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Your Rebuild Now (May) Include Nikita Tryamkin

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He's a monster. Pierre McGuire would be so proud.

By Kent Basky
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Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

[Ed note: This post was originally titled Хорошие новости, товарищи! Трямкин знаки с Кэнакс! which we're told had to be changed to Хорошие новости, товарищи! Трямкин подпишет контракт с Кэнакс!. Sorry about that, as you may have guessed, we are very much not Russian]

While Trevor Linden tried to spin gold out of this season's garbage results at today's townhall, this little bit of relevancy snuck in the side door:

Tryamkin was Vancouver's 3rd round selection (66th overall) in the 2014 draft, a guy that at the time our own VanCityDan called his favorite pick of the draft:

With their own 3rd round pick the Canucks took a player that may end up comparing to Zdeno Chara in the "Boston Model" that it looks like we are following. He is massive, at 6'7", and a what has been reported from 228 lbs on his official numbers at NHL.com.

It's true, on a team that has Biega at 5'10'' as the smallest defender, and their cornerstone Edler at 6'3'', Nikita strolls in and towers over all of them. Assuming, that is, that he actually makes the team due to some existing cap issues.

Sure, he's a work in progress, and this is by no means a sign that the problems are solved. He is, however, something that this team has been missing on the back end for some time now: A large, but skilled, physical defenceman. When you think about having him and Andrey Pedan back there, instead of say... Weber and Bartkowski? Suddenly you feel as though the constant problem of teams being able to go to the Canucks net (and as happens far too often, through Ryan Miller and Jacob Markstrom) without fear of reprisal may be coming to an end.

He's been steadily improving in his time in the KHL, and will get a look with the Canucks for the rest of the season. It's not a lock he's gonna be part of the mix heading into next year, but I do like the fact that there actually seems to be some focus on trying to fix the ungodly mess that is the Canucks' D.

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