Report: Travis Hamonic set to resume his NHL career

The curious case surrounding Vancouver Canucks defenseman Travis Hamonic just got a bit more curious.

The 31 year old Hamonic was, of course, signed to a two year $6 million contract by the Canucks in the offseason, but did not report to training camp and has subsequently been suspended by the team. While he was initially given a temporary leave of absence and then sent to the AHL's Abbotsford Canucks, the team officially suspended him last week and have issued a further statement that Hamonic would remain at home with his family and may join the team at a later date.

Now Canucks insider Matt Sekeres is reporting that Hamonic is indeed back in Vancouver and is set to resume his NHL career.

From Sekeres:

Now, whether or not that means Hamonic joins the Canucks or not no one knows. It's plausible that he could be traded to another team, but it's worth mentioning that he cleared waivers earlier this month with no takers.

In the offseason Canucks insider Rick Dhaliwal reported that Canucks defenseman Travis Hamonic was seriously considering retirement at just 31 years old and the belief around the league is that his reasoning was due to the NHL's vaccine mandate. 

Still, neither the player or the team have made mention of COVID-19, vaccine mandates or anything else in their statements. In other words, we're speculating here mostly but Dhaliwal is a pretty well respected Canucks reporter and I think that his words likely carry a lot of meaning.

It's also worth noting that Hamonic opted out of the NHL's return in 2020 due to concerns over his daughter who has respiratory issues. Again, we can only speculate as to what this means but I'm certain that his family's health is at the forefront of his decision making.

When pushed by the media, Benning has doubled down on the fact that Hamonic is dealing with a private matter and that he won't be sharing the details with the media, no matter how much they push. So with that in mind I'll reserve judgement on anything related to Hamonic until I know the full picture of his story.