Ehrhoff Dealt to Vancouver

San Jose announced that the team has acquired center Patrick White and defenseman Daniel Rahimi from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for defensemen Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lukowich.

Vancouver gets: Some depth on defense and a decent puck mover in Ehrhoff.

San Jose gets: a stay-at-home rearguard in Rahimi and a disappointing pivot in White. Both prospects are a long ways off and neither are a guarantee. However, they are not so old that they should be written off. Far from it. White is a former first rounder who is not even 21. Coming up is his third year of college hockey and a breakout is not farfetched. The key here is unloading Ehrhoff. He is a $3.1 million cap hit and they took no salary back. Add in Lukowich and the Sharks just shed $4.6 million. Did they give up great players in return? Don’t kid yourself. Ehrhoff put up solid fantasy numbers with 42 points, but the team clearly tried to cut his ice time but were unable to as a result of injuries and little depth. He was a minus-12 and he was also a healthy scratch on a couple of occasions. Canucks fans – do not overrate. He’s a good No.4 when paired with a safe partner and he can co-run the second PP unit.

Fantasy Impact: Despite the negative words above, there is a potential for Ehrhoff to have a Dennis Wideman type of impact. Wideman is an example of a player who was scratched sometimes in St. Louis, scratched initially on occasion in Boston, but injuries thrust him onto the top power play. He’s been a 50-point player ever since, thanks to that luck early on (hey – if Chara didn’t miss a few games, and the B’s didn’t lose Alberts, Ference and Ward for so long, Wideman would never have tallied 36 points in 2007-08 – which in turn would have meant less of a role this past year, and thus no 50 points. Follow?).

If all defensemen in Vancouver are healthy, I think you will be surprised when Ehrhoff barely gets you 30 points. Given that Kevin Bieksa is a Band-Aid Boy though, I think the potential for the ‘Wideman Effect’ is there. He needs a bounce.