Wake With Elias: Reid Boucher reportedly close to signing with KHL team

Once upon a time, a young chap wrote about how the Canucks needed Reid Boucher and Anton Rodin in the line-up.

Ah, old takes are so much fun in retrospect.

Now that you’ve had your morning laugh, here are some of the Canucks news and notes for the day.

• The news of the day (although not official at the time of writing) is that Reid Boucher is close to signing a one-year-deal with Omsk Avangard of the KHL.

So as you can see from the intrepid reporting done by Ben Birnell and Rick Dhaliwal, Boucher seems like he’s on the verge of signing in the KHL, although nothing is official at this time.

No one would really be surprised if Boucher took his talents overseas. He’s been one of the best players in the AHL for the past couple of seasons, although his NHL opportunities have been few and far between.

It’s worth noting that Boucher was one of the highest-paid players in the AHL last season. His salary in the minors was $450,000, whereas his NHL salary was $750,000.

Boucher signed that knowing that he would largely be playing in the AHL. He actually spent the entire season down on the farm, while players like Zack MacEwen, Sven Baertschi, Nikolay Goldobin and Justin Bailey got the call ahead of him.

If he does end up signing with Omsk Avangard, he would be joining a team with a couple of other Canucks connections. 33-year-old Sergei Shirokov has spent the last two seasons with Omsk, while former Canucks legend Brandon McMillan also plays for the KHL team.

• Ben Kuzma had a chat with Brock Boeser, who talks about confidence, the riots in Minneapolis, and JT Miller. [The Province]
• Nick Bondi had Sportsnet’s Scott Rintoul on the latest episode of “Power of the Pure-L,” talking about Canucks’ MVPs, cap space conundrums, and Scott’s crazy adventure into the media world. [Nucks Misconduct]
• Although Boucher is likely leaving the Comets, Nils Hoglander could be one of the guys to replace him. His former teammate had some good things to say about him this morning.

Or, you know, this guy could always lace up the skates down in Utica...