The Two-Line Pass

Because I tend to not blog on the weekends, here is a feature that will run through the entire season. It aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact about each team. And hell, there’s a ton of other crap for me to blather on about too. And yes, I’m totally ripping off just about every other blogger ever’s weekly column, but that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own time.

Danger: This post contains language that some people might not like. This will be the only thing on the site that regularly does so.

I’ve been sick of Mats Sundin since July or so, and now that he’s signed with Vancouver I wish everyone would just shut up about him.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Lead

Earlier tonight, I was trying to compose my thoughts about Trevor Linden for this thing here and, I dunno, it made me feel kind of conflicted. I mean, the guy played for the Canucks for like 17 years, and as a Flames fan, especially one that still remembers the first round in ‘94, it’s not easy to line up with him on that.

As such, and because I’m not a fan of the Canucks, it feels more than a little strange (and frankly a bit inappropriate) that I’m going to say what I’m about to say.

As a hockey fan, how can you not love and respect Trevor Linden? A good kid outta Medicine Hat that only ever wanted to play the game and help the community. You’ll never hear anyone say a bad word about Linden, who gave so freely of his time and energy. Not from the fiercest of opponents, not from a fan on the street, not from anybody. Trevor Linden always exuded genuine, honest class. He is the perfect ambassador for not only the sport of hockey, but sport in general. All professional athletes should aspire to be what Trevor Linden always was, is and will be.

He never scored 50 goals and he never sniffed 100 points. He didn’t play his entire career in Vancouver. That doesn’t matter, though. Trevor Linden will always be the greatest Canuck to pull on the sweater.

This video, which ran tonight ahead of the Canucks’ fitting 4-1 win over Edmonton, says more about what he means to Vancouver — both the franchise and the city, as a player and a person — than I ever could:

Thanks for everything, No. 16. You earned it all and more.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is what caused Jason Arnott to beat the hell out of Alex Burrows last night.

That might be a charge. Actual quote from the Sportsnet color guy at about 1:18 of the video: “The question the Predators are gonna ask as we take a look at the hit here is, ‘Did Burrows leave his feet?’ Ehhhh, it… I don’t THINK so. Well, maybe.”

Yeah, maybe.

We all know that if you take a penalty, you go to the box for two minutes, ya know, by yourself, and you feel shame.

But according to some Canucks, that feeling apparently doesn’t last the entire two minutes. Alex Burrows has the experience down to a much more regimented science.

“The first 30 seconds or so I probably think about what I did wrong, that I should not have done that,” Burrows says in a French-Canadian accent reminiscent of Lemieux’s.

“Then I spend about 30 seconds praying for the guys to clear the puck and then the last minute is just getting ready, drinking some water and toweling off. With about 30 seconds left, I’m getting ready to go back on. I usually stand up with around 10 seconds left.”

There is apparently little variation from box to box around the league, but Kevin Bieksa found out that when there is, it’s usually best to ignore it.

“They are all pretty much the same, although some arenas are tougher in terms of the people sitting around you,” Bieksa says. “I had a beer dumped on me last year in Phoenix.”

Bieksa does his best to ignore the taunts of fans while sitting in the box, but sometimes he can’t help himself.

“I maybe just squirt them with the water if they are getting a little too mouthy,” he says. “But that’s how I ended up getting that beer dumped on me. Some rinks are tougher on you than others.”

I don’t know what’s cooler, that Brad Ziemer from the Vancouver Sun came up with the idea to do this article or that Burrows and Bieksa were so forthcoming and awesome about sharing some of their stories and feelings on the subject.

But what about that part at the end, where you get free?

“I’m always thinking about getting a breakaway as soon as I get out of the box,” Bieksa says. “That still hasn’t happened, but if it ever does I am prepared.”

Here is your absolute, no-one-close surefire Quote of the Week and early Quote of the Season favorite, courtesy of the Canucks’ Kevin Bieksa.

Bieksa, in his first game back after spraining his MCL against the Flames last weekend, played somewhere between 12 and 14 minutes, depending upon who you believe, in the FIRST PERIOD of Sunday’s game with Chicago.

Said Bieksa, when informed of the stat:

“It [expletive] felt like it.”

After an incredibly underwhelming display in his only regular season game of the year, the Canucks have officially placed Kyle Wellwood on waivers. That’s the second time in four months.

