TRYAMKIN TAKES OFF
Unhappy Russian heads home
It was Canucks general manager Jim Benning who chose Nikita Tryamkin. He was Benning’s guy, and the draft pick was a beauty.
Tryamkin is 6-foot-7 and graceful on skates. This isn’t easy. The Canucks, desperate for talent, landed a valuable one and did it in the third round. They got a player they could develop into something good, maybe more. Tryamkin could have been a game-changer for a franchise in desperate need of one or five.
With a high ceiling and mountainous size, Vancouver needed Tryamkin to succeed and instead he failed, and they failed him. For a team that needs a lot to go their way to accelerate the current rebuild, this one will hurt and that hurt will linger.
The official word from the Canucks is Tryamkin left for family reasons. This, of course, is part of the story. But, generally, when players choose to leave a postcard city and the luxurious, red-meat, Ritz-Carlton lifestyle of the NHL to return to a city in eastern Russia, the reasons are plenty and complex.
In Russian interviews after deciding to leave Vancouver, Tryamkin has made some things clear. He’s talked openly about his ice time, or lack thereof, which was limited, even though he clearly outperformed Luca Sbisa and arguably Ben Hutton, too.
He has expressed confusion about why the coaching staff in some games went to five defencemen late in third periods, keeping him on the bench. Some of us watching were confused, too.
He questioned why it took so long for him to play at the start of the season (10 games), knowing the only reason he did play that first game was an injury to Chris Tanev.
He seemed genuinely flummoxed as to why the Canucks asked him to go down to the AHL, when he was so adamant that he didn’t want to do this that he had a clause about it written into his contract.
It’s clear there was a breakdown in communication between the coaches and Tryamkin and, language barrier or not, that falls on the team.
Tryamkin did believe he was better than defencemen who were getting ice time in the first 10 games, when he wasn’t playing, and when he got his chance in the lineup he proved he was right.
Tryamkin has also publicly talked about coach Willie Desjardins, though he didn’t mention that time Desjardins called out his manhood, suggesting to the press that if Tryamkin “stepped-up” during some meaningless game against the Boston Bruins that the Canucks could have won. Gimme a break. Desjardins can be kind and caring, but that stunt was a low point, and plenty of players around the league were talking about it late in the season, including Russians.
There was a disconnect, and it was ongoing, between Tryamkin and the coaching staff, but his biggest issues about that staff were actually not with Desjardins.
But even with a promised coaching change, a bad taste lingered, and it played a role in all of this.
Those coaches were bent on getting more aggression out of Tryamkin, which isn’t one of his strengths. This was talked about openly by the coaches and there were reports Thursday that staff showed Tryamkin videos of Chris Pronger, asking him basically to do the impossible, which is “be like Pronger.”
The irony is what hurt Tryamkin’s game the most this season was the penalties he took. Tryamkin was called for 27 minors. It was the most on the Canucks (no one else had more than 18) and it ranked 25th in the NHL. This for a player who missed 16 games.
The issue definitely wasn’t helped by urging him to be more aggressive.
Without those penalties, and the negative drag they created, there was a case to be made Tryamkin was the Canucks’ third-most-effective defenceman behind Tanev and Troy Stecher.
Being mean and dirty, like Pronger, wasn’t one of Tryamkin’s best skills. Skating was.
And the Canucks’ defence can actually use all the good skaters it can find.
The Canucks will qualify Tryamkin soon and can retain his rights until he’s 27 years old, which could take this to July 2022.
To me, Benning did his job here. He drafted a good player with loads of potential in a third round.
Others let him down from there, and that’s why Tryamkin isn’t going to be where he should be this fall — playing regularly in the Canucks’ top four on defence.