The Vancouver Canucks have signed forward Griffen Molino out of Western Michigan University in the NCAA to a two-year, entry-level contract.
There isn’t much information out there about Molino, who was second on the Broncos in scoring this past season. He wasn’t in the upper echelon of NCAA free agents, though he was an honourable mention on SB Nation College Hockey’s list of the top free agents. Jim Benning describes him as a “competitive two-way forward with good speed and defensive instincts on the penalty kill.”
Various reports seem to agree with that assessment: he’s a strong and quick skater who commits defensively. With that kind of profile, you might hope for a bottom-six future for Molino.
There are some red flags, however. The biggest is his age. At 23, Molino was on the older end of players in the NCAA, which makes it hard to assess his production. He scored 26 goals and had 58 points in 76 games across two seasons with the Broncos, which is decent production, but not particularly eye-catching when it comes to university players. But at 22 and 23, those numbers get less impressive.
In his draft year, Molino was playing for Little Caeser’s U18 in the High Performance Hockey League, a six-team tier-one amateur league. He wasn’t a standout either, scoring just 4 goals and 14 points in 26 games. He didn’t break out until three years later in the USHL, scoring 64 points in 57 games as a 20 year old in the same season Brock Boeser scored 68 points in 57 games as a 17 year old.
You have to wonder if a 23-year-old who couldn’t put up a point per game in the NCAA has the skill necessary to play at the NHL level. With his speed and defensive acumen, he might make it, but it’s a long shot.
There’s nothing wrong with a long shot, of course. Alex Burrows was a long shot once and a free prospect is a free prospect. The one caveat is that he takes up a spot under their 50-contract limit and the Canucks already have a lot of long shots within that 50.
The Canucks recently signed Zack MacEwen, an overager in the QMJHL who put up 31 goals and 74 points in 66 games while playing with top Blue Jackets prospect Vitali Abramov. They did the same thing last season with another Abramov linemate, Yan-Pavel Laplante, who crashed hard in his professional debut this season, ending up in the ECHL, where he has 18 points in 32 games.
Other long shots include free agent defencemen signings Ashton Sautner and Jalen Chatfield, though there’s reason to be hopeful about Chatfield. Then there’s long shot draft picks like Mackenze Stewart and Rodrigo Abols, both of whom seemed like better choices to invite to a prospect camp rather than spend a draft pick to acquire.
One defence of acquiring players like Molino, MacEwen, and Sautner is that they provide depth for the Utica Comets, but that’s what seems odd about some of these moves. The Canucks own their AHL franchise and could use that to their advantage, signing long shots to AHL deals instead of taking up spots on their list of 50 contracts.
An example of that would be Curtis Valk, who the Canucks invited to camp but eventually cut and sent him to the AHL for a tryout, where he earned a contract. With that in place, the Canucks could assess Valk over several years and see whether he has an NHL future.
At the same time, I can’t complain too much. To a certain extent I’ve advocated for a shotgun approach to building a prospect pool, acquiring a plethora of prospects and picks in hopes that a couple will emerge as legitimate NHL players. It just seems like the Canucks could acquire players with a higher chance of success along the way.
