The Vancouver Canucks have added another upgrade to their forward group, signing Micheal Ferland to a four-year deal worth $14 million.
Most of the big NHL free agents signed on July 1. Micheal Ferland was not one of them. The Vancouver Canucks have reportedly signed the 27-year-old forward to a deal, according to TSN‘s Darren Dreger. This deal is a four-year contract worth a total of $14 million. It has an average annual value of $3.5 million over that time.
With Ferland signed, the Canucks have a shade over $6 million of cap space according to CapFriendly, though they have to send several players down, which should give them more cap space.
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Ferland is coming off of a 17 goal, 40 point season with the Carolina Hurricanes during the 2018-19 season. While he has only hit the 20 goal mark once in his career, he has hit over 40 points in the last two seasons.
Ferland is seen as a second or third line forward who can move anywhere in the lineup when needed.
With the Canucks landing Ferland, the big question the Canucks needed to answer this summer may have been answered – who is the other winger on Bo Horvat’s line? He will join trade deadline acquisition Tanner Pearson.
Pearson put up 9 goals and 12 points in the 19 games after being acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins at the trade deadline. Adding Ferland seems to line up with what the Canucks were looking for.
Also, adding him cements that Canucks are definitely going into the 2019-20 season with more size. After being pushed around at points last season, it seems that Canucks general manager Jim Benning has doubled down on his attempts to make the team bigger with already having signed Tyler Myers (6’8″, 229 pounds) and Jordie Benn (6’1″, 204 pounds).
The Canucks were also linked to a trade involving Milan Lucic earlier in the season after Lucic said he wouldn’t mind going home to Vancouver on Sportsnet 650.
Worth noting that Ferland missed a bit of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs until the Eastern Conference Final due to an Upper Body Injury. In the four games against the Bruins, he put up one assist and averaged 12 minutes of ice time. Ferland played in seven games overall.