The Peak

NHL Commentary : Nonis has more deals in store beyond Cooke trade

By Matt Lee

While the Vancouver Canucks’ trade on February 26 was by no means an earth-shattering event, I’ve got a strong hunch that GM Dave Nonis has a royal flush and has yet to lay down his cards.

The Canucks only move on trade-deadline day was a simple swap of Matts, as third-line grinder Cooke was parlayed for the more physical, less annoying, and slightly more offensive Pettinger.

Fans, before you head down to GM Place to sacrifice Nonis to the proverbial Hockey Gods, let’s be thankful he didn’t trade the first-round draft pick for Geoff Sanderson. To be honest, though, I didn’t see Cooke’s departure coming at all. Blindsided by the idea of Brad Richards coming, no one thought twice about seeing Matt Cooke leave for the East. A Canuck since being drafted in 1997, Cooke was well-known for his mind-numbing agitating skills. If he weren’t on the Canucks, we would’ve started to hate him a long time ago; he was that good.

Cooke will be most remembered for scoring two of Vancouver’s most exciting playoff goals: the tying marker against Minnesota in Game One of the 2003 Western semifinals with 1.2 seconds remaining, and the tying goal against Calgary in game seven of the 2004 Western quarter-finals with 5.7 seconds left.

However, Cooke’s trade seemed inevitable at the same time. An unrestricted free agent come July, Cooke’s speed and agitation skills may be better used on a Washington Capitals team that needs more sandpaper. Put the fact that the Canucks have a surplus of bottom six forwards into the equation and the concept seems suddenly understandable. But Pettinger? What do the Canucks expect to be getting out of him? He’s certainly not the second coming of Joe Thornton, and even as a Victoria native, don’t expect his jersey to be a hot sell anytime soon.

Here’s my take on the trades, or lack thereof, from Nonis. Let’s go ahead and say he decided to make a huge shakeup of the team at the deadline and trade the likes of Kesler, Edler, Raymond, or Bourdon for Brad Richards.

While it may have jumpstarted the Canuck offence, it would’ve been unfair to the players like Kesler, Edler, and others who have worked very hard to keep this Canuck team in the playoff picture. What kind of message would it have sent to the other Canuck prospects in the pipeline? That they’re going to showcase their talent for Vancouver for half a season, only to be traded for proven players?

It’s pretty clear that Nonis has a specific way on how he conducts trading: he’s only going to make a trade if it benefits the team in the long run and the short-term. He’s learned a valuable lesson that playoff rentals simply will not work in the NHL anymore. Eric Weinrich, Sean Brown, Keith Carney, Bryan Smolinski, and Brent Sopel were all playoff rentals in the last two years and were exchanged for a grand total of three second-round picks, two fourth-round picks, one third-round pick, and two prospects.

And while those picks may not all be sure-fire NHLers, consider the fact that the Canucks drafted Mason Raymond in the third round, Alex Edler in the third round, and Kevin Bieksa in the sixth round, and it begins to put things into perspective. It means that you can forget about playoff rentals and forget about overspending for overpaid, talented players.

Unless Nonis can find a steal to boost his team, he won’t be driving any of his players to the airport.

Nonis’s most recent blockbuster trade of Roberto Luongo was a heist. It’ll go down as the Vancouver Canucks’ best trade in franchise history and possibly one of the worst trades in NHL history for the Florida Panthers.

My newfound train of thought now is that Nonis is so enamoured by the idea of committing grand larceny from NHL teams that he’ll only pull the trigger on those type of deals or if the trade makes sense in the short term and long run.

But that’s not the only reason why Cooke’s deal was the only trade Nonis conducted. With Markus Naslund, Brendan Morrison, and Trevor Linden’s (among others’s) contracts expiring by July 1, it frees up $9.8 million in cap space — certainly not peanuts by any standard. And with the NHL’s cap set to rise from $50.3 to $54 million next season, it puts another $3 million in the Canucks’ spending pockets. July 1 is where the real blockbuster moves can be expected to come. Nonis will have the opportunity to sign any of Marian Hossa, Brian Rolston, Daymond Langkow, or Trent Hunter in order to address the issue of scoring.

The excess amount of salary cap space allows Nonis to finally land a scoring centre and/or winger without needing to sacrifice draft picks or promising prospects and roster players.

The old saying goes that patience is a virtue. In the case of Dave Nonis, patience may be the one thing that puts this team over the top without mortgaging their future.