I Watched This Game: Canucks vs Oilers, April 2, 2011

Canucks 1 - 4 Oilers

Last night was a bewildering stinker, the likes of which we haven't seen in months, and it makes sense. While the Canucks didn't throw in the towel, there was literally no motivation for them to play hard last night, apart from the fact that it was the right thing to do. The game meant nothing to them. Meanwhile, the Oilers were motivated. For them, a Hockey Night in Canada tilt against the best team in hockey (and a team they thoroughly despise), is reason enough to go all out. They did, too: the Oilers played a fabulous game, and unfortunately for Vancouver, this admirable effort coincided with the Canucks laying down a complete turd. I watched this turd game:

• How can you tell the Canucks were woefully out of sync tonight? The Sedins went offside once. Think about the last time you saw that happen. It's nigh impossible for the twins to go offside. Watch their Superskills puck relay. They're the same person.

• It's probably safe to say that Yann Sauve won't see any playoff games. He was bad last night. Two of the Oilers' four goals were directly the fault of his poor positioning. On the Omark goal, Sauve (#47) drifts into no-man's land, turned completely the wrong way. When the puck is centered, he's so far out of position that he trips over Cory Schneider, taking them both out of the play. On the Paajarvi goal, that's Sauve in the corner, losing his religion.

• I wish I could counsel you to take this loss lightly, but I'm afraid I have some bad news: if you lose to the worst team in hockey, you become the worst team in hockey. It's like a zombie bite.

• Tanner Glass took a few hard punches for his efforts, but give him credit for trying--in his first game back from injury--to kickstart the team by dropping the gloves with JF Jacques. Considering he missed a handful of games with a rib problem that made it painful to shoot or pass the puck, I suspect that he also felt some pain trying to throw a fist with full force. No surprise, then, that he did not win this fight, and he probably lost another one when he went home and his fiancé Emily reminded him he promised he wouldn't fight tonight.

• With Andrew Alberts nearing full health, Aaron Rome is one Canuck who still has something to play for. He's played in 53 games this season, averaging 17:27, and you've got to imagine it would be hell to be scratched through the playoffs after getting used to that kind of playing time. Rome showcased his Alberts-like hittiness all night, throwing some big hits, including this hipcheck on JF Jacques, and this glorious hipcheck on Ladislav Smid at the end the first period. My favourite part of the latter clip is when he's skating to the bench, and he says something to an Edmonton player. I can't tell what it is; I've never been much for lipreading. My best guess is something about fondue.

• Jeff Tambellini had a team-low 11:20, which is mighty impressive, considering he started the game on the second line. Tambellini was not good. He had three shots, all right into the logo, and the play died on his stick more than a few times. I remember one particular instance where Kesler got him the puck behind the net, and he weakly centered it to nobody. It may as well have been an Edmonton outlet pass. Think his dad was impressed? If Tambellini signs with the Oilers next season as a defensemen, we'll know why.

• What's your take on Cory Schneider tonight? I thought he wasn't at his best. He made a bunch of really incredible saves, but a few of the goals seemed to be easier stops, and he let them by. Jordan Eberle's goal, for instance, was a classic case of losing the post, and on the Magnus Paajarvi goal, he wasn't square to the shooter. I know what's going on here, though: Schneider's pissed that he won't get enough games to have a share in the Jennings trophy, so he's trying to throw the trophy altogether. Cory Schneider is the mother in 1 Kings Chapter 3 who would rather cut the child in half.

• Nobody played particularly well last night, but I thought Jannik Hansen played particularly poorly. The third line lost possession a handful of times because Hansen was getting muscled off the puck and he wasn't winning puck battles. He finished with under twelve minutes of icetime, second lowest to Jeff Tambellini. Here's a helpful maxim: when Jannik Hansen is being punished for a poor effort, the team is probably having a bad night. Here it is in rhyme form: Bad game for Jannik? Good time to panic.

• I don't mind Mason Raymond at center. Raymond seems to be relishing the extra space, and the line is generating scoring chances. Most importantly, I haven't seen a MayRay-Go-Round since he was taken off the wing. It's hard to go around the net when you come through the middle. Raymond also won 4 of 7 faceoffs, including 3 of 4 in the offensive zone. This is especially noteworthy because CBC showed footage of Raymond and Glass working on their faceoff technique, and Raymond was getting absolutely smoked. At the time, I thought, if you can't beat Tanner Glass even once, you probably shouldn't be taking faceoffs at all.

• Henrik Sedin was actually the best faceoff man on the night, winning 11 of 16 draws.

• Speaking of Henrik, I couldn't help but chuckle on Alex Burrows' goal. After Henrik and Burrows break out 2-on-1, three Oilers scramble to catch up to the play. Two of them make it and, joining the last man back, all three simply surround Henrik Sedin. Burrows really has no choice but to shoot. If he had tried to pass it, Henrik would have been dogpiled. He probably would have disappeared into a cartoonish fight cloud.

• Christian Ehrhoff played over twenty-five minutes last night. Is that necessary? Granted, he's the Canucks best offensive defenseman and having him on the ice is the best way to mount a comeback, but Ehrhoff's logged a lot of time this season. In a mean-nothing game, three games before the playoffs, I'd rather his minutes are limited than see him play 10:03 of the third period trying to get Vancouver back into it. Ehrhoff needs rest, or he'll never beat JFK in a drag race.

• The Oilers played exceptionally physical last night, especially on the Sedins. Each time Daniel or Henrik had the puck behind the net, the Oiler defenders began a rigorous cross-checking regimen designed to turn their spines to pudding.

