The Canuck Way - A Vancouver Canucks blog

For many people, hearing of the death of Rick Rypien was shocking. Shocking in a way because no one knew how serious his life had changed. It slipped right past everyone and shook the hockey world in a summer that saw us lose many of the NHL’s best enforcers.

In honor of Rick, The Vancouver Canucks For Kids Fund has partnered up with Fraser Health, Provincial Health Services Authority, and BC Children’s Hospital to relaunch a website called Mindcheck. This website is to help or assist people who are struggling with mental illnesses and to help people gain a better understanding of what people are going through who have a mental illness. You are able to read a personal account by Vancouver’s own Kevin Bieksa, who as we all know was Rypien’s closest friend on the team.

The NHL had to lose too many players over the summer for people to finally try and take action. With the help of this website, players, staff, coaches will be able to try and look for signs of mental illness and should be able to help save the lives of everyone who is struggling with their problems.

Everyday fans, family, and teams are reminded of the players they lost and are doing their best to honor the lives of fallen comrades. All we can do is remember the good memories, the goals, and the laughs that they had while in the best place in their lives. Having lost Bourdon, Rypien, Williams, and Demitra, the Vancouver Canucks have persevered under rough conditioned and are doing the best the can to make a name for the players they have lost.  With every new day, the memories never fade and with the help of everyone this problem will no longer go without notice.

If you or someone is struggling with a mental illness please do not let it take over. You are loved by many and you are able to get through your life. The good does disappear but so will the bad, always remember that.

A day after Henrik Sedin admitted that their effort against the Florida Panthers “wasn’t good enough”, the Tampa Bay Lightning were able to hold the Sedin line to a single point, and a combined minus-four rating.  Not to worry, the Vancouver Canucks are getting contributions from secondary sources.

"Backup" goaltender Cory Schneider stops Steve Stamkos (NHL scoring leader) to seal the shootout win [photo courtesy of AP Photo

With revenge on their collective minds, the refreshed San Jose Sharks took advantage of their New Year’s break and handed the Vancouver Canucks a 3-2 shootout loss.

Antti Niemi makes good on his poke-check on Alex Burrows during the shootout (photo thanks to AP Photo)

Five days previous, the Canucks used the overtime session at the HP Pavillion in San Jose to continue their run of success in San Jose.  Andrew Ebbett redirected a Kevin Bieksa point shot for his 4th goal of the season.  Fast forward to Monday night at Rogers Arena, where the Sharks reeled in a tired Canucks squad playing it’s fourth game in 6 nights.  Vancouver had won the first two games of the season series in San Jose.  The Sharks’ (defenceman) Dan Boyle spoke to the style of the burgeoning rivalry between them.  ”They’ve been close (games).   They’ve just been on the winning side of it.” Continue reading this post »

Somewhat fueled by the media (yes, I recognize that includes The Canuck Way in a watered down sense), much of the buzz around Vancouver this season has been the ‘goalie controversy’, and who the Canucks should keep, and conversely, who they should jettison.  I say Vancouver keeps ‘em both.

Cory Schneider provides the Canucks one of, if not the best tandems in the NHL (photo courtesty of vancouversun.com

All indications thus far from General Manager Mike Gillis point in this direction.  Several times during Cory Schneider’s hot run, Gillis was asked if they were going to move their back-up goaltender.  Several pundits vocalized that the Canucks needed to make a move, to bring in another piece, possibly on one of the wings, or a top four defenseman.  While the addition of one the afore-mentioned pieces might make the lineup look more complete, I assure you, it would hurt the teams’ depth. Continue reading this post »

Mark Messier, a member of the Hall Of Fame and former Canuck is going after Vancouver claiming that they still owe him salary from his contract in Vancouver. He signed this 3 year (6 million a season) contract with Vancouver in 1997 as a free agent.

Mark Messier as a Canuck. (Håkan Dahlström from Flickr)

To keep it simple, he did nothing in Vancouver other than hurt his image. Trevor Linden willingly gave his captaincy to Mark Messier and he accepted, this did not go well with Canuck fans. Neither did Linden’s departure shortly afterwards.

