The NHL free agent market opened up today and Mike Gillis did not disapoint!
Dan Hamhuis - 6 years @ $27M ($4.5M/year)
Manny Malhotra - 3 years @ $7.5M ($2.5M/year)
Jeff Tambellini - 1 year @ ????
Joel Perrault - 1 year @ $510K
I think the Hamhuis signing is definitely not bad considering how much the other D were going for on the market (ie. Z. Michalek @ $4M/year etc.). I was hoping we could get him for $4M or $4.25M but no complaining here. The Malhotra signing seems a bit high now at $2.5M/year but I thought the same thing last year when we signed Samuelsson. I guess we'll have to see.
Three of those players have BC connections: Hamhuis is from Smithers, BC. Malhotra's wife is from Vancouver Island and Tambellini grew up in Port Moody and has been around the Canucks organization growing up.
Based on our signings today it looks like Kevin Bieksa's time with the Canucks is done. We had around $10M starting today but looks like we used up close to $8M already and we still haven't gone to arbitration with Raymond yet (expected).
Looking forward to October now!!