Sergei Shirokov Fights Nazem Kadri

From the desk of the Bureau of Unexpected Fights: that's Maple Leafs' prospect Nazem Kadri and Canucks' prospect Sergei Shirokov, going at it in last night's game between the Toronto Marlies and the Manitoba Moose. Not since Kym Johnson and Jerry Springer have I seen such unlikely dance partners.

And, if the idea of these two fighting isn't awesome enough, the shouts of "Keep throwin' em!" from the bench put this one over the top.

By the way, don't tell Brian Burke that he drafted a kid who couldn't win a fistfight with a Russian. Truculence indeed.

Consider that the Canucks pulled Evan Oberg out of this game as a precautionary measure, just to ensure he didn't get hurt if they needed to call him up. In hindsight, that was probably a good call. If Sergei Shirokov, of all people, got into a fight, who knows what terrible fate might have befallen Oberg? He could have been stabbed with a trident for all we know.


Thanks to Puck Daddy for sharing this rare footage with the public.

Thomas Gradin Started a Tradition of Swedish Stars

One of the most skilled players to ever wear a Canucks uniform, Thomas Gradin is a worthy inductee into the Canucks Ring of Honour. In a ceremony prior to last night's game against the Dallas Stars, Gradin took his place alongside Orland Kurtenbach and Kirk McLean in front of the Vancouver fans, as well as Marc Crawford, his former teammate. The ceremony was short and sweet, and featured Gradin's absolutely adorable grandson, Elias, wearing the Tre Kronor of Sweden and the presentation of a Glen Green original watercolor of in which Gradin sports the infamous "Halloween" jersey. Quite frankly, it's never looked better.

Gradin helped pave the way for other Europeans to come to the NHL and started a tradition of Swedish talent on the Canucks, which led to other Swedish stars such as Patrik Sundstrom, Matthias Ohlund, and Markus Naslund. Furthermore, he continues to feed that tradition as the Canucks' head European scout, instrumental in drafting the Sedins, Alex Edler, and prospects Anton Rodin and Peter Andersson.

Unfortunately, I wasn't born when Gradin started in the NHL with Stan Smyl and Curt Fraser, so I never got a chance to see him play or hear him speak. I didn't realize how truly similar Gradin was to my generation's Swedish superstars--the Sedins--until I read this great interview with Bob Dunn from a 1983 Canucks Magazine.

Tanner Glass Fighting Bears

Tanner Glass, doing valuable research like a good Dartmouth alum.

Last night, Tanner Glass knocked out Islander forward Matt Martin with a brutal haymaker. It was an impressive punch, and perhaps even moreso for Canuck fans, who are used to Glass holding his own in fights, but rarely winning them outright. According to HockeyFights.com, Glass has fought twenty-five times in a Canucks uniform and seven times this season. Do you remember any of them? Not really. But you'll remember last night's, and so will Matt Martin.

So where, exactly, did the Scrabble Champ develop such a mean right hook? PITB is here to tell you: fighting bears. Word is he's been doing a little bare-knuckle bear boxing on the sly. Well, the secret's out. Here's photo evidence that isn't in any way photoshopped:

Canucks Call Up Aaron Volpatti, Buy More Knuckle Tape

There are two possible reasons you may have never heard of the Volpatti Wagon:

1) Its namesake, Aaron Volpatti, was just called up to the NHL, for his first time, this morning.

2) The term originated here at PITB--and nobody reads PITB.

There's the news, though: The Canucks have called up Aaron Volpatti.

Volpatti will take the place of winger Jonas Andersson, the returned call-up that played well in his short time here, but didn't deliver enough of what the Canucks want out of their fourth-line wingers: hits that crush bones, followed by punches that crush the bones that came through the initial crushing uncrushed. That's sort of a good summary of Aaron Volpatti's skillset, too.

Volpatti is a bitter little bastard who hates that people stand upright, and takes it upon himself to stop them. He hits a lot. And, to complement his hitty nature, he is possessed by the spirit of pugilism. In 26 games with the Moose this year, he has as many points as he does fights (6). Fights like this one:

Kevin Bieksa Will Drag His Knuckles Across Your Face

Often lost in the ongoing dispute over Kevin Bieksa's defensive ability is his extraordinary knack for fisticuffs. Juice (so called because he likes pineapple juice, but also conveniently fits with his predisposition to rage) has had a reputation as a fighter to be avoided since he broke into the NHL by one-punching arrogant and highly-disliked prospect Fedor Fedorov in a parking lot. Canucks' management was pleased with this, likely because A) toughness is never unwanted, and B) Fedorov had been asking for it for awhile.

Since then, the long-held opinion has been that Kevin Bieksa--like Bruce Banner--is not your friend when he's angry. He's also an entertaining scrapper, sometimes beginning spats with a GSP-style Superman punch. Early in his career, Bieksa was often compared to Ed Jovanovski, a contrast that wasn't quite accurate, hockey-wise. It was apt, however, during fights: Jovanovski was generally to be avoided because he punched to concuss (just ask Adam Deadmarsh); Bieksa is similarly spirited when he trots out the knuckles. He fights to win. There is rarely any debate over his contributions to Vancouver when he resorts to violence.

Speaking of fighting and winning, he's already done so twice this season, both times decisively walloping his opponents (Kevyn Adams and Aaron Voros, respectively). Canuck fans treated both affairs as a rare treat, but in the big picture, he's actually fought 27 times in six seasons as a Canuck.

And, according to HockeyFights.com, he trends towards indisputable victory. Of those 27 fights, according to his fight card (where winners are determined through voting) he's 24-1-2. Put another way: in six years, he's lost only 2 times, and of those two, neither was overly decisive. His wins are much more so. Of his 24 wins, 15 have garnered at least 70% of the vote, with 8 garnering 90% or more. The verdict? Bieksa will crