Official 2009/2010 Canucks Thread

[silk]

do you guys think it is funny/dumb to put Mike Gillis name on the jersey ? LOL

[bengy]

^ It's dumb and funny at the same time. Funny as in "Haha look at that dumbass with the Gillis jersey. What a waste!"

[Preemo]

Well, considering he built this team with some wicked additions ... I wouldn't mind having one. But I wouldn't wear it. LOL

[Hondaracer]

IMO ovi is a better overall player now than bure ever was.

[Tim Budong]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

IMO ovi is a better overall player now than bure ever was.

QFT

[raygunpk]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

IMO ovi is a better overall player now than bure ever was.

Hondaracer, i'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but bure was the greatest player of all time!

but seriously, look at all the achievements Ovechkin has won in his first 4 years compared to Bure... that says it all. he is a better overall player indeed. i still think that Bure would get 60+ goals a season though.

[7seven]

Originally Posted by raygunpk

Hondaracer, i'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but bure was the greatest player of all time!

but seriously, look at all the achievements Ovechkin has won in his first 4 years compared to Bure... that says it all. he is a better overall player indeed. i still think that Bure would get 60+ goals a season though.

Bure was a 2 time 60 goal man actually, and I believe hit 58 and 59 goals in other years too.

Still Ovechkin >>>>>> Bure

[hotjoint]

Ovi is nuts

[CRS]

Shane O’Brien’s commitment to training, to losing weight, to being in the best shape of his life, has been there for months.

It’s only recently he’s had to change his motivation.

What started out this summer as his pursuit of the big, top-four minutes put up for grabs the second Mattias Ohlund left has turned into a fight to keep the minutes he already had.

Unexpectedly and quickly, the Canucks defence has become one of the NHL’s deepest defensive units.

Certainly, the deepest Vancouver has ever seen.

With an atypical 10 defencemen on one-way contracts, the overcrowded blueline is making Vancouver’s West End seem comfortably spacious. It’s changed everything.

“I wanted to work hard. With Ollie leaving there was some ice time opening up. That’s what I thought about,” O’Brien said.

“But when they brought in a few more D, now I'm thinking I have to have a good camp just to stick around.

“There was a first ‘oh-oh’ because I didn’t see it coming. I heard some rumours about some other stuff, which you hear just living and playing in Canada. But obviously when they pick up 10 defencemen on one-ways, you’re kind of wondering, ‘What’s going on?’ “But if I learned anything last year, it was you can’t worry about the stuff you can’t control and you can’t control who they pick up. You can just make the decision tough on them.”

There will be some tough decisions ahead for the Canucks.

So far, the company line has been the best players will make this team, end of story. The brass has scoffed at the notion the Canucks have salary cap concerns.

But the reality is the Canucks could be millions over, depending on the 23 who make the team. Something has to give.

“I do know what you mean,” coach Alain Vigneault said in the only nod yet from the Canucks that they may have to make decisions based on financial reasons.

The way it’s shaping up now, Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler, Willie Mitchell, Sami Salo, Christian Ehrhoff, and Mathieu Schneider are the betting favourites for the top six spots.

That would leave O’Brien on $1.6 million and Brad Lukowich at $1.567 million, in the Nos. 7 and 8 slots.

Can any team in the NHL afford the luxury of having that kind of money invested in their seventh and eighth defencemen?

If the Canucks need to get under the cap, it could mean Lukowich, or even O’Brien, get pinched.

All of the defencemen, including Aaron Rome and Lawrence Nycholat (seeded nine and 10 for now), have to clear waivers.

There is a chance the modest pay raise O’Brien earned last year may bite him in the end. “It’s a salary cap era, if you do get a little bit of a pay raise and things happen where they can't slide you under, the next thing you know you're on waivers,” said O’Brien, who would get picked up in a second if he was on waivers.

“If you thought about it every day and let it get to you, you would feel uneasy. But I think I’m a good enough player to play in the NHL every night. Hopefully, it’s here with the Vancouver Canucks. If you don’t believe you can play and you don't believe you belong, then you’re behind the eight ball already.

“They brought guys in because they want to make it competitive and it is competitive.” O’Brien is certainly ready for the competition. He weighed in for training camp at 223 pounds.

That's 20 pounds less than what he weighed last year when he came to Vancouver.

“It wasn’t easy,” O’Brien said. “But I talked to [conditioning coach Roger Takahashi] a lot, I followed the Canucks program, along with my trainer back home. There’s no secret, just a lot of vegetables and a lot of salad, a lot of fish and not so many beers after 18 holes of golf. It was tough but I want to be a part of this team.

“I feel good, right where I am right now. I feel strong, I feel I have that little half step that I didn't have last year. I'm going to work hard to stay at this weight.”

Vigneault “loves the fact” the Canucks have so much internal competition: “It should make our team better. It goes to our ownership. Our ownership wants to win and they’ve given management all the tools necessary for us to be successful.

“If you look at last year, we sent three guys who were on one-way contracts to the minors, because some other guys had come to camp and played better than him. “Anyone who comes here that deserves to play on this team, are going to be here.”

© Copyright (c) The Province

http://www.theprovince.com/sports/ho...835/story.html

Looking for role models, Steve Bernier found a good one in Ryan Kesler.

Trying to get over a frustrating season in which he showed everything but finish, Bernier is ready for a new start. He sees hope in what Kesler did last year, the way he exploded out of the box, blowing away expectations by becoming an offensive impact player in the season's second half.

"I remember seeing Kes at the end of last year and all this confidence he had," Bernier said. "It was unbelievable. He always had the puck on his blade, he was always skating. He was in front of the net, he was battling. The puck would always find him and he was able to put the puck in the net.

"You just have to follow a guy like that, take inspiration from what he did. I take a lot from him, in watching what he's been able to do. Hopefully, I'll be able to do it the same way this year."

The Canucks should be so lucky.

Bernier remains a project. It's hard to argue with his untapped potential. But there's lots of polishing to be done.

He is one of three Canucks -- Kyle Wellwood and Shane O'Brien being the others -- who management urged to lose significant weight this offseason. The theory was that Bernier would get faster without sacrificing too much size.

Down about 15 pounds from last year, Bernier gets his first chance to test drive his new physique against Anaheim tonight.

"The way I feel is way better than it was," Bernier said. "We'll try it and see what happens. I didn't realize before how heavy I was.

"I'm not worried about it taking away from my physical game. I didn't lose 50 pounds."

But, weight aside, the biggest issue dogging Bernier this season will be scoring chances. Burying them once came so easy. That wasn't the case last year. When missed opportunities piled up, so did frustration. He went into the offseason searching for answers. We will soon know if he found any.

"There's a lot of ways to do it," Bernier said. "I don't know if I had the right way to do it, but at least I tried.

"I was doing power skating and, at the same time, I was doing my finishes at a fake goalie where I'd shoot it in a hole. That's not even close to game pace but at least I was trying to practise it."

Power skating and being leaner should make Bernier quicker, allowing him, at least theoretically, even more scoring opportunities.

This we know: Nothing will be handed to Bernier. It won't be like last season, when he was picked to play with the Sedins and given every opportunity to stick there. But there is opportunity.

An injury to Pavol Demitra has cleared a spot among the Canucks' top-six forwards. Count Bernier as one of the players who wants in.

"Hopefully, this is the year I bounce back," Bernier said. "Last year, I didn't score as many goals as I was supposed to. I didn't finish enough of the scoring chances I had. You need to score goals. This is a new season and I'm going to try my best to prove I can be a top forward again."

The other Canucks who will play tonight include Roberto Luongo, who should start, Cory Schneider, Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler, Darcy Hordichuk, Ryan Johnson, Ryan Kesler, Mason Raymond, Sami Salo and Kyle Wellwood.

- - -

SHARK, SABRE, CANUCK ... STEVIE B'S LAST 3 SEASONS

Regular Season Playoffs

Year Team GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM

2007-08 San Jose (NHL) 59 13 10 23 62 -- -- -- -- --

2007-08 Buffalo (NHL) 17 3 6 9 2 -- -- -- -- --

2008-09 Vancouver (NHL) 81 15 17 32 27 10 2 2 4 7

© Copyright (c) The Province

http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Be...801/story.html

Sergei Shirokov sought out a pair of former teammates before leaving a front-line role in his native Russia to start over as a Vancouver Canucks prospect.

The advice he received from Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin, both onetime linemates during a junior career that produced 13 points in 12 games at two world championships, was simple.

"Go. Try. You'll be happy and successful," Shirokov said with translation help from the Canucks' amateur Russian scout, Sergei Chibisov.

Following that advice was more difficult, but Shirokov has already checked the first three items off the to-do list, and the fourth may soon follow.

While the slick winger still relies on assistance dealing with the media, there are already signs the 17 goals and 41 points he recorded as CSKA's leading scorer last year in the Continental Hockey League (KHL) will translate more easily into the NHL.

