Late on Thursday night, the Canucks let slip that they have signed Scottie “Beam Me” Upshall to a Professional Try-Out contract. That makes Upshall the second PTO for the Canucks heading intro training camp after signing Ryan White to one just over a week ago.
With the Canucks splitting their roster for the first few games of the pre-season, with one squad heading to China, it makes sense to bring in some additional veterans to fill out the lineup. Considering the young players angling for roster spots, however, it’s hard to imagine either White or Upshall earning a contract.
That said, this is not an unfamiliar position for Upshall. Two seasons ago he came into training camp with the St. Louis Blues on a PTO and earned a one-year contract after four pre-season games in which he scored one goal. He showed enough on the Blues’ fourth line to earn another one-year deal, but was cut loose as an unrestricted free agent after last season.
The 33-year-old has the speed to keep up with the pace of the quickening NHL and can hit, grind, and forecheck to a coach’s delight. He can still be a decent fourth-liner, with most of his effectiveness coming on the defensive side of the ice, but that can be a hard sell in free agency, where teams are frequently looking for offence more than defence.
Upshall has bounced around the league in his career, playing for six different franchises, and has settled into a role as a reliable fourth-liner who can contribute on the penalty kill and occasionally chip in some offence. He’s several years removed from his best offensive seasons, but still scored 10 goals for the Blues last year.
Overall, Upshall is a moderately useful utility player, the type of guy that a playoff contender might bring in as a 13th forward. He’s not the type of guy, however, that a rebuilding team trying to make room for youth normally signs.
Upshall will be competing with a wealth of other wingers for a limited number of spots. Even if you just look at wingers likely to play a bottom-six role, there’s Brendan Gaunce, Jake Virtanen, Derek Dorsett, Zack MacEwan, Jayson Megna, Michael Carcone, Joseph LaBate, and, if he winds up on the wing, Alexander Burmistrov.
Add in more top-six oriented wingers like Brock Boeser, Anton Rodin, Nikolay Goldobin, and Reid Boucher, and it becomes really hard to see a path onto the Canucks roster for Upshall.
That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. No one expected Jack Skille to make the Canucks last season, but he earned his way into the lineup with a strong pre-season and was a staple on the fourth line. Upshall's ability to kill penalties appears to be of primary interest for the Canucks, who struggled in that area last season, so there's an outside chance they'll give him a shot.
If Upshall doesn’t land with the Canucks, he might get called overseas. He’s received offers from Europe and the KHL, which would leave open the possibility of playing for Team Canada at the Olympics, which has to be a tempting proposition for someone who hasn’t played for Team Canada since captaining the World Junior team back in 2003.
