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Darren Dreger was on Edmonton’s TSN 1260 on Thursday morning.

On how the Canucks basically gave up a lot of future in Wednesday’s Erik Gudbranson trade:

“Yeah, and it wasn’t an easy deal for Jim Benning and the Vancouver Canucks to make.

“Jared McCann, if you want to start there, from an NHL perspective is going to be a good NHL player. And he’s a young guy, so nothing there’s nothing but potential in Jared McCann and his game. I think you can build a case that maybe he was rushed a little bit this year, and it would have been better for him not to be playing in the NHL, but that didn’t hurt his stock by any stretch.

“He’s going to be good. But to get quality players, you’ve got to be willing to give up quality assets – and that’s what Benning has done in acquiring Gudbranson. This guy is a Top-4 NHL defenseman. He’s got enormous size. He’s, again, age-like in terms of Ben Hutton, so the development of that blueline is going to happen simultaneously, which was important.

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“And it takes some of the heat off the Vancouver Canucks as well. Jim Benning is far from done in terms of shopping. Even though it looks like the Canucks are more likely to embrace a rebuild than they are anything else, I think Benning is fully going after the renovation. ‘Let’s tweak here or there. Let’s add pieces so that this team can contend for a playoff spot as early as next season.’

“It’s not going to be easy to do, but at least now he’s got certainty in Gudbranson coming to the Vancouver Canucks, as opposed to the ongoing negotiations with Dan Hamhuis, if you will. There’s whispers and rumors about maybe Kris Russell going into the free agent pool, leaving the Dallas Stars, and Vancouver having interest there.

“Now at least he has a sure piece that he paid a premium price for, but he’s got that piece.”

Source: TSN 1260/Transcript: Nichols