Another one of the Vancouver Canucks free agents seems set to test the open market.
A new report today suggests that Sam Lafferty will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and see what offers are out there.
“Sam Lafferty is expected to hit the free agent market,” writes The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta. “The Canucks and Lafferty’s camp have spoken recently, and he hasn’t closed the door on Vancouver, but he seems interested in exploring his options at this moment.”
The Canucks originally acquired Lafferty just before last season from the Toronto Maple Leafs. The deal looked genius over the first half of the year as the forward had nine goals and nine assists over the first 41 games, providing solid depth scoring.
The winger even got to play alongside Elias Pettersson at one point and looked quite solid.
However, Lafferty’s production fell off a lot over the second half of the season. He scored just four goals and added two assists for six points over the latter part of the year. He followed that up with no points in 11 playoff games and was even a healthy scratch at one point in the postseason.
This year still represented a career-best in goals and points for the American-born forward.
Lafferty also brings solid size to the table as he’s 6-foot-2 and weighs north of 200 pounds. However, he often failed to use that fact to his advantage when his scoring dried up, resulting in him making little impact on the game.
The 29-year-old made $1.15 million last year as a depth option and will likely earn a similar number on a new contract. He’s played on four different NHL teams throughout his career thus far.