Rip The Mesh

Get Guentzel if you can. Would make the team better, (if some other things go well).....

Dakota Joshua’s excellent north-south game could see him head east next season.

The 28-year-old winger had a breakout season with the Vancouver Canucks in 2023-24, scoring 18 goals and 32 points in 63 games while leading the Canucks in hits and playing a significant role on the penalty kill. He formed a partnership with Conor Garland on the third line that had them both playing like top-six forwards.

At a cap hit of just $825,000, Joshua was one of the biggest bargains in the NHL last season outside of players on entry-level contracts. But Joshua won’t be a bargain much longer, as he’s a pending unrestricted free agent (UFA) due for a big raise.

"We'll find the net Dakota Joshua here for the coaches to work with"
When asked about Joshua, as well as his fellow sizeable pending free agents Tyler Myers and Nikita Zadorov, Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin said, “We want to keep all those guys,” but had some caveats.

“For me, it’s not about giving one guy all the money, it’s about finding ways to be competitive and finding ways to have players that are able to improve, as we saw this year,” said Allvin. “Dakota came in here highly recommended by my staff and we have seen him over the two years take steps. 

“We’ll find the next Dakota Joshua here for the coaches to work with. I’m confident in my staff to be able to provide the right personnel for Rick and his coaches to work with and be successful moving forward.”

There was an underlying understanding in Allvin’s words that the Canucks might not be able to keep Joshua. The Canucks only have so much cap space to go around and may want to allocate that space to a more impactful, high-end player at the top of their lineup rather than someone like Joshua in the middle of their lineup. 

After his breakout season, Joshua will be a hot commodity if he gets to free agency on July 1. AFP Analytics projects a four-year contract with a cap hit of around $3.25 million, which would already be a stretch for the Canucks to incorporate into their cap picture, but his unique player profile could see him get even more money on the open market.

Could Dakota Joshua get $4 million or more in free agency?
Joshua profiles similarly to Brandon Tanev, who in 2019 got a six-year contract with a cap hit of $3.5 million per year from the Pittsburgh Penguins under Jim Rutherford. That’s equivalent to around $3.78 million under next season’s $88 million salary cap. But it’s possible that Joshua could get even more than that in free agency.

Sportsnet 650’s Satiar Shah shared what he was hearing in regards to Joshua and the Detroit Red Wings.  

“I heard that a team like Detroit might be really hot on his heels and they may be willing to go $4+ for him,” said Shah. “I don’t know how true that is, right, but if these are the things that Dakota Joshua’s camp is hearing…why do you think he’s not signing for what the Canucks are offering him?”

In other words, if rumours of teams willing to offer him $4 million are reaching the ears of Joshua’s agent, it would make perfect sense for Joshua to test free agency to see if those offers actually materialize. 

Joshua hails from Dearborn, Michigan, which is part of Metro Detroit, after all. Maybe he would welcome a return home.

If $3.25 million was already a stretch for the Canucks, going over $4 million is right out.

Allvin is right: the trick is to find the next Dakota Joshua. That doesn’t mean finding a similar player to who Joshua is now but a one similar to who Joshua was then: a player you can pay near league minimum who grows into a much more impactful role than that contract would suggest. But that’s easier said than done. 

Joshua had played just 42 games in the NHL, primarily as a fourth-line, by the time he joined the Canucks at the age of 26. It’s rare for a player like that to blossom into an everyday NHLer, let alone an impactful middle-six forward. 

Heck, in the 2019-20 season, just three years before he joined the Canucks, Joshua was splitting time between the AHL and ECHL, giving little indication that he had an NHL future at all. Joshua only caught the attention of the Canucks when he played six games for the Utica Comets during the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season when the Canucks and St. Louis Blues combined their AHL rosters.

That’s a pretty strange set of circumstances that brought Joshua to the Canucks’ attention. So, how do you find the next Dakota Joshua?

Looking for the next Dakota Joshua among the Group 6 UFAs
One place to look for the next Joshua is among the Group 6 UFAs, which Joshua was when the Canucks signed him in 2022. A player becomes a Group 6 UFA by fulfilling the following conditions: they have to be 25 or older, played at least three professional seasons, and have played under 80 NHL games.

This form of unrestricted free agency is designed so that players who are not getting an opportunity to play in the NHL are not trapped by their current NHL team. It might be a place to look for a player who deserves a chance to prove himself.

Signing a Group 6 UFA isn’t the only way that Allvin could find the next Joshua, of course. Allvin could aim to trade for an unappreciated player, sign restricted free agent whose team doesn’t qualify him, or sign an undrafted free agent. But still, Group 6 UFAs are a good place to start.

There are 52 Group 6 UFAs heading to free agency in 2024 but just 14 played at least one game in the NHL last season and just 11 of those are forwards. Here are those 14 players because who says the next Dakota Joshua can’t be a defenceman?  

Someone being sat as a lesson me thinks;

And other stuff.....................