Just eight days into his first NHL training camp, Shirokov has established himself as a contender for a top-six forward role that opened up after Pavol Demitra announced he'll miss the start of the season recovering from shoulder surgery. He was often dominant while picking up three assists in a pair of exhibition games during prospects camp, and a thunderous payback hit helped ease any lingering doubts the 5-foot-10, 165-pound right winger could adjust to a more physical style of hockey on this side of the Atlantic.

But it's been off the ice - first in a Russian courtroom and now in the Canucks' locker room - where the always smiling Shirokov has made his greatest impression.

"Here's a guy that from what I understand speaks very little English, but he was getting involved with his teammates, was trying to talk to the trainers, and was really outgoing," head coach Alain Vigneault said. "That tells us that the kid really wants to be here."

Considering the path Shirokov took to get here, that shouldn't have been in question.

As if leaving family, friends, a starring role and a tax-free $500,000 (all figures U.S.) salary behind wouldn't be hard enough for any 23-year-old, Shirokov had to take his famed Red Army team to court for the right to do so. And he did it despite a frank face-to-face assessment from Canucks senior adviser Stan Smyl that he'll probably start his North American career in the minors, riding buses for $60,000 a season and living in Winnipeg.

"It wasn't that comfortable but all my dreams were to come here," Shirokov said, never losing the permanent grin as he shrugged off reports of pressure tactics from KHL chair Slava Fetisov, and CSKA coach/general manager Sergei Nemchinov.

"NHL now is the best league in the world and every player likes to come over and play NHL."

Few from the KHL do. But even after an arbitrator ruled in favour of KHL regulations that force all players under 28 to re-sign with their current team, Shirokov refused, leading to a one-year suspension. So while fellow arbitration case loser Denis Parshin returned to CSKA, Shirokov joined Florida Panthers prospect Evgeni Dadonov as the only young Russians to leave this summer, joining a Canucks team that drafted him 163rd in 2006.

Smyl, who spent much of a 10-day visit to Moscow last season answering questions from Shirokov about the NHL and Canucks, believes his willingness to leave so much behind is based on an outgoing nature that his new teammates say is already evident in attempts at locker room banter. But he adds it is also a function of a sincere belief he will soon be earning the $875,000 NHL portion of the rookie-maximum contract he signed.

"That's why I came here," Shirokov repeated when asked about expectations.

There is work to be done. Like junior and college prospects getting their first taste of the NHL, Shirokov must adjust to higher intensity on the ice and in the training room. A lack of speed won't help, but he already handles the puck as well as anyone on the team, and Smyl believes his personality will ease both the cultural and hockey adjustments.

"Some of the Russian players I've played with and coached, there always seems to be a wall with trust that's not there with him," said Smyl, comparing Shirokov's character to a former teammate, Igor Larionov.

"The trust has always been there, and those walls are already broken down with his personality. He's very outgoing, he likes to smile a lot, and he makes you laugh with the jokes and comments he comes up with."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...rticle1290777/

[Gumby]

We were talking about Wellwood's fitness level a few pages back:

“His commitment to conditioning and being a professional athlete probably wasn’t where it needed to be for him to have success. It’s still not NHL calibre.”

— Alain Vigneault on Kyle Wellwood, Sept. 21, 2008

“It’s really good, NHL-calibre. He’s one of the good players on our team right now. He understood what he needed to do, and you’ve got to give him full credit [because] he went out and got it done.”

— Vigneault on Wellwood, Sept. 16, 2009

Kyle Wellwood lost more than 17 pounds between training camps. He lost me.

How can anybody cheer for this guy anymore? He is eating nutritiously and exercising. He rides a bike. And not to the McDonald’s drive-thru. Now, it’s his body that is ripped instead of his bag of Old Dutch.

The 26-year-old Vancouver Canuck centre has betrayed the most basic trust with fans, the understanding that he would eat, drink, work out and look just like them. Kyle Wellwood has turned into a professional athlete. Disgusting.

Somebody give this guy poutine before it’s too late.

Surely, the Canucks’ coach must be shocked at Wellwood’s transformation.

“If I said no, I’d be lying,” Vigneault conceded Wednesday after outing Wellwood. “For a guy who had three or four years of junior hockey and five years of NHL training camps, and still not getting it? Now he knows he’s got it and what he needs to do.”

Wellwood had an epiphany. He went into the summer round and came out square.

