Five points out of the playoffs, but hey look! Nicklas Jensen!

Jensen led all SEL rookies with 17 goals in 50 games last year. After a slow start
with Utica, he's living up to the hype on the Canucks' top line. (Flickr: anders-h-foto)

Back in early-February, I wrote an article lauding Eddie Lack and how his play was one of the Canucks' few redeeming stories this year. It was a post grasping for any kind of positivity in the face of a precariously-held playoff spot. Oh, that playoff spot. It was a whole fifteen games ago now that the Canucks were still ahead of both Dallas and Phoenix -- if just barely.

Although Lack's baptism-by-fire, post-Luongo, has loosened his play, he remains one of the few Canucks playing beyond pre-season expectations. And for the past couple of weeks, he's been joined by another pleasantly surprising rookie in Nicklas Jensen.

Honey Badger weaseling Canucks into the win column

Hansen most likely staring down a pot of honey.

With a pair of 1-0 shutout wins in the Canucks' past three games, buzz words like "the intangibles" and "workmanlike effort" have abounded.  To be fair, the Columbus Blue Jackets' 2.15 goals per game ranks last in the league.  The Los Angeles Kings, however, are seventh in that regard (2.88) and were held to just 20 shots on Saturday.  During that game, Jannik Hansen had an assist and two of the Canucks' 13 shots on goal.

It should come as no surprise then, that the Canucks' workmanlike prototype has been leading the way for the past month with 12 points in March.  The Danish winger of uniquely-pitched fame has enjoyed a much-publicized surge in production this year.  If you had been told in January that the third-line staple would be the Canucks' highest-scoring non-Sedin thirty-three games in, you might have imagined that Burrows, Raymond, Higgins, Edler and probably even Bieksa had all joined Kesler and Booth on the injured reseve.  But with 8 goals and 11 assists, Hansen sits third in team scoring at a pace that would see him approach 50 points over an 82-game season.

Five years after Naslund, Henrik Sedin's 757th

A cross-crease one-timer to Burrows.  Poetic justice at its finest.  Henrik's 757th point to pass Markus Naslund could not have been achieved on a more fitting play.  After receiving the puck from Daniel, he unleashes one of those seeing-eye passes off the rush, landing right on the tape through a maze of sticks.  It's what we've come to expect from the captain in his historic tenure here. 

Henrik achieved the feat in his 905th game, 21 more than Naslund

Alex Burrows: The backhand deke

It's as dependable as an NHL lockout every ten years or so.  If Burrows is skating alone across the blueline, the goalie will still be playing the shot by the time the puck's been roofed on the backhand.  Alternatively put by the Pass it to Bulis bloggers, "When Burrows challenges a man to a duel, he fakes a forehand slap before going backhand."

With his new four-year deal in hand, Burrows is Vancouver's most recent man of the hour in this current NHL off-season purgatory.  Over the course of his present four-year bargain, he has honed his backhand deke into near-legendary status among Canucks circles – on par with say...Naslund's wrister from the half boards or Salo's blueline slapshot.  Just wait til it happens against Mike Vernon in a playoff game and the internet will light up with blogs named in the goal's honour. 

The now-trademark move has been pulled off more times than logic really should allow, but exactly how often are we talking here?  Among his 149 regulation and shootout goals, no less than 16 times. 

Including the very first time he pulled it off, against Edmonton four years ago, here's every single one:



Of the 16 goals scored, 8 were in a shootout, 5 were short handed and 3 at even strength.  There were five instances this past season, 6 in 2010–11, 2 in 2009–10, 2 in 2008–09 and 3 in 2007–08.  The most telling breakdown of the 16 goals, however, is that every last one was crucial to the outcome of the game.  If it wasn't a shootout goal, Burrows either tied the game or put Vancouver ahead or within one (the lone exception being the Toronto goal in which he brought Vancouver within two), further cementing his reputation as a timely scorer.

Here's to 16 more breakaway dekes over the next four years...

-HC

*See the discussion regarding this post on the Canucks.com forums here.

Henrik's top five assists from 2011-12

UPDATE: Rather than watch all the plays individually via the links below, I've uploaded a YouTube video with all five plays in one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYiZbDSeml4

To supplement and, I suppose, support my previous article, I took the unnecessary invaluable liberty of sifting through all 67 of Henrik Sedin's assists from the 2011-12 season.  The result?  Five of the best assists you have (or haven't) seen all year.  Ready?  Ok.

Number Five
Nov. 16, 2011; vs. Chicago – 2-on-1 to Hansen
Standard issue 2-on-1 saucer pass.  Sadly, this went on to become another blowout loss in Chicago (the undisputed worst kind of blowout loss).

Number Four
Oct. 25, 2011; vs. Edmonton – Backhand drop to Burrows
If not for the slow motion replay, you really have to be paying attention on this one.  Henrik's pass is that quick in relation to the flow of play.  After Salo's shot rebounds to Henrik, for whatever reason, Khabibulin assumes Henrik's not gonna drop a no-look pass to Burrows at the last second.  The goal brought the Canucks within one in the third period, but they ended up losing this one too.

Number Three
Nov. 6, 2011; vs. Chicago – Cross-ice to Daniel
A powerplay goal from the first half of the season (as if such a goal existed in the second half).  Again, Henrik ends up with the puck off a rebound and Crawford plays the shot.  Silly goalie, Trix are for kids.  Henrik throws it the width of the ice with Crawford swimming.  6-2 win for Vancouver.