Maybe it was the fact that his only game was part of Tuesday’s pathetic offensive display in which the Canucks put 10 shots on net in 60 minutes. Maybe it’s that he turned the puck over several times even if the NHL’s official stats don’t show that (giveaway/takeaway stats are notoriously iffy, just like hits). Maybe it’s that he’s too injury-prone and afraid of contact, just like everyone in Toronto said he was.

Whatever the reason, this could be it for Wellwood’s NHL career, and he’s just 25 years old. The Canucks brought him in because they were worried about offensive production, but they’ve scored 16 goals in four games, so it’s not like that’s a huge concern any more either. They have no use whatsoever for a player that doesn’t hit, doesn’t work hard, and doesn’t score.

But the cruelest insult of all came in this CBC release:

Never the most toned player even at full health …

Ouch.

The Lead

The above photo is a rare look at the Vancouver Canucks’ offense against the Washington Capitals.

Know how on NHL.com you can click on a goal in a box score to see it play on NHL.tv? Head on over to the Vancouver/Washington box score and click on “Watch” next to Alex Edler’s goal. The 15-second clip shows not just the Canucks’ only goal of the night, but also their only offense. Almost literally.

Through the first two periods tonight, Vancouver put three shots on goal. Two in the first (the goal) and one in the second. ONE! It was honestly the most pathetic attempt at conjuring offense I’ve seen at the NHL level, ever. No exaggeration. How does Washington’s so-so defensive system hold any team, let alone a team that’s scored 11 goals in its first two games, to that little offense?

The fact that the embarrassment was broadcast on the Versus HD feed for 20 people to see made it somehow worse. Iain McIntyer summed it up best in the Vancouver Sun: “It was grotesque and bewildering, and in the context of the last month for the Canucks, we hardly know what to make of it. Besides kindling.”

It didn’t help that Alexander Semin and Mike Green seemed singlehandedly determined to shoot the puck every chance they got (the two combined for 11 shots, one more than the entire Vancouver roster), and three of those attempts went in. The padding provided by goals from Milan Jurcina and Michael Nylander, the latter on a salt-in-the-wounds penalty shot, was just the Caps’ way of kicking sand in the Canucks’ faces.

‘Course, it didn’t help that Alain Vigneault tinkered with the lineup that worked so magnificently against the Flames twice in three nights. First, he opted to swap out rough-and-ready Darcy Hordichuk, who admirably scrapped with Andre Roy and fired up the bench on Saturday, for the (theoretically) handsier Kyle Wellwood, who turned the puck over a couple of times and didn’t seem interested in anything resembling backchecking. Second, and this was obviously not his choice and thus not his fault, but Rob Davison was a poor substitute for Kevin Bieksa at the blue line.

Skill vs. Skill doesn’t work when the other team’s best skill player is Alex f’n Ovechkin. Ovechkin, though, was notable by his invisibility tonight. He registered three shots and no points against the Ohlund-Mitchell pairing, who, y’know, play physical, in 23-plus minutes of ice time.

Vancouver’s off until Thursday when they face another skill team, this time Detroit. Yeah, that’ll go well. Enjoy the puck-free practice tomorrow, boys.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is pretty much the only logical choice the Canucks could make. Vancouver needed a new guy to wear the C after seven-year captain Markus Naslund bolted for New York, and didn’t really have anyone left that could take over convincingly (read: Trevor Linden).

So the responsibility fell to Roberto Luongo, who can’t wear a letter on his jersey, as per NHL rules. Luongo is also only the fifth goalie in league history to receive the honor.

“I’m ready for that responsibility,” Luongo said. “I feel that last year, even though I didn’t have a letter, I was part of that leadership group.”

Because Luongo can’t have a letter on his jersey, Ryan Kesler, Mattias Ohlund and Willie Mitchell will all wear the A for games. If Luongo was smart, he’d stick a “C” on his helmet.

Here is a nice video about all this from the Canucks site. Mike Gillis credits Ryan Walter with getting this all squared away. It is also important to note, by the way, that this is certainly a move meant to discourage Luongo from hitting the market in two years when his Vancouver deal runs out. It worked on Naslund for as long as the Canucks found him useful.

Luongo is the first goalie to be team captain since 1947-48, when Bill Durnan of the Canadiens rocked the C proudly. Some might remember, and I think I am correct in saying this, that Durnan was the player that held the record for most consecutive shutout minutes before Brian Boucher broke it a few years ago. Durnan also wore two gloves that allowed him to catch the puck because he was ambidextrous. That’s all I know about Bill Durnan.

