OEL declined because of injuries, not pressure. He hurt his foot and his speed dropped so much that he was a liability. When he was put on IR, the Canucks got better.

on the upside, him playing bottom pair minutes will probably be good for him. On the downside, you're paying alot for a bottom pair defenseman

must be nice

Low risk high reward. Bill Zito excels at these types of signings

Good signing imo.

They needed defensive depth. You could do a lot worse than OEL to supplement their awesome trio of Ekblad, Forsling and Montour, especially with Ekblad out the beginning of the year.

OEL will look a lot better attached to a 2.25m cap hit

Definitely overpaid. Not worth dumping Duclair to sign this player who very clearly is bad (which Arizona and Vancouver have experienced first hand)

One of the worst signings of the day. I thought he would retire rather than face the embarrassment.

Really? His on-ice value was $900,000 last year. His on-ice goal differential was 19.4 worse than expected. The Canucks got better when he was in IR.

He ... he injured his foot and now he's not fast enough to play in the NHL. This has nothing to do with cap space or pressure.

Yes, I believe you can. Once you're bought out, you immediately become an unrestricted free agent, unlike players on expiring contracts, who don't become free agents until July 1.

I feel like they did this because of their injury situation. Maybe Ekblad and Montour are going to be out longer than initially thought, and since OEL had experience as a top-pair defenseman they figure he can move up and down the lineup. When Ekblad and Montour come back I guess he becomes and overpaid third-pair guy.

I'm going to be honest, I know nothing about this guy's play since being traded. I just know he was clearly good for awhile on Arizona, and that the contract he signed there wasn't absolutely terrible after he signed it.

Anytime a ceiling is established, I believe the player can find their previous form. I doubt he'll ever score a bunch of goals again, but as far as being someone you can trust to play over 20 min a game, yeah I don't think that's too far off.

Last year in Van, I would say there were some other circumstances with the coaching and the goaltending where maybe it wasn't the best situation for him. I mean he chose to come there, remember, and it immediately lit on fire.

But yeah Florida does need some defensive depth. We'll see how the nice weather and being on a team that just came off a Cup final appearance makes him look.

I'd imagine he would be motivated as well, being on a one year deal.

I have a work deadline today, so of course I was looking at hockey stats instead. So far OEL has three points in six games. That's great, right? His on-ice goal differential is 7.3 BELOW expected. And you can't blame the goalies for that, because Florida's goalies have a combined 1.2 saves above expected. So far, this is not a good signing.

So far, he's leading the defense corp in possession, expected goals, and high-danger chances along with poor puck luck (PDO = 0.985). He is also performing better relative to his team in these categories so I'd say this signing has been showing great results.