Canucks Acquire Brandon Sutter From Penguins

“I just want to do what is asked of me. I hope to play an increased role and it sounds like a good opportunity to be a second-line center,” – Brandon Sutter on his new role in Vancouver.

While it’s hard to see a loved player go – in the case of the Pittsburgh Penguins – they just gave a lot of fans a reason to be excited for the upcoming season.

Trading forward Brandon Sutter to the Vancouver Canucks is actually a good thing for the Penguins. His $3.3 million cap hit was putting the Pens in a tough situation, and adding two completely capable players for nearly the price of one by also signing Eric Fehr.

This new opportunity for Brandon Sutter is not something that he takes lightly, even calling it a “perfect fit”. Sutter and the Canucks are focused on getting a potentially long-term contract figured out within the next few days.

“It’s a good feeling and hopefully over the next few days we’ll get something figured out,” Sutter said about signing with the Canucks. “If you would have asked me four years ago if I thought I would have been traded twice by now, I would have said no, but I didn’t want to go through the process of playing the whole year and not knowing each day what will happen and have to worry about the trade deadline.”

The Sedin twins are some of the most respected players in the league, and Sutter is just one of those many fans.

“It’s going to be fun in Vancouver,” Sutter said during his conference call. “The Sedins have been elite players in this League for a long time; there’s not many players who have played as many years and are still very much elite. It was fun to watch them, even as a kid growing up, so it’ll be fun playing with them.”

Sutter- who had 21-goals, and 33-points last season with the Penguins- has the potential to be one of Vancouver’s top centers. With so many young players coming up through Vancouver’s organization, adding Sutter could be a good way to help them mature in their game.

“There are also a lot of players between the ages of 19 and 22 that are making strides on the team and a few coming up too, and that was also exciting for me. You need certain things to win in this League, and they have good goaltending, a good defense. I just thought it almost the perfect fit for me.”

When asked about the prospect of becoming a second-line center, he said,”I hope so; I think with the Sedin’s and Bo Horvat, I’m not too concerned with my role.”

The three years that Sutter played with the Penguins -including three post-seasons- are not something that he is just going to move past.

“I really enjoyed it. You know, it was my first three years in the playoffs- three years in a row, I got that experience,”said Sutter on his time in Pittsburgh. ” There’s a good group there. I can’t really say anything bad about it. I thought we had a good team and unfortunately with the way the business is now, things change a lot now…It was a good experience for me and I definitely think that I’m a better player than I was when I first went there.”