many of them at forward. Pedan is waiver-eligible this season and would likely get claimed, with several other teams reportedly keeping an eye on him.
Pedan opened some eyes last year in an unusual venue: the skills competition. The 6’5” defenceman was the breakout star of the Canucks For Kids Fund Superskills http://www.vancourier.com/pass-it-to-bulis/andrey-pedan-is-the-surprise-star-of-canucks-2016-superskills-1.2143460, winning both the fastest skater and hardest shot competitions. He was also very good in Utica, showcasing a more well-rounded game than we were able to see in his brief appearance in Vancouver.
The danger for Sbisa is that both Tryamkin and Pedan are capable of bringing the same physical edge to the table that he brings, and may be able to bring some more appetizing sides along with it, like more size, better decision-making, and softer hands.
Meanwhile, two defencemen who played in Penticton at the Young Stars Tournament could make an argument to stick with the big club to start the season: Olli Juolevi and Troy Stecher.
Stecher was signed out of the NCAA this summer with the expectation that he would spend some time in the AHL, but he has made it clear that he would like to follow in the footsteps of Ben Hutton and make the jump straight to the Canucks. With his skating and ability to quarterback the powerplay, he just might do it.
Juolevi, meanwhile, will get sent back to Junior if he doesn’t make the team out of training camp, but his performance in Penticton illustrated a quiet maturity to his game that could make him a candidate to play in the NHL now. A good preseason could make it very hard for the Canucks to cut him.
Then you have Alex Biega and Jordan Subban. Biega is the kind of player that coaches like Willie Desjardins love to keep around as a seventh defenceman: you know what kind of effort you’re going to get from him. There’s a reason Biega found his way into 51 games last season.
Subban, on the other hand, doesn’t have that same level of trust from the coaching staff, but he grew into a big role on the Utica Comets last year and ended up leading all Comets’ defencemen in points. While his most likely destination is the AHL, he has the potential to surprise everyone.
That’s eight defencemen battling for for four spots on the roster. If the defencemen below Sbisa in the depth chart outperform him in the preseason, he might be in trouble.
But let’s face it: there’s little-to-no chance that Sbisa gets cut coming out of training camp. It would be absolutely shocking to see him put on waivers, simply because the Canucks’ management and coaching staff have made it abundantly clear that they believe in Sbisa and see him as an important part of the team. He and Larsen will likely start the season on the third pair with Pedan and Tryamkin as the seventh and eighth defencemen.
Later in the season, however, might be a different story. If Sbisa takes back the scapegoat mantle from Bartkowski, at what point will the Canucks try to cut their losses, particularly with Stecher, Subban, and Biega waiting in Utica? At the very least, Sbisa might be spending as much time in the press box with the Canucks as he is with Team Europe.
