Canucks Officially Sign Schneider

The Canucks managed to pull off yet another deal on Friday, as they have officially signed UFA defenseman, Mathieu Schneider to a deal. The details were not disclosed in the news release, but the rumoured deal was to be worth $1.5 million over a single season, which if held true, should be a good deal for the Canucks.

Schneider, 40, split time between Atlanta and Montreal in 2009, playing in 67 games, scoring 9 goals and adding 23 assists. Even at that veteran age, Schneider was picking up plenty of power play ice-time for the Habs upon his return, which definitely helped his overall production for the year. Schneider finished as the 47th ranked defender in terms of pool points, which should still keep him in the discussion for being draft worthy this Fall.

Now, with three new defensemen added to the line-up the Canucks theoretical roster looks a little something like this...

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Daniel Sedin	Kevin Bieksa	Roberto Luongo
Henrik Sedin	Christian Ehrhoff	Andrew Raycroft
Ryan Kesler	Alex Edler
Pavol Demitra	Mathieu Schneider
Alex Burrows	Sami Salo
Mikael Samuelsson	Willie Mitchell
Steve Bernier	Shane O'Brien
Kyle Wellwood	Brad Lukowich
Mason Raymond
Jannik Hansen
Ryan Johnson
Darcy Hordichuk
Rick Rypien

This roster, however, is now way over the cap ceiling and there are a few names still omitted from it. If Schneider's rumoured amount is to be correct, then the Canucks have now filled out their 23-man roster, but at an approximate cap hit of $60.6 million, a large $3.8 million over the set amount.

Signing Schneider is a very good move for the team's power play, as he should be able to not only provide some good minutes with the extra man, but also help other defenders like Kevin Bieksa and Alex Edler to become better power play quarterbacks.

Giving a solid nod to how the fantasy numbers will work is really tough at the moment, especially since the team has to make a move or two to clear the cap space.