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Vancouver Canucks Place G Richard Bachman on Waivers
The Vancouver Canucks have gotten one step closer to their opening-night roster by placing goaltender Richard Bachman on waivers.
With the preseason schedule wrapped up, the Vancouver Canucks are working on trimming their roster down before opening night. They got that process started by placing goaltender Richard Bachman on waivers yesterday, with the intent to send him to the American Hockey League’s Utica Comets.
If Bachman gets to Utica, he will likely fill the role as Thatcher Demko’s mentor. That could mean starting Bachman and bringing Demko along slowly, or starting Demko with Bachman taking pressure off him as the backup. However, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that Bachman will get to Utica, although he probably will.
Because Bachman has a two-year contract, he might be appealing to teams with only one goalie under contract for next season because of the rules surrounding the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft. Here are the rules surrounding goaltenders for the expansion draft per NHL.com.
[Each team must expose] One goaltender who is under contract in 2017-18 or will be a restricted free agent at the expiration of his current contract immediately prior to 2017-18. If the club elects to make a restricted free agent goaltender available in order to meet this requirement, that goaltender must have received his qualifying offer prior to the submission of the club’s protected list.
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Pending any mid-season acquisitons, the only goaltenders that meet those requirements in the Canucks system are Bachman and Jacob Markstrom. The Canucks extended Bachman’s contract a year early, which is usually reserved for teams’ star players. With Bachman, it leads to the conclusion that he is Vancouver’s “sacrificial lamb”, if you will.
If you look at a team like the Minnesota Wild for example, the only goaltender they have that is eligible for the Expansion Draft is Devan Dubnyk, whom they will want to protect. They do have Darcy Kuemper and Alex Stalock in the system, but both are unrestricted free agents at season’s end. If they feel they might not be able to get either of them signed before the expansion draft, they will need to target a player like Bachman so that they can protect Dubnyk.
Although this scenario is a possibility, it is not one that is very likely. In reality, there is not much to worry about with Bachman on waivers. Theoretically, he should pass through waivers and will be mentoring Demko throughout the year.
However, if it does happen, the Canucks will need to look for another goaltender with a contract for next year, because they won’t want to expose Markstrom to a Las Vegas team that could find him to be a very appealing option in the Expansion Draft.
Bachman will come off waivers at 9 A.M. today and the Canucks will need to get down to their opening night roster by 2 P.M. on Tuesday. It could prove to a very interesting next few days for Canucks fans.
This article originally appeared on 