Mark Messier also demanded to wear number 11, a number that was unofficially retired due to the unexpected death of Wayne Maki in 1974.  A classless move, especially since he was new to the city – not a great way to start his tenure in Vancouver. This in a way reminds me of how I expected Victor Oreskovich to change his number from 38 to something else, in order to respect Pavol Demitra who passed away in the Locomotive plane crash.Vancouver was Demitra’s last NHL team, and he wore number 38. Changing your jersey number just seems like the right thing to do out of respect for those who departed.

During Mark Messier’s tenure in Vancouver they missed the playoffs all 3 seasons. Messier only notched 158 points over those three seasons and his last two were shortened because of his injuries. The Canucks had no intentions of signing him when his contract expired.

What money does Vancouver owe him? Apparently there were a few “clauses” in his contract about how he was supposed to be bought out at an amount of 2 million if he was not resigned after the 3 seasons. Rumour has it that he is seeking a large amount of money. Doesn’t he have enough money? From a combination of his NHL salary, appearance payments and commercial appearances, he must be loaded. This issue will be settled through arbitration sometime in the future.

Be careful Mark, or you’re going to become even more hated in Vancouver then you already are. Because of your poor performance, it seems like you owe Vancouver more than they owe you. We blame you for: no playoff appearances, departure of our beloved Trevor Linden, taking our 94 Stanley Cup, getting us fat from Lays chips, and for being the opposite of a leader; we thank you Mark, for being nothing but disappointing in Vancouver. You may have won 6 Stanley Cups, but you do not have the heart of a Canuck.

Today I am going to be starting The Ex-Canuck Factor segment where weekly I will talk about one former Canuck and where they are now. This idea was formed by Frank Rekas on therattrick.com.

With the current goaltending controversy in Vancouver I thought I should start the first edition of The Ex-Canuck Factor with a former Canuck goaltender. You guessed it – Dan Cloutier! Now put that beach ball away and try to remember the best and the worst of the fierce Dan Cloutier.

Dan Cloutier making a save during his time in Vancouver (tenderslounge.com)

Continue reading this post »

Roberto Luongo and one of his beautiful glove saves. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)

A few days ago, The Canuck Way writer Balraj wrote about how Roberto Luongo and Corey Schneider will both be staying in Vancouver this season. He described how it would be Vancouver’s best option. You can read his article here. But for now, I am going to refute his article and describe why I think trading Cory Schneider or Roberto Luongo before the trade deadline is the best option for the Vancouver Canucks.

To start off, my biggest reasoning for either Roberto Luongo or Cory Schneider being traded by trade deadline is because I believe it will give the Canucks the best chance at the Stanley Cup this season. This of course depends on what type of acquisitions GM Mike Gillis would be able to bring into Vancouver. A power forward second liner to play with Ryan Kesler? Or even big stay at home top 4 defenceman? Both of these would provide a valuable asset to the Canucks during their 2012 Stanley Cup run. Vancouver was so close to the Stanley Cup last season and with a similar team this season Vancouver is still Stanley Cup contenders. This is why improving the team now is the best option: Vancouver wants to win and in order to do that the team needs a couple adjustments to improve from last season. Continue reading this post »

Shea Weber (Shannon Byrne)

Every NHL fan has thought about their dream player on their favourite NHL team. You may love your current team, but face it; there is always room for improvement. Most NHL fans may choose players such as Sidney Crosby (healthy preferably), Alexander Ovechkin, Nick Lidstrom, or even Steven Stamkos. Personally I like to choose a more realistic player. Sure having one of the above players on the Canucks would be absolutely fantastic, but the chance of that happening is more unlikely than Aaron Rome winning the Norris trophy. When it comes down to choosing an effective and realistic addition to the Vancouver Canucks, I instantly think of Nashville Predator Shea Weber.

Continue reading this post »