Henrik, Daniel Sedin sign twin deals to stay with Vancouver Canucks

https://twitter.com/SportsCentre/status/396345248671997952

By Allan Muir

Sometimes, things work out exactly the way they should.

You know, like when the dog that gets lost on the family vacation eventually finds his way back home, or the way Indiana Jones' hat always blows back to him whenever it gets knocked off his head.

That's the sort of predictable but pitch-perfect note that recent negotiations between the Canucks and the Sedin Twins should have ended on. And so they did.

The twins signed matching four-year, $28 million extensions on Friday that will keep them with Vancouver through the 2017-18 season, essentially for the rest of their careers. That is exactly how it should be.

The deals' $7 million annual average value provides a fair wage to Henrik and Daniel, both of whom rank among the league's top 10 scorers and deserve to be two of the NHL's better-compensated players. But it's not exactly an outrageous sum. In fact, they left money on the table that would have been theirs in free agency this summer. The new figure ties them with Boston's Zdeno Chara for 25th highest-paid overall in 2014-15, and they could fall even farther down the charts after the summer's free-agent spending frenzy. So it's a number that both they and the Canucks can live with, even without a full understanding of where the salary cap is heading.

The term works well, too. The twins just turned 33 in September, so they'll be closing in on 38 when their extensions come to an end. There's been no sign of them slowing down and there's a sense that they are the sort of athletes who will age well given their fitness and general hardiness over the years. Still, it wouldn't make sense for GM Mike Gillis to over-commit here. Four years keeps the twins in Vancouver through what should be the end of their prime. If they come up short one year, no problem. And if they still have anything left in the tank, he can tack on a year or two as appropriate. For the Sedins, it leaves them with a bit of time to play with if they decide, for instance, that they'd like to finish their careers back in Sweden.