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[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 i find that at vietnamese place they cut ur hair like they cut grass
[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 do u go to vietnamese places for haircuts
VANCOUVER -- The Vancouver Canucks are ready to insert their Selke Trophy winner back in the lineup.
Ryan Kesler pronounced himself fit for Tuesday's game against the New York Rangers after participating in practice on Monday. He sat out the first five games of the season following hip surgery over the summer.
"He came to see me this morning, said he was 100 per cent ready to go," said Canucks coach Alain Vigneault. "He assured me that the injury was behind him, we weren't going to see him limping and we weren't going to see (any) pain faces.
"The only thing, obviously since he didn't have a training camp, on the ice it's going to take a little bit of time. But his injury is fine and he's ready to go."
Kesler suffered the injury during Game 5 of the Western Conference final in the spring. He played through pain during the Stanley Cup final but was forced to have surgery in July.
The 27-year-old missed 10 weeks with a similar injury in 2007, but still found this layoff frustrating. He's been practising for two weeks and joined his teammates during their recent four-game road trip.
"It definitely wasn't easier," Kesler said of the recovery. "It took about four more weeks to recover (than 2007) and it's been a tough go seeing the team playing and things like that. It's in the past now and there's positive times ahead."
During Monday's practice, Kesler skated in his normal position on the second line between Chris Higgins and Cody Hodgson. He's also expected to rejoin the team's top power-play unit with Henrik and Daniel Sedin.
"I talked with our trainer and coach and I told them I don't want to limp into the lineup," said Kesler. "I expect big things from myself and obviously I want my minutes, but I have to earn them."
Kesler and Higgins played together on the same line during the playoffs after Mikael Samuelsson went down with a sports hernia injury. Kesler expects them to have chemistry as a result.
"Obviously both good American kids," said the native of Livonia, Mich. "We read off each other well, we play the same style and he's good in the corners, good in front of the net and I like playing with him."
Hodgson is adjusting to the wing. Drafted as a centre, he spent some time on the wing with the AHL's Manitoba Moose last season.
But there's still learning to do.
"You're always watching in practice with the drills and stuff what the wingers have to do in case you get put on the wing," said Hodgson.
The Canucks open a three-game homestand with Tuesday's game against the Rangers.
It appears Marco Sturm will be forced out of the lineup by Kesler's return. He was signed as a free agent over the summer but has just two shots on goal and is a minus-4 through five games.
"I've been through it before and I've got to do it again," said Sturm. "I was not happy either about the start I had, but it's nothing I can change right now. I've got to do it day-by-day, work harder and get back at it."
Added Vigneault: "We're working with Marco. His attitude and his effort are great, he wants to do well. It hasn't gone to the way he obviously expected and the way we expected as far as his performance on the ice, but we're working with him and hopefully everything will come together."
.On Monday, the Canucks assigned defenceman Chris Tanev to their AHL affiliate in Chicago. He was a healthy scratch for two games on Vancouver's recent road swing.
"We just want the young man to play hockey and we thought that so far this year he had done well, but right now he was still fighting for one of those (five through eight) spots on our team," said Vigneault. "We felt with him being as young as he is, with the upside that he has, he needed to go and play so we just sent him to Chicago."
Note: The Canucks will honour Rick Rypein, who passed away in the summer, during a pre-game ceremony on Tuesday.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)—Jeff Carter(notes), the Columbus Blue Jackets’ major offseason acquisition, has a hairline crack on the top of his right foot and may be held out of Tuesday’s home game against Dallas.
VANCOUVER — Kevin Bieksa had two brothers when he was growing up. Then he met Rick Rypien and had three.
The last time Bieksa spoke with Rypien, a month after Rick had left the Vancouver Canucks to sign with the Winnipeg Jets, they discussed how strange it would be to play against each other in March and joked about fighting at centre ice at Rogers Arena.
Later, we learned that Rypien had been fighting clinical depression for years. A week after his phone call with Bieksa, Rypien was found dead at home in Crowsnest Pass, Alta. He was 27.
There was never going to be another game for Rick Rypien. Never another talk with his mom, Shelley Crawford, never another moment with dad, Wes, or a joke with his brother, Wes Jr. Never another laugh with teammates. Never another anything.
But Tuesday night, the Rypiens will make it to centre ice after all when the Canucks honour Rick before their National Hockey League game against the New York Rangers. Rypien’s legacy will be a website, funded by a $50,000 donation from the Canucks, to help young people deal with depression and other mental-health issues.
Bieksa will remember Rypien for much more than that.
