With Thatcher Demko and Spencer Martin manning the crease for the big club, he will likely be the third goaltender and the first call-up should one of them go down with an injury. First up is goaltender Collin Delia, who signed a one-year deal worth $750,000. Now all they need is two other guys like him to fill it out, Tyler Motte, anyone?Īfter the duo that will definitely play for the Canucks during the 2022-23 season, we turn to the depth pieces that could potentially fill in when the injury bug strikes. Sounds like the perfect fourth-liner to me. He is also a physical presence and can score when the opportunity presents itself. Lazar may not put up 20 goals, but he will play the perfect game on the fourth line and be a character guy in the dressing room. Given his presence and hard-working demeanor, Lazar is a safe pick with a lot of potential.” – Patrick King, Sportsnet.ca Although not overly shifty or dynamic, he does everything well. He’s known for his infectious smile and bubbly personality, and has the leadership traits that made him an alternate captain in just his second season in the WHL…He plays hard defensively and will deliver a big hit when the moment presents itself. He possesses the soft hands in tight to score, and is unselfish in his approach to spreading it around.
He plays an honest, hard-working game at both ends of the ice and will stand up for teammates at a moment’s notice. Touted for his two-way gritty game before he was drafted, he is exactly what the Canucks need in their bottom six, as he will stand up for his teammates and make the opposition think twice about taking liberties on stars like Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes.
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Needless to say, Lazar checks a lot of the boxes that Allvin and Jim Rutherford had going into free agency, which were size, speed and ‘sandpaper’. What’s more impressive is that he did it playing only 12 minutes a night. In fact, he set a career-high with 186 last season, which would have been second behind Luke Schenn’s 273 and 14 more than J.T. While he hasn’t lived up to his first-round status, he has become a reliable option in the bottom six, especially in the hit department where he’s eclipsed the century mark four times. Likely acquired to replace Juho Lammikko, the 27-year-old will bring size and grit to the fourth-line center position along with a decent body of work in the faceoff circle. Selected 17th overall by the Ottawa Senators back in 2013, Lazar signed a three-year contract with the Canucks worth $1 million AAV.
If the Canucks are lucky, he could become a player like Alex Burrows or Jannik Hansen, a Swiss Army knife that can adapt to any role his head coach gives him. Even when he’s not scoring, he is still versatile enough to play up and down the lineup and contribute on special teams where he scored four power-play goals and four shorthanded goals. His career high of 21 goals and 32 points in 53 games might be a flash in the pan with his unsustainable 14.3 shooting percentage, but that doesn’t mean he won’t add value to the bottom six. Mikheyev also plays a very sound two-way game and is a possession monster, posting one of the best Corsi-for percentages on the Maple Leafs at 55.3 percent. He is also a terrific penalty killer, which was a major sore spot for the Canucks last season as they finished with one of the league’s worst PK units at 74.9 percent (tied with the Seattle Kraken for 31st in the league behind the Detroit Red Wings).
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Arguably one of the fastest skaters in the NHL, he is a handful for defenders when he is darting towards them at full tilt. A lack of speed was identified, and the Omsk native has that in spades. Signed out of Russia by the Toronto Maple Leafs when he was already 25 years old, the 6-foot-3, 195-pound Mikheyev is the exact package Allvin and Rutherford were searching for when they took over the team and assessed its strengths and weaknesses.
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