David Booth’s agent, Mike Liut, hasn’t heard from the Vancouver Canucks about the possibility his client could be bought out of his remaining contract.
“I haven’t heard anything from Vancouver (today),” Liut told The Province this morning. “I called [Canucks general manager Jim Benning] a couple of weeks ago and spoke with him about David then. That was before before the club’s meetings and he was still getting up to speed on things. I asked him to give me a heads-up if they came to a decision.”
Booth, 29, had nine goals in 66 games for the Canucks in 2013-14. He was also an occasional healthy scratch and spent some time in the AHL on a conditioning assignment.
With just one year remaining on his contract (cap hit $4.25 million), the Canucks may choose to keep Booth and hope the veteran winger can regain the form that made him a three-time 20-goal scorer in Florida. Or, they could try to trade him, perhaps offering to retain part of his salary in the deal.
Vancouver has already used one of its two compliance buyouts, last summer on Keith Ballard. Besides Booth, Jason Garrison and Alex Burrows are the other Canucks that have been bandied about as potential buyout candidates.
Related: Torts thinks Booth is a ‘weird dude’ (but not in a bad way)