Rob The Hockey Guy

It’s your lucky day! Two! Two UFA of the Day posts today. They both deal with toughness, the first was Brandon Prust, now we turn our attention to Zenon Konopka.

Name: Zenon Konopka

Age: 31

Size: 6’0″, 209 Lbs

Why the Canucks might want him: If the Canucks target Zenon Konopka it wouldn’t just be for his ability to punch people in the face. With Konopka you not only get that size and toughness but you also get someone who can kill penalties and win face-offs. He’s a character guy and adds some toughness to a not so tough fourth line.

Why the Canucks might not want him: Simply put; there may not be room for him. Not that his contract demands would be out of this world, but with Kesler, Lapierre and Malhotra, there isn’t exactly a ton of room for a centre. If Malhotra finds his game again after a full off-season of training then it would be really limit the number of games Konopka would see.

What I would do: Like I said before, his contract demands wouldn’t be out of this world. But I would offer Konopka 1 year at $900,000. $200,000 raise and you can probably forget adding term to the deal. Konopka hasn’t really been a nomad, but his longest deal in the league was for two years. I suppose it comes with the role.

X-Factor: Other than punching people, taking face-offs and killing Penalties, Zenon Konopka is quite the entrepreneur. He owns Prime Wine Products. So there you go. He plays hockey and drinks wine. If someone asked me to do both of those for $900,000 a year, I’d do a back flip.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter Mitch_SBMedia