Canucks Claim Vaananeen off Waivers

Vaananen to Van,
A play by players dream name,
too bad his games lame.

This pickup can be seen as freeing up room so the canucks can trade one of their defenseman. canucks are pretty solid on their d-core. we have edler, mitchell, bieksa and salo locked up beyond this year, and that is a very solid top 4 core.
O'brien is our fighter and he is a good enough defenseman to be on the third unit. now that we've got vaananen our top 6 seem to be locked up. Not to mention baumgartner and Nycholat, both who have played for the canucks this season during times of injury.

but i forgot to mention matthias ohlund, who is arguably the canucks most all around defenseman. he is the only one of the canucks good defenseman that is a ufa next season. given that the sedin's need to be resigned, ohlund could be the odd man out with the twins big pay raise. there is no other conclusion to draw after the vaananen pickup except that ohlund is going to be shopped. we could command a lot on the market for ohlund at the deadline. In the trade I'm not sure if the canucks are intersted in young talent that will be helpful in the playoffs, or draft picks that will be helpful in the future. either way, i think ohlund is on his way out come deadline day (except he has to waive his NTC first).

-hark