Number Two
Dec. 1, 2011; vs. Nashville – Half spin-o-rama to Burrows
Off – what else – the cycle, Henrik skates out from behind the net to challenge Preds D Jack Hillen.  Who?  Exactly.  Burrows redirects it past Rinne.  6-5 shootout loss.

Number One
April 4, 2012; vs. Anaheim – wtf...to Burrows
Inside-out-How's-she-doin-behind-the-back-spin-o-rama-goodness.  Mind you, the whole thing is moot if not for Burrows' equally impressive shot, but this is just silliness from Henrik.  An uncontested number one, in my opinion.


Here's to five even better feeds from Hank in 2012-13...

-HC

*See the discussion regarding this post on the Canucks.com forum here.

Alex Burrows: Olympic hopeful (...Right?)

And who says Burrows is a pest? Even
Kazakhstani goalie Vitali Kolesnik is
feeling the love.

Ever engage in a thought experiment where you consider the merits of a ridiculous proposition, then slowly start to believe it?

Depending on who you ask, Alex Burrows is either one of the most overrated or underrated player in the NHL.  If you’re a devoted hockey fan anywhere outside of Canada’s west coast, chances are the Canucks forward is nothing more to you than a pest whose stat line is generously inflated by his linemates.  The fact he’s achieved 20-plus goals in each of the past four seasons only means Vigneault provided Daniel and Henrik a warm body to pass to while the gifted Swedes cycle their way through the entire league.

Granted, Burrows’ career was undoubtedly jump-started by his place on the Canucks’ top line, but the past season has seen him maintain the same pace while playing large chunks of time without them.  With this in mind, is Burrows a candidate for Canada’s Olympic roster in 2014?

The answer, anywhere in the NHL, is a resounding…no.  I must be that rare breed of Canucks fan – overzealously loyal, even after their latest playoff disappointment.

Your average Canucks devotee will always be quick defend Burrows honour against Ron MacLean and the rest of the world, but few will go so far as to say he is among the top 12 or 13 Canadian forwards in the game.  I’m here to argue that as of yesterday, which marked Canada’s third straight quarterfinal exit from the IIHF World Championships, Burrows has played himself into Steve Yzerman’s consideration for the national team’s fourth line in 2014.

Here’s the short story: After missing the first week of competition with a suspected concussion, Burrows was slotted into the team’s fourth line with fellow grinders Andrew Ladd and Teddy Purcell.  In five games with limited ice time, he recorded three goals and no assists, ranking second-last among Canadian forwards in point-scoring.

Admittedly, his numbers aren’t overwhelming by any stretch.  Even at the NHL level, his points totals haven’t cracked the to forty among Canadian forwards in either of the past two seasons.  In 2009-10, he ranked fourteenth, but many would see that as an outlier.  At face value, Burrows still seems as well-suited for the Olympics as Mark Messier in a Canucks uniform. 

But here’s where the argument naturally begins: Canada doesn’t need twelve superstar forwards, all capable of scoring at a point-per-game pace.  They require about nine of those; the remaining three or four have to fill a defensively-responsible energy and provide the intangibles in a low-profile fashion.  Starting to sound more like  number 14 in blue and green?

Burrows has always played key minutes on the Canucks penalty kill, which has been perennially top-ranked.  His role was no different on Team Canada these past two weeks.  Intangibles?  For the past four years, his plus-minus (a stat that is questionable in merit, but does measure to some degree a player’s impact at even strength) has been in the top 10 among Canadian forwards.  In two of those years, so have his takeaway totals.  Burrows is underrated as a defensive forward and while maintaining the same level of tenacity, his penalty minutes have decreased from 179 in 2008-09 to 90 this past campaign.

A good fourth-liner is also timely.  Enter Burrows' proverbial "slaying of the dragon" and overtime-winner against Boston in last year's playoff run.  In 2011-12, he scored seven game-winners, tenth among Canadian forwards.  At the World Championships, his first goal of the tournament started Canada’s 5-3 comeback win against Finland.  The next game, he scored shorthanded against Kazakhstan (I know… it’s Kazakhstan) when a powerplay goal against would have cut the lead to just 2-1 in the second period.  Finally, his quarterfinal goal in the third period would have stood as the game-winner against Slovakia had Canada not collapsed into itself to finish the contest.

Zamuner and Draper set precedent for
a player like Burrows to be selected...
Here's the statistical comparison.

When you look at what Canada’s gold-winning fourth line was in 2010, however, imagining Burrows as a replacement for the likes of Patrice Bergeron and Mike Richards once again seems ludicrous.  But the history of Canadian rosters at high-profile tournaments reveal selections that seem far more unlikely than Burrows.  Rob Zamuner, anyone?  Kris Draper ring any bells?  (1998 Olympics and 2004 World Cup/2006 Olympics, respectively.)  Both stand out as players who, on paper, seemed out of place, but subjectively, they filled a need for the sort of player that I think Burrows meets and exceeds.

The reasons against are many and the likelihood is minimal.  Nobody will really complain when he isn’t even short listed, including me.  But you cannot say that Burrows doesn’t play the game in a way that could benefit Team Canada's Olympic team if it was chosen today.  Who knows?  Maybe Yzerman will throw us all a curveball.  Then we'll see if Burrows can wrap around Tim Thomas in an American uniform too, come 2014.

-HC

*See the discussion regarding this article on the Canucks.com forum here.