Canucks acquire Ehrhoff, Lukowich

The defensive shuffle continues. Today’s announcement that the Canucks had sent centre Patrick White (no, not the quarterback or the author, the team’s first-round draft pick in 2007) and defenceman Daniel Rahimi to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defencemen Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lukowich was quite an interesting one. It perhaps demonstrates some of the uncertainty still hovering around the blueline corps, and it may even show that the Canucks have started to focus on winning in the next couple of years.

First, let’s consider just the players involved in the trade. Rahimi is a 22-year-old Swedish defenceman who has spent the last two years with the Manitoba Moose of the AHL. He was a third-round pick by the Canucks in 2006, and was chosen 82nd overall. His numbers to date haven’t been impressive, though; he spent most of the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons in Sweden, but only put up two points in 39 games. He joined the Moose for the 2007 playoffs and played four games, but only recorded two penalty minutes. He started the next season with the Victoria Salmon Kings of the ECHL and put up five assists in 19 games, earning a call-up to Manitoba. Once there, he only managed five points in 41 games, though. Last season, he played 58 games with the Moose and recorded six points. It’s tough to evaluate a player’s defensive performance in the minors, but you’d hope it would be good; he certainly isn’t contributing a lot on the offensive end. At the moment, he looks like a career AHLer who may make the big league as a fifth or sixth defenceman. Not exactly a huge loss, but not insignificant either.

White may be a bigger loss. He’s a 6′0”, 186-pound centre who the Canucks took 25th overall in the 2007 draft. He’s spent the past two years playing with the University of Minnesota, one of the better NCAA teams. However, his offensive numbers haven’t been outstanding: he recorded 10 points in 45 games during his first season and 16 points in 36 games last year. That’s not bad for say, a defensive centre, but the Hockey’s Future profile of him suggests he was taken for his offensive abilities and has struggled with his defensive game. He certainly has potential, but he hasn’t emphatically proven he can compete at the higher levels yet. Thus, he may not be the biggest loss either.

Ehrhoff may prove to be a nice addition. He’s 6′2”, 200 pounds and 27 years old, so he’s got plenty of size and gas left in the tank. He’s only really been a full-time NHLer for the past four seasons, all with the Sharks, but his offensive numbers have been pretty good over that period of time. He’s put up at least 20 points every year, and recorded a very impressive eight-goal, 34-assist campaign in 77 games last year. However, his defensive performance was less than stellar last year; the team allowed 2.35 goals against per 60 minutes he played, and only scored 1.80 goals for over that same period. Still, the Canucks have a great group of mostly defensive-minded defencemen at the moment; Ehrhoff could help balance that out with his offensive talents.

Lukowich is really a throw-in in this one. He’s a 33-year-old journeyman defenceman who’s struggled with injuries over the past few years and played less than 60 games in each of the last two campaigns. He isn’t particularly offensive-minded either; he’s only recorded 15 points over the past two seasons and his GF/60 is only 1.81. However, he does appear more responsible defensively than Ehrhoff, with a GA/60 of 1.88 last season. He’s also a good B.C. guy, hailing from Cranbook (home of the Niedermayers!).

From a perspective of just evaluating the players in the trade, I’d say the Canucks easily win this one. Ehrhoff can be a very solid defenceman and has plenty of offensive talent, and Lukowich is an experienced shutdown defenceman with 640 career NHL games under his belt. Neither of the two prospects has accomplished much so far or shown any real lights-out potential (which doesn’t mean they won’t down the road, but does mean that it’s tough to predict great success for them at this point). As the Canadian Press story on the deal mentions, salary concerns come into it, though. Ehrhoff is making $3.15 million this year and has two years left on his deal; his salary goes up to $3.4 millon next year. Lukowich is making $1.8 million this year and is a free agent after it. The Sharks have some good defensive prospects coming up, so this clears some roster space for them and clears some cap space for the franchise.

There’s quite the pile-up on the Canucks’ blueline at the moment, as the NHL Numbers page shows. The top four at the moment is still quite probably Kevin Bieksa, Sami Salo, Willie Mitchell and Alex Edler, making $3.75, $3.5, $3.5 and $3.25 million respectively. Ehrhoff may press for inclusion in that group, or he may slot in as a fifth defenceman. Lukowich may compete with Shane O’Brien ($1.6 million) for the sixth slot, or he may wind up in the AHL until someone gets hurt. Moreover, the Canucks are still apparently pursuing Mathieu Schneider and are apparently close to a deal. The Fourth Period reports that Schneider’s likely to slot in around $2 million.

It’s unclear if the Ehrhoff deal will nix the Schneider one, but I’d love to see the Canucks still sign Schneider, especially if they can get him for $2 million (Update: Deal is done, and for $1.5 million! See below for more.). If they pull that off, they’ll likely go with a defensive corps of Bieksa, Mitchell, Salo, Edler, Ehrhoff and Schneider. Bieksa and Mitchell are an outstanding shutdown pairing, and the other four all have considerable offensive talent. That would slot O’Brien and Lukowich into the minors, but the injury-prone nature of Vancouver’s defence means they’ll likely be called upon before long, and both would be more than capable replacements.

Moreover, that would be a cap-efficient, Moneypuck-style defence corps, not just one effective on the ice. The lack of top-end wages gives that proposed top six a cap hit of just under $19 million. By comparison, the Philadelphia Flyers’ top six has a cap hit of $20.9 million (and that would be much worse if Mike Rathje and his $3.5 million cap hit weren’t on long-term injury replacement). Detroit pays $22.35 million for their top six. Calgary, with the addition of Jay Bouwmeester, pays $20.8 million for just their top four; they pay $22.41 million for their top six. Most of those teams have elite defencemen in their top pairing, but are using journeymen or prospects in the five and six holes to keep costs down. The Canucks don’t have any top-of-the-league superstars on defence, but they could very well have one of the deepest groups in the league this year. Moreover, they have a nice mix of youth and experience, offence and defence. That bodes well for the coming year.

Update: The Canucks have officially signed Schneider, and it sounds like it’s for $1.5 million, one year, which is even better. They’re over the cap at the moment, though, so another move may be coming.

(In honour of Ehrhoff’s German citizenship, I figured a Rammstein video would be appropriate. He may not be living in Amerika any more, but hey, any excuse to play a video with astronauts rocking out on the moon!)

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Tags: Alex Edler, Brad Lukowich, Christian Ehrhoff, Daniel Rahimi, defence, Kevin Bieksa, Mathieu Schneider, Moneypuck, Patrick White, Sami Salo, Shane O'Brien, Willie Mitchell