The Vancouver Canucks and winger Thomas Vanek have agreed to a one-year, $2 million contract, the team announced on Friday. The deal comes on the tail end of the offseason, with training camps scheduled to commence within the next few weeks.
Vanek started the previous NHL season with the Detroit Red Wings before moving to the Florida Panthers to finish out the 2016-17 season. The Panthers acquired Vanek on March 1 for defenseman Dylan McIlrath and a third-round pick in the 2016 NHL draft that became Finnish defenseman Kasper Kotkansalo.
The 33-year-old has not been the player he once was when he started in the NHL, but he posted 38 points in 48 games with the Red Wings last year. After the trade, Vanek then only scored twice in 20 games as the Panthers failed to make the playoffs.
While he was once a consistent 30-goal scorer, Vanek hasn’t bested that mark since the 2010-11 season when he played with the Sabres. The Canucks picked him up on an extremely cheap deal, as the team still has $5.3 million in cap space left to play with before the start of the season.
The deal is also extremely movable, should the Canucks want to send him to a competitor for future assets before the 2018 trade deadline in March.