[Tapioca]

Tanner Glass cheering section, anyone?

Canucks' Tanner Glass will do 'whatever it takes' to win

By Ben Kuzma, The Province

Tanner Glass has taken a punch in the face and a pie in the face.

It comes with the territory when you're an NHL middleweight willing to scrap to retain a roster spot. And it comes when you accept as a Vancouver Canucks newcomer that the annual Super Skills ritual of having a cream-filled dessert mushed into your mug is a rite of passage.

However, the winger also understands history in the classroom and on the ice.

Glass has a history degree from Dartmouth and has been around the game long enough to know when veterans return from injury, somebody has to be expendable. With Pavol Demitra now back from two shoulder surgeries and Ryan Johnson (foot fractures) and Steve Bernier (groin) returning as early as Wednesday in Edmonton, the Canucks will soon have 14 healthy forwards. Something has to give.

"Are you saying I'm the odd man out?," asked Glass. "I don't worry about that. I worry about my game every night. It takes a lot of depth in the organization to win the Cup and I know that I'm a depth player and a role player on this team.

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes to win — if that's on the third or fourth lines — no matter who is pressing me for a job or whose job I'll take."

Glass did his job Saturday during a 6-2 romp of the Pittsburgh Penguins. He adapted to playing with Kyle Wellwood and Demitra on a new third alignment and reacted late in the game when Evgeni Malkin was called for boarding Willie Mitchell hard into the endboards. The Canucks defenceman, already suffering from a stiff back from a Derek Boogaard check Wednesday in Minnesota, didn't participate in the Super Skills show Sunday. So, with a 5-3-2 record in bouts this season according to hockeyfights.com, Glass didn't hesitate to hound the hulking Penguins centre.

"You can't just let him run a guy late in a game like that," said Glass, who took a roughing minor for attempting to get at Malkin. "I had to let him know that I'm not going to stand for that. I don't know if it [the hit] was from behind, but it was definitely blind-side."

Glass looked like a work in progress Saturday because of the speed and slick passing dimensions that Demitra brings. But the trio combined for just two shots.

"I was just trying to get to the net and I should have had my head up looking for more passes from those two because they're pretty crafty players," added Glass, who has nine points in 44 games and is a plus-8. "But it was our first game together and we hadn't even practised together."

Nobody knew what to make of Glass at training camp. He played 41 games for the Florida Panthers in 2007-08 before shoulder surgery limited the 26-year-old Craven, Sask., native to just three games last season and 44 in the AHL. But a curiosity in the 265th pick in the 2003 entry draft resulted in a one-year, two-way Canucks deal that pays $500,000 at the NHL level.

"He skated with us before camp and we were wondering who that guy was," said winger Alex Burrows. "Eveyrbody was talking about Cody [Hodgson] and Sergei [Shirokov] and [Alex] Bolduc. Nobody was talking about Tanner. He's the best team player you can have. He steps up and sticks up for everyone and won't complain about ice time. He's just happy to be here."

Glass will know soon enough if Bernier will be back on the third line and what will become of the fourth line that had Rick Rypien centring Darcy Hordichuk and Jannik Hansen against the Penguins. Johnson has been a fourth-line fixture, but the Canucks have gone 42-for-47 on the penalty kill in his absence. Hansen could be assigned to the Manitoba Moose because he's on a two-way contract that requires waivers. However, the winger re-directed a neat Henrik Sedin fake slapper Saturday and was a plus-2.

"It's out of my hands," shrugged Hansen. "It's a matter of taking every shift I can right now and making the most of it."

Scoring to give the Canucks a commanding 4-1 lead against the Pens didn't hurt.

"Hank was lining up for a slapper and just about everybody in the building was pretty sure that he was going to shoot it," recalled Hansen. "He put it on the side for me and it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time."

bkuzma@theprovince.com

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