Vanek hopes to aid Canucks' dismal power play: 'That's one of my specialties'

Last season, the Vancouver Canucks scored the second-fewest goals in the league. On Friday, they made a move to help correct that.

The club put pen to paper with forward Thomas Vanek, agreeing to a one-year, $2-million contract. Vanek might be getting up there in age, but he feels he can still be valuable, especially in the goal-scoring department.

"Looking at the team, they are obviously not where they wanted to be last year, but I think you can grow fairly quickly in this league and talking with (first-year coach) Travis Green and (general manager Jim) Benning, they wanted to come in and have someone help out scoring goals, and it just seemed like a really good fit for me," Vanek said, according to NHL.com's Kevin Woodley.

Vancouver finished with the NHL's second-least productive power play last season, connecting on just 14.1 percent of its opportunities. Luckily for the Canucks, that is where Vanek feels his presence can be felt the most.

"That's one of my specialties," Vanek said. "I think I am still very good in front of the net and tipping pucks and reading other players and finding that open space, so it's definitely in my mindset to come in there and work for that power-play time."

Vanek scored five of his 17 goals on the power play in 2016-17, while adding another eight power-play assists. He certainly still has value and it is because of this reason that the 33-year-old admits he never lost faith that he would sign a deal this offseason.

"After you don't go that first week or the first couple days, I knew it was going to be a longer summer," he said, "but at the same time I wasn't worried about it. I knew what I could do and what I could bring, and in fact, if anything, training harder to prove people wrong. I still feel like I can have a lot of years left and score many goals."