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Canucks to buy out David Booth, one of the weirdest dudes they've ever employed

Canucks to buy out David Booth, one of the weirdest dudes they've ever employed

The David Booth era in Vancouver is over, as the Canucks have placed the left winger on waivers. He'll soon become the club's second and final compliance buyout.

With that, the city of Vancouver says goodbye to one of the most unique and divisive Canucks ever, a guy that tended to make more waves for his off-ice activites -- killing a bear, kissing a bear, taking a slackline to the groin, getting married in the field where he killed his largest deer -- than his on-ice production.

Therein lay the problem with Booth. He was, as John Tortorella and others put it, a truly weird dude, and that would have been fine if he had also been a productive one. But thanks to injuries and inconsistent play, Booth never even came close to living up to his $4.5M annual cap hit, so he just became a source of annoyance for Vancouver fans.

With the Canucks taking a torch to the old regime in every meaningful way, you can see why the new regime, led by Jim Benning, might decide it was simply better to sever ties with a guy that represents the worst of the Gillis era.

Plus, there are simply better things the Canucks could do with that money.

Booth isn't a bad player. He was one of the Canucks' best possession guys, capable of tilting the ice and winning his shifts more often than not. But he couldn't convert the zone time into offence, scoring just 10 goals in his last 78 games as a Canuck.

He appeared to find himself towards the end of the Canucks 2013-14 season, skating on a line with Zack Kassian and Brad Richardson, but that's a third line at best, and, again, he's making $4.5 million a year. If the Canucks are looking to retool their second line, where Booth doesn't appear to fit, they need his money off the books.

Truthfully, Booth is the sort of guy the Canucks would likely go after as a depth pickup. He's got great possession totals, and he's coming off an injury-addled season. But saddled (Booth would love this verb) with that contract, he could only be a cap headache for Vancouver. So off he goes, to be someone else's great pickup.