Canucks, Alex Burrows starting to talk contract

Alex Burrows is entering the final year of his contract with Vancouver. (Getty Images)

Alex Burrows is entering the final year of his contract with the Vancouver Canucks, and his agent, Paul Corbeil, tells CKWX in Vancouver that the two sides are in the early stages of working on a contract extension for the 31-year-old winger.

He's coming off a 28-goal, 24-assist season with the Canucks this past season and has scored at least 25 goals in four straight years. Over that stretch he's in the top-30 among all NHL players in terms of goals-per-game, which makes him a pretty good bargain for the Canucks on his current contract which counts just $2 million against the salary cap.

Obviously, any new contract is going to give him a pretty sizable raise.

For the better part of the past four years, his most productive in the NHL, Burrows has been a regular part of Vancouver's top-line alongside the Sedin twins, Henrik and Daniel. Needless to say, playing alongside talents like that has been pretty beneficial to his development as a player and career. Just take a look at his production during 5-on-5 play over the past four years (specifically the number of goals scored per 20 minutes, as well as Corsi % -- the number of total shots attempted) with the Sedin's compared to his production without them.

(numbers via stats.hockeyanalysis.com)

He's still a very good player without them, but obviously the Sedin's are giving him a bit of a boost offensively and really helping to push the play.

If the Canucks and Burrows eventually come to terms on an agreement he's looking at, at the very least, an average annual salary that doubles what he's currently making, and probably more.

Just as a comparison, Detroit's Johan Franzen has scored at a pretty similar pace as Burrows in recent years (and is roughly the same age) and is making just a little under $4 million per year on a the 12-year deal that he signed prior to the 2009-10 season.

If the two sides don't come to a new agreement before next July 1, Burrows would hit the unrestricted free agent market. The group of potential free agents for next summer is an impressive one and could include guys like Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Joffrey Lupul, Scott Hartnell, Niklas Backstrom, Patrik Elias, Mike Fisher, Travis Zajac, and Valtteri Filpulla. Of course, many of those players will re-sign with their current team never make it to the free agent market.

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