After nearly eating his way out of the NHL, the doughy player who cleared waivers twice at the start of last season, who was supposed to lose his job after Mats Sundin was signed, was expected to be replaced at the trade deadline, the player who survived all that, is now a lean, mean, fighting machine.

Well, lean, at least. And it may allow Wellwood to finally achieve something more than temp status.

After a healthy summer of hard work, Wellwood weighed in for this season at 180 pounds — 17 fewer than last September. He is thinner and firmer. Although the Canucks aren’t divulging anyone’s body-fat count or VO2 cardio results, Wellwood’s progress is astonishing.

“I haven’t seen my testing,” Wellwood said. “They have the results but I haven’t seen them. They were good enough that we didn’t have to go over them.”

Last training camp, Vigneault went over Wellwood with a bus. And to some extent, Wellwood never escaped the indictment of his conditioning.

Wellwood went on to score 18 goals. He clung to a job that seemed lost for good when he was waived in October, two days before Rick Rypien and Pavol Demitra were injured in Chicago, forcing Wellwood’s return.

Any team could have claimed him at half price, leaving the Canucks on the hook for $499,000 of Wellwood’s salary. He was a great story.

But Kyle Wellwood is tired of the Kyle Wellwood story, and you can’t blame him for that. Nobody wants to be a novelty act forever.

He is at the age where, professionally, he should be taking off instead of merely hanging on. But if uber-prospect Cody Hodgson makes the Canucks, as expected, guess whose job appears to be most vulnerable? Same thing if shifty playmaker Sergei Shirokov makes the team.

“Kyle still has a lot to prove, both to himself and others,” Canuck general manager Mike Gillis said. “We’re really encouraged by how he has approached this, really encouraged about his dedication and determination to become a front-line player.”

Wellwood had to adapt or perish. If his conditioning didn’t improve dramatically, he wouldn’t have been offered a new one-year contract in July and couldn’t compete this month for a spot on what may be the most talented Canuck team in 40 years.

“I just think it’s the culture here in Vancouver,” Wellwood said. “The players and management, their approach to the game is very good and professional. To come in and be a part of that, it’s definitely contagious for the players from different organizations.

“If they didn’t take [conditioning] as seriously as they do, I wouldn’t. How hard everybody works, it’s easy to be part of that.”

Wellwood is noticeably quicker than last season and said he feels stronger. His stamina and resistance to injury should be better, too.

After hernia and foot injuries kept him in a barcalounger much of last summer, Wellwood said he was able to train healthy this off-season in Windsor, where he rode his bike through the countryside five times a week.

He was also able to train intelligently for the first time. Wellwood said it was only after the Canucks claimed him on waivers from the Toronto Maple Leafs before last season that he began to fully understand conditioning.

“At the end of the day, what’s important to me is he got it done for the Vancouver Canucks,” Vigneault said. “He proved he is committed to this team, committed to himself and hopefully we’ve got a pretty good player coming.

“I think probably for the first time in his life. . . he is in real good shape. Until that happens to a professional player, you don’t know the limits. You don’t know what his potential is. I think now we’re going to find out.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/F...677/story.html

[CRS]

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[RiceIntegraRS]

Originally Posted by 7seven

Bure was a 2 time 60 goal man actually, and I believe hit 58 and 59 goals in other years too.

Still Ovechkin >>>>>> Bure

Remember Bure thought it was wayy tooo easy for him to deke and go upstairs when he one on one with the goalie. If he actually tried to go upstairs, think about how many goals he would of scored. I remember his words was "Its cheapo" Bure > Ovechkin in Goal Scoring

[trancehead]

Roast Duck at 7.

[Ch28]

Carey Price's sister is pretty nice

[murd0c]

I liked how Bulduc took that fight by sticking up for Bernier like that. That's a real nice effort to start out the season.

[LUUUUUUUU]

nice PP goal by Pope!

[Vansterdam]

dam preseason on right nwo and im in class

[LUUUUUUUU]

Aaron Rome!!!!!! wicked pass from Raymond

[Hondaracer]

pretty good game so far, Lu looks great

[fobulaus]

Grabner always acts like he doesn't want the puck

[rb]

Wings fans werent kidding when they said that Sammy tends to shoot at the crest

[Not really racist!]

wow, that was an amazing pass by raymond

wellwood lookin good again

[d1]

mason raymond still looks like he's about to fall everytime he picks up speed

[rb]

Those Anaheim ice girls are doing a great job

[LUUUUUUUU]

welly and bernier r lookin great