For the record, the other goalies to captain a team that were not Luongo or Durnan are John Ross Roach of the 1924-25 Toronto St. Pats, George Hainsworth of the 1932-33 Canadiens, and Charlie Gardiner of the 1933-34 Black Hawks.

During this summer’s Olympic Games, much was made of the diets of both greatest-swimmer-ever Michael Phelps and the fastest man that ever lived, Usain Bolt.

Phelps, of course, eats close to 38 trillion calories per meal. Bolt eats nothing but yams and Chicken McNuggets.

Inspired by their stories, Kyle Wellwood spent the entire offseason living with that guy that’s eaten 23,000 Big Macs. Not surprisingly, he has shown up to Canucks camp out of shape.

Sunday, after the conclusion of the NHL team’s two-day training camp, head coach Alain Vigneault revealed that Wellwood’s fitness tests on Friday were not up to standard.

This is one of those “we told you so” things for the Canucks, who claimed the promising but doughy 25-year old off waivers from the Maple Leafs. The complaint with Wellwood in his Toronto days was that he was often fat and lazy. When you google anything nowadays, one thing that happens is Google completes the phrase that you’re typing and gives you the number of hits it finds. When you type in “Kyle Wellwood,” the second term that comes up, and thus the term most often searched as it relates to Kyle Wellwood without just being his name, is “Kyle Wellwood fat.”

For a professional athlete, I bet that’s a bad thing. This post, from a Maple Leafs-centric blog, is full of all kinds of mean (and accurate) things about Wellwood’s Buddha-like physique.

Of course, Wellwood has also cooked up a host of excuses, some of them legitimate. He has had several hernia surgeries and broke his foot playing indoor soccer early in the offseason. As a result, he missed a bunch of time he would have allegedly spent training (driving through Tim Horton’s counts!) and his fitness level started well behind the rest of the team.

There was a sequence Sunday where Wellwood won a battle for the puck on the side boards, stick handled around two defenders and created a quality scoring chance. But there were other moments this weekend when Wellwood was seen huffing and puffing and looking as though he wouldn’t make it through practice.

Wellwood has a week to get his fitness tests to an acceptable level. If he doesn’t, he’s out.. the Canucks’ one-dimensional offense notwithstanding. He can’t hit and he can’t play defense, so his worth to the team without being in shape is nil.

“If he can’t be an offensive player, he can’t compete here. So, he has to play to his skill set,” Gillis said.

One assumes that, should he get bounced from the team, Wellwood’s career will be on its last, pudgy hippo legs.

One thing of which Ryan Kesler can’t be accused is being unambitious. As an example, Mr. 81-points-in-238-games says he doesn’t want to be considered just a checking-line player.

“I want to be that guy, the guy the coach looks to put on the ice at the end of a game to win it. That’s what I’m striving for. I’m striving to be a marquee player on this team, a guy who can score 70-80 points a year. I think I’m on the right track. I had a good stepping stone last year.”

EIGHTY points a year? Ryan Kesler? Sure, you scored 21 last season. Great. Know how many the average 70-80-point guy scored last year? 30. So just increase your scoring by 43 percent next year and you’re golden, buddy!

For reference, by the way, there are only six players of the 39 that scored 70 points or more last year and had fewer than or as many goals as Kesler’s 21: Nicklas Lidstrom (10), Scott Gomez (16), Ales Hemsky (20), Patrick Kane (21), Henrik Sedin and Marc Savard (both 15). Several of them missed at least 10 games. But y’know what they do instead? Distribute the puck to the tune of slightly better than Kesler’s 16 assists.

So where does Kesler get off saying he deserves it just because he scored 21 goals on his o…

He had power play opportunities last year with the Sedin twins and was given a brief shot to centre a second line, flanked by linemates Ryan Shannon and Markus Naslund.

But there’s an explanation.

“It had to do with chemistry. I didn’t play with the right guys. With some guys you have it and with some guys you don’t,” Kesler said.

Okay well you’re right about that. It’s not like the Sedins could have chemistry with just about anyone on the ice.

“I’m not saying I’m going to go out there and score 30 goals this year, but I really believe I can be that kind of player,” Kesler said.

Why not focus on believing more realistic things though? Try saying, “I believe I’ll have a sandwich.” That’s the kind of thinking anyone can get behind.