“He had a huge heart and he really didn’t like for people to worry about him,” Bieksa, 30, explained Monday in a quiet moment after the Canucks’ practice. “He didn’t want people worrying about him. He didn’t want people to have to take care of him. He wanted to be the one taking care of people. That’s the way he was. He was kind of the leader of his family, the one everyone leaned on.
“When he wasn’t playing, I’d talk to him and he’d say: ‘How’s the team doing? How was last night’s game?’ I remember thinking: ‘Who cares? There are bigger issues here.’ ”
Bieksa and Rypien met near the end of the 2004-05 lockout season when Bieksa was with the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose and Rypien was a quiet, scrawny kid fresh out of junior hockey in Regina.
“I thought he was just a fan or a young kid,” Bieksa said. “I had no clue he was going to be playing for us. Then when he practised with us it was like: ‘Oh, that’s kind of nice. They’re letting the young kid skate with the team.’
“There was no easy road for him to make it to the NHL. He came from a small town in the middle of nowhere. To get noticed, he had to do whatever it took. People respected that.”
Bieksa and Rypien became friends.
While driving together to a workout before the Canucks’ 2008 training camp, Rypien confided in Bieksa about his mental issues, his anxiety and worry.
A few months later, when Rypien disappeared during his first leave of absence from the team, Bieksa and Moose general manager Craig Heisinger, who was like a second father-figure to Rick, met in Edmonton after a Canuck game and drove to Rypien’s home in southwestern Alberta.
“We went there looking for him,” Bieksa said. “Didn’t know what we’d find. We went to his house for four or five hours, just the two of us, hoping he’d come home and he finally did. That wasn’t the best day for him. But we got him back and we got him help.”
Bieksa never betrayed Rypien’s trust, even to caring teammates who inquired about Rypien’s well-being. The Canucks organization knew about Rypien’s depression since that 2008 camp and coordinated the player’s treatment.
Bieksa and his wife, Katie, helped as much as anyone.
While sitting out the rest of the 2008-09 regular season, Rypien stayed with the Bieksas.
“My wife stayed up to five in the morning talking to him every night,” Kevin said. “We did what we could. . . just tried to get him through this. He loved hockey, loved coming to the rink. I remember him saying he just missed sitting in the dressing room and listening to guys chirping Hordy (ex-Canuck Darcy Hordichuk). Things like that. Those were the things he enjoyed, the camaraderie. He didn’t like to be alone.”
Bieksa said Rypien was with him when Kevin asked Wes Jr. to be his best man, and even knew before Kevin did that he was going to be a new dad again because the Canucks were on the road when Rick finally asked Katie why she kept throwing up.
“He knew before I did,” Kevin smiled. Cole Bieksa is nearly four, and his little sister Reese is two.
When Rypien moved back into his own apartment, Kevin would stop by after games to talk and sometimes walked Reese down the block just to check up on Rick and see if his lights were on.
Bieksa is emphatic that Rypien loved his role in hockey and fighting had nothing to do with his mental challenges. He said Rypien’s illness was too complicated to be explained by one event or circumstance, such as the car-accident death nearly a decade ago of Rypien’s girlfriend or the constant stream of injuries that slowed his NHL career.
“There were a lot of things going on,” Bieksa said. “I felt he was as much my responsibility as anybody’s. Looking back now, I wished I’d talked to him a little more in the summer. I thought he was getting better. I knew the severity of it (but) I don’t think anyone really thought this would happen.”
Bieksa’s emotional wounds will be torn open again Tuesday night, although he is thankful the Canucks are ensuring that at least some good comes from Rypien’s death.
TSN is televising the game and the Canucks will livestream Rypien’s ceremony on its website.
“He wouldn’t like it,” Bieksa said. “He wouldn’t want to burden anybody. He would want more than anything for us to win. I’m trying not to think about it a whole lot. It will be hard. We lived together, shared a lot of experiences and it feels like I lost a brother.”
that song by Adele still gives me the chills everytime i hear it on the radio or wherever. defines the series for me
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[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 i find that at vietnamese place they cut ur hair like they cut grass
[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 do u go to vietnamese places for haircuts
i agree...enough with being butthurt. glad to see kes back though!
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[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 i find that at vietnamese place they cut ur hair like they cut grass
[23-07, 02:03] shawn79 do u go to vietnamese places for haircuts
I will be wearing my #16 Linden '94 skate jersey tomorrow. I'm sure some other people will as well. I'll be the Asian guy drunkenly yelling things about Messier, where he can stick it as well as where he can go and what he can do when he gets there.
Man, that article about Rypper...sounds like a good dude.
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