Vancouver Canucks winger Andrei Kuzmenko is in Rick Tocchet’s figurative doghouse again. With the Canucks preparing to take on the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night, Kuzmenko is set for his third healthy scratch since Thanksgiving.
“Just trying to win a game tonight and I felt this was the best lineup,” Tocchet told The Athletic’s Harman Dayal. “We’ll re-evaluate (for) the Dallas game.”
This third healthy scratch follows a report from 10 days ago where hockey insider Elliotte Friedman said that multiple teams have been calling the Canucks to inquire about Kuzmenko. Friedman, on Tuesday’s The Jeff Marek Show, revealed that the Washington Capitals are one of those teams.
Here are Friedman’s comments on the Kuzmenko situation:
Jeff, it’s unique. We’ve seen players like Daniel Sprong, your guy last year, who are scorers but only play 11-12 minutes a night but those guys aren’t making $5.5 million. I’m just curious to see how you fix this. I think Washington is a team that’s looked around at Kuzmenko but I just don’t see a trade match there. It’s not like the Canucks are going to take Anthony Mantha. I just don’t know where this is going to sort itself out aside from the fact that you can’t have a guy making that salary playing 12 minutes a night. It doesn’t work in today’s cap system. We’ll see where it goes.
Friedman mentions Mantha likely for salary cap reasons but the Capitals seem to be happy with the big winger’s play of late given the amount of ice time he’s received on the team’s de facto second line with Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas. Mantha is also tied for second on the team in five-on-five scoring with 10 points and third on the team in overall goal scoring (7).
The Capitals also aren’t in the same salary cap pickle that they were at the start of the season. With both Nicklas Backstrom and Max Pacioretty currently on long-term injured reserve, the team actually has enough cap space ($5.9 million) to add Kuzmenko’s $5.5 million cap hit right now.
Given that Pacioretty is close to making his return, that won’t remain the case for long. But, the team would still only be about $1 million shy of being able to fit Kuzmenko in and they would easily be able to find that additional space by waiving rookie forward Matthew Phillips or sending Hendrix Lapierre back down to the AHL.
Despite seeing his ice time take a hit, Kuzmenko has still put up 17 points (6g, 11a) in 29 games this season. While that is a far cry from the 74 points (39g, 35a) he put up last season with the Canucks, it’d still rank only below top line forwards Dylan Strome (18) and Tom Wilson (18) on the Capitals.
Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan has expressed interest in adding a top-six forward to his lineup for months on end now. Kuzmenko could fit that billing although he may be slightly out of the age range that MacLellan is interested in as he turns 28 in February.
“Our goal is to have a top-six guy in the right age group, from the offseason, and our goal is still to do that,” MacLellan told reporters in November. “We’re still pursuing opportunities that might present that.”
If there is any move to be made, Kuzmenko or other, it will have to wait until after the Christmas holiday due to the league’s roster freeze. At 11:59 pm local time for each NHL team on Tuesday night, no player can be traded, waived, or sent down until 12:01 am local time on December 28.
Headline photo: Alan Dobbins/RMNB
