Hamhuis Chooses Vancouver

It appears like the Canucks have gotten one of their desired free agents, giving themselves even more depth on the blueline this Summer. The Canucks signed Dan Hamhuis to a 6-year deal worth $27 million, a $4.5 million cap hit. Apparently from the word on Twitter, Hamhuis even took less money to join the Canucks and now he is locked up for the long-term. The Canucks also signed unrestricted free agent forward, Jeff Tambellini to a 1-year, two-way deal on Thursday, but cap information was not available.

Hamhuis has been a solid defenseman in his years with the Nashville Predators, but with the emergence of both Shea Weber and Ryan Suter, the responsibilities of Hamhuis had fallen off and so had his scoring.  In 2010, Hamhuis only managed 24 points in 78 games with the Predators, which was good enough for 69th among all defensemen, but not good enough much consideration for bigger and better things.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Henrik Sedin	Christian Ehrhoff	Roberto Luongo
Daniel Sedin	Alex Edler
Ryan Kesler	Sami Salo
Alex Burrows	Keith Ballard
Mikael Samuelsson	Dan Hamhuis
Manny Malholtra	Kevin Bieksa
Rick Rypien	Andrew Alberts
Darcy Hordichuk	Aaron Rome

One of the main goals for the Canucks in this off-season was to get more depth on defense and that is what they have done between the end of the playoffs and now.  Adding both Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis to the mix already looks good on the roster, while still having RFA rights to Shane O'Brien seems to tickle some fancies as well.


The salary cap figure isn't all that friendly with the Canucks at this point in time, especially with a few bigger names now on the list.  The Canucks now have 17 players signed on (8 forwards, 8 defense and 1 goalie) the chart, which could include Cory Schneider, pending a good training camp and they have an annual salary cap hit of $54.9 million.  There could still be some shifting around of some money before it's all said and done, but that's where the Canucks stand right now.


The Canucks have accomplished a great deal on Thursday, adding some key components in Malholtra and Hamhuis, but if there is still more work to be done, it's hard to say too much.  So far, GM Mike Gillis has to be pleased with his body of work and Roberto Luongo should be pleased about the two new pillars that are going to be stationed in front of him.