Eddie Lack Traded To Carolina For...Not Much

On June 30th, 2013, the Canucks traded Cory Schneider to NJ for the 9th overall pick (good ol' Bo Horvat) with the logic being they still had a starter and a young upstart named Eddie Lack to fall back on.

On March 4th, 2014 the Canucks traded Roberto Luongo and Steven Anthony to Florida for Jacob Markstrom and Shawn Matthias with the logic that the Luongo nightmare had to end and it's Eddie Lack's time to shine.

Then, on June 27th, 2015, Lack was traded to the Hurricanes for a third round pick (#66) in the 2015 Entry Draft and a seventh round pick in the 2016 Entry Draft with the logic being...head hits keyboard, bleeding profusely...

This makes fine sense for the Hurricanes, a team that still has Cam Ward ($6.8-million) and Anton Khudobin ($2.5-million) in the crease, so clearly Lack gives them a cheaper option in net and a possible heir apparent for Ward. And, oh, won't it be fun to see where Khudobin ends up. (Update: He's a Duck, splendid)

From the Canucks end...ugh. Benning refused to put Ryan Miller and the two years left on the table, so was left with Lack - who has had NHL success albeit limited - and AHL-darling Markstrom. Markstrom was never going to fetch much and perhaps Benning overplayed his hand with Lack's value leading into the draft (especially with Cam Talbot still being a Ranger this morning not to mention the Sharks/Bieksa mess from yesterday) so he was left with a third round pick staring at him. Benning won't say no to picks, but you can forget the 7th rounder unless you're excited at the idea of who could be the next Mario Bliznak.

The third round return for Lack is uninspiring but fine; maybe the pick could have been higher if the Canucks had the cap space to eat a bad contract in return. The bigger issue is Lack was a better long term solution than Miller and the largely untested RFA Markstrom (so he'll need a bump in pay) and he's out the door for not much help in the short term and questionable in the long term.

Now Benning has to hope like hell Markstrom can at least be a competent back-up and Miller doesn't get injured (or run over, hello Milan!) while trying to stick to that playoff mandate. If Miller leaves at the end of next season, it'll be the Markstrom show or [insert free agent name here] since Thatcher Demko won't be close to ready.

Would now, as Benning enters the second day of the draft with one less goalie and still not a ton of cap space left to make moves, be a bad time to remind everyone we're still losing $800,000 a year until 2020 on Luongo? Probably. Nevermind.