Canucks Acquire Booth, Reinprecht

The Vancouver Canucks made a few modifications to their team. Tucker Warner has the details.

     

(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

The Vancouver Canucks shook up their middle lines on Saturday by trading wings Mikael Samuelsson and Marco Sturm to the Florida Panthers for LW David Booth, C Steve Reinprecht, and a 2013 third-round draft pick.
     Booth, in the first few years of his career, established himself as a solid two-way player with a cautious defensive style and good shooting ability, scoring a career-high 31 goals and a plus-minus rating of 10. In the 2009-10 season, however, he was sidelined for most of the season with two concussions. Last season, he showed that he retains some of his offensive ability post-injury, putting up 40 points and 280 shots, but did not display any of his previous defensive talent that made him so effective, finishing with a team-low -31 plus-minus.
     Booth will join former youth teammate Ryan Kesler on Vancouver’s second line. Kesler, one of the two best two-way forwards in the NHL with Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk, will surely enjoy having another goal-scorer on his line. Whether Booth will regain his defensive production is up for debate, but there are few players more suited to guide him back to that role than Kesler.
     Reinprecht, on the other hand, offers little more than leadership and veteran poise at this stage in his career. Once a solid player for the Coyotes, Flames, and Avalanche, he has regressed over the past few years and is no longer a viable checking-line option for an NHL team competing for a championship. He will play with the Chicago Wolves, the Canucks’ AHL affiliate.
     The third round draft pick also seems to have little value, as Vancouver GM Mike Gillis, despite making many good trades and signings during his tenure, has not enjoyed a strong draft record since he was hired in 2008. In the four drafts he oversaw, only two players have played in an NHL game, and both of those players - Cody Hodgson and Yann Sauve - were chosen before the third round.
     The Canucks do not lose much of importance in this deal. Samuelsson has scored 50 points in each of the last two seasons, but does not offer much in other areas of the game, and scoring ability is a skill that the Canucks - who had the top offense in the NHL last season - have deemed expendable. Sturm, like Reinprecht, is nearing the end of an otherwise fine career and is no more than a third- or fourth-line option at this point.
     This trade seems like it will be beneficial to the Canucks, who do not lose anyone they would have liked to keep, and improve on the defensive end, an area in which they have been struggling. This deal will likely be added to Gillis’s strong trading resume and be a key deal in Vancouver’s defense of their Western Conference championship.