Yes, the NHL regular season is here and will end on April 11, 2015 with all 30 teams in action. The Vancouver Canucks began with that 4-2 victory over Calgary, the first of their 82 games.
It’s a new era for the Canucks and while the team will likely be better on the ice, it may lack controversy. The volatile John Tortorella was replaced with rookie coach Willie Desjardins, who will not be challenging the Flames outside their dressing room between periods. Desjardins, one can assume, won’t be asking the Sedins to block shots or have his top players get so much ice time they run out of gas in the 2nd half.
Ex-General Manager Mike Gillis is not around as a punching bag. New GM Jim Benning and Super Boss Trevor Linden are rookies who aren’t expected to give any outlandish sound bites and will be given time. (Okay, at least half a season).
My goodness, there’s not even a goalie controversy. Ryan Miller, the $6 million a year man, will carry the load in net with Eddie Lack in his more familiar role as a back-up. All right, a couple of bad games in a row for Miller may change the circumstances, but this is no Luongo-Schneider distraction.
With Ryan Kesler in Anaheim, it doesn’t appear there are any veterans left that want a trade to a contender. We all know the Sedins, Hamhuis, Bieksa and Burrows are all content in Vancouver.
So let’s add this up. The Canucks are mostly a veteran team with not a lot of personality, few contentious issues and a front office that could win a popularity contest. This could be perceived as boring, certainly a change from prior years.
Last season, with one fiasco after another, the Canucks faded down the stretch and plummeted to 12th in the West and 25th in the league, only ahead of Calgary, Edmonton, Islanders, Florida and Buffalo. In addition, despite high price talent, they were just 26th on the power play.
Of course, they will shape up in 2014-15. Nearly every player underachieved under Tortorella, in his one disastrous season. Only Chris Tanev showed noticeable improvement under “Torts” while most of the others regressed.
Kesler isn’t the only player that left Vancouver, but the others won’t be missed much. Jason Garrison was dealt to Tampa, David Booth received a compliance buyout and is now the Maple Leafs problem and Mike Santorelli, Zac Dalpe and Jordan Schroeder found new teams as free agents. In other words, so what?
Besides the addition of Miller, the Canucks signed another free agent, Radim Vrbata, to play with the Sedins. How long this experiment lasts is questionable but it’s not like there are a lot of other options.
Center Nick Bonino and defenceman Luca Sbisa, acquired from the Ducks in the Kesler trade, can be argued is more quantity than quality.
The acquisition of forward Derek Dorsett from the Rangers will add grit and it was worth the gamble to trade for 23 year-old centre Linden Vey from LA, who was lost in the Kings organization.
The Canucks were the lowest scoring team in the Western Conference last season with 196 goals, only 10 behind LA. This isn’t to suggest the Canucks even remotely resemble the Kings, but it does propose goals for can be overrated.
Alex Edler isn’t as bad as his -39 rating. In fact he was +28 for his career prior to the 2013-14 season. So how much will he improve is a similar question to how much the team will improve?
This is where the debate begins. Vancouver is not in the class of the California teams, Chicago or even St Louis. I’m not sure if Colorado was a flash in the pan in Patrick Roy’s first season there, but let’s give the Avalanche the benefit of the doubt and if the Avs slide there’s always at least one team that moves into the upper echelon that wasn’t supposed to be there.
The Canucks are not a legitimate threat to win the Cup, but I suspect they are a playoff team.
The Pick: the Canucks to place a pedestrian 7th out of 14 in the NHL Western Conference.
From the Quote Rack:
After his latest playoff meltdown, do we call baseball’s best pitcher—‘Clay-Rod’?
The U.S. Postal Service is set to unveil new Wilt Chamberlain commemorative stamps—-there are slated to be special notches on the first 20,000 of them.
Contributor Bill Littlejohn of South Lake Tahoe, California
One of the NCU Tar Heels’ receivers is Bug Howard. He’s stung many a DB, but has trouble running screens.
An ESPN poll of fan satisfaction rates Toronto’s NHL club last of 122 professional sports teams. That’s the Leafs for ya: when they finally finish first, it’s for being worst.
Comedy writer RJ Currie www.Sportsdeke.com
Michael Phelps was suspended from USA swimming events for six months following his DUI. Many Americans were shocked. In non-Olympic years there are swimming events?
Randy Moss now says of playing under Jim Harbaugh with the 49ers: “He treated us men like we were still college kids at Stanford.” Does Moss mean Harbaugh overestimated most of the team’s maturity level?
Contributor Janice Hough of Palo Alto, California www.leftcoastsportsbabe.com
The Oakland Raiders new interim head coach Tony Sparano ceremoniously buried a football on their practise field to signify a new beginning. In typical Raider fashion, they put it in their own end zone.
Washington Nationals coaches, managers and executives are absolutely ecstatic over losing to the SF Giants. They now can rest pitcher Stephen Strasburg until next season.
Comedy writer TC Chong of Vancouver (http://alwaysfunny.com/)
And in case you missed it:
New York Jets QB Geno Smith missed a team meeting the night before Sunday’s 31-0 loss to the San Diego Chargers. Apparently it was the one in which they installed the touchdown plays.
Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sidelinechatter/
Hartley Miller is the sports director and morning news anchor for radio station TheGoat94.3 His column appears Fridays on hqprincegeorge.com. Send along a quote, note, or anecdote to [email protected]
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