Jim Benning鈥檚 off-season work is all-but done. The draft picks have been made, the unrestricted free agent veterans signed, and the restricted free agent young鈥檜ns re-signed. All that鈥檚 left is to sign a few aging free agents to professional tryout agreements heading into training camp.
Oh, and Bo Horvat.
Horvat is the Canucks鈥� final restricted free agent and easily the most important. He鈥檚 the odds-on favourite to succeed Henrik Sedin as the Canucks鈥� captain. He鈥檚 front and centre on the Canucks鈥� marketing as the new face of the franchise. With the Sedins declining, he鈥檚 .
It鈥檚 essential that Benning and the Canucks don鈥檛 let negotiations with Horvat go long enough to become a distracting story. If training camp was about to begin and Horvat was still unsigned, that would become the story rather than the start of the Canucks鈥� season.
That鈥檚 why the report today from Don Taylor on TSN 1040 is such welcome news.
Taylor played coy with his co-host, Bob 鈥淭he Moj鈥� Marjanovich, out of nowhere after a discussion about lacrosse. He asked The Moj when he expected Horvat to get signed and he replied that he thought the contract would be announced just prior to training camp as a dose of good news heading into the start of what will likely be a rough season.
Clearly, Taylor had a scoop he was waiting to drop, letting his co-host go as far as betting a coffee on Horvat getting signed shortly before camp.
鈥淓arly next week,鈥� said Don Taylor. 鈥淎 little birdie has told me that it will be early next week...Bo Horvat will be signed early next week, at least, if he hasn鈥檛 been signed already, the public announcement will come out early next week.鈥�
There are a couple possibilities here. One is that the contract is already signed and they鈥檙e delaying the announcement. Another is that the contract is fully negotiated, but they鈥檙e waiting to finalize it until Horvat comes to sign it in-person. And a third possibility is that the contract isn鈥檛 actually done, but they鈥檙e so close as to making it inevitable that it will be done in a week.
If the contract is done and they鈥檙e just delaying the announcement, that it could be timed to coincide with the launch of Sportsnet 650. The new sports talk radio station kicks off on Monday, September 4th and it certainly seems plausible that the Canucks might throw a bone to their new broadcasting rights holders.
My suspicion is that the Canucks want Horvat to be there to sign the contract pen-to-paper rather than doing it by fax or electronically. That gives the marketing team a chance to make a signing video, take photographs, and conduct some on-camera interviews. Horvat is the face of the franchise now and they鈥檒l want to give him some serious face-time.
