Kenins gets a year to live up to potential
Ronalds Kenins made an immediate impression with the fan base and is getting a chance to make a more lasting one with the Vancouver Canucks.
The restricted free agent was signed to a one-year, one-way contract Monday at just over the NHL minimum salary of $575,000 US because, at his best, the 24-yearold bowling-ball winger was a speedy and disruptive fourth-line force with a flair for big hits and the occasional goal.
Dubbed the Latvian Locomotive, part of the rationale for the signing was to not give up on a player who teased of potential. He had four goals and a dozen points in 30 regular-season NHL games and a goal in five playoff games. The undrafted Kenins added five goals and 12 points in 36 games with the Utica Comets and was recalled from the AHL affiliate Jan. 29.
Kenins must process the game better and be better without the puck, but he should improve after it was revealed at the end of the season he needed four to six weeks to recover from a knee injury.
“I thought he started off well and gave us a physical presence when he came up and showed us some skill,” Canucks general manager Jim Benning said Monday before departing for GM meetings in Las Vegas. “He then kind of hit a lull, but toward the end of the year he picked it up again. We’re looking for good things from him because he’s a good skater and has some thickness to him, so he can get in on the forecheck.
“He’s got good hands and I think he can play with good players because he can make good plays in tight spaces.”
The Canucks clearly didn’t want to give up on that potential, so they also dangled the one-way contract carrot.
“There’s always the fear with players from Latvia or Russia that they can head back there because they get offers to play,” Benning added.
“We want him part of our plan and keep growing from where he finished off last year. With any player it’s consistency and he’s a good prospect for us.”
The Canucks have 11 projected NHL roster forwards under contract and still must come to terms with restricted free agents Sven Baertschi and Linden Vey, and make a decision on Brandon McMillan.
Benning said he’d been interested in bringing back unrestricted freeagent centre Brad Richardson, but winger Shawn Matthias appears destined to hit the open market.
Restricted free-agent defencemen Yannick Weber and Frank Corrado are signing priorities and Adam Clendening probably is, too, but Ryan Stanton may not be. If Jacob Markstrom is retained, the RFA goalie needs a new deal, too.
The Canucks have about $4.6 million US in cap space and most will go to resign players.
There are also those second- and third-round picks Benning is trying to recoup before the draft Friday and Saturday in Sunrise, Fla. He can dangle Eddie Lack or Markstrom in a trade and ask Kevin Bieksa to waive his no-trade clause to land more picks in a rich draft.
OF NOTE: The Canucks also resigned RFA centre Alex Friesen to a two-year, two-way contract that pays $575,000 at the NHL level. Friesen, 24, had 10 goals and 30 points in 60 regular-season games with the Comets and four goals and 10 points in 23 playoff games. “He showed up every game and played hard and is a high-character kid,” Benning said of the sixth-round pick in the 2010 draft. “He could be a guy who gives us depth if we need to call somebody up.”