Canucks Assign Schneider... For Now.

The Canucks are in the middle of some crazy salary cap math and today in the midst of locking down their roster for the deadline, it looks like GM Mike Gillis has made a couple moves to give himself a little flexibility, but it will only last for so long.

In the movements on Wednesday, the Canucks sent Cory Schneider, Alex Bolduc and Jeff Tambellini down to the Manitoba Moose, while recalling Lee Sweatt, giving the Canucks a 22-man roster for the deadline. The Canucks are likely going to send Sweatt back for Schneider and Bolduc before Saturday night's season opener, but for cap purposes, this is how the Canucks look for now.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Henrik Sedin	Christian Ehrhoff	Roberto Luongo
Daniel Sedin	Alex Edler	Eddie Lack
Ryan Kesler	Sami Salo
Alex Burrows	Keith Ballard
Mason Raymond	Dan Hamhuis
Mikael Samuelsson	Kevin Bieksa
Raffi Torres	Andrew Alberts
Manny Malholtra	Aaron Rome
Jannik Hansen	Lee Sweatt
Tanner Glass
Rick Rypien
Guillaume Desbiens
Peter Schaefer*
Cody Hodgson

With Alex Burrows and Sami Salo on the LTIR to start the season, a 22-man roster (not including the unsigned Peter Schaefer, who is with the club on a professional tryout) and a cap overage penalty from 2010 on their books, the Canucks currently have an annual projection of $57.6 million, but with some complicated bits of math and rules about bonus cushions floating around, there will likely be a little bit more movement before its all said and done.

There is plenty of high expectations with this Canucks club going into the 2011 season and for the most part, it all comes with good reason.  The Canucks have found some depth in their line-up, both up front and on the blueline, while having one of the more premier goaltenders in the league on their roster.  With the Northwest Division looking a little more loose than in recent seasons, the Canucks should have a good shot at another division title, which should vault them into the playoffs.  That's the first step, anyways...