Canucks lock up pending UFA Andrei Kuzmenko to a $11 million deal

This just in, the Vancouver Canucks have signed pending unrestricted free agent Andrei Kuzmenko to a two year contract worth $5.5 million annually.

The 26 year old Russian winger has 21 goals and 43 points in 47 games during his first season in the NHL. You may recall that there was a bit of a bidding war for him this past offseason following an impressive campaign in the KHL last season. 

While this might be a bit surprising to some fans, Kuzmenko has been a breath of fresh air in Vancouver this season. The Canucks have had some well publicized problems both on and off the ice this season, but Kuzmenko has been excellent. The crafty winger clearly has some natural chemistry with star center Elias Pettersson and the pair look like they have the makings of a strong top line for the Canucks for years to come. Kuzmenko has next level hockey sense and has shown a real knack for getting into scoring areas to either tip pucks in or to pick up rebounds. And Pettersson has the smarts to read Kuzmenko well and distribute the puck optimally. In other words: they're a perfect match.

The problem, of course, is that the Canucks are nowhere near competing for a Stanley Cup, yet they continue to add players on big money deals. I will say though that this signing pretty much guarantees that captain Bo Horvat is gone by the trade deadline. With Kuzmenko now under contract the Canucks don't have many good assets to trade this season, but Horvat should return some serious assets for the Canucks. Stay tuned on that front.

As for Kuzmenko, I think this contract is actually a smart bet for the Canucks it's just that other contracts to the likes of JT Miller, Oliver Ekman Larsson, Tyler Myers and Ilya Mikheyev are likely to hamper them for years to come. The thing that seems to bother some Canucks fans though is that Kuzmenko has/had tremendous trade value. He's on a cheap $950,000 deal and would be easy to fit into just about any team's cap situation. With a new deal in Vancouver though, it looks like the team has closed the door on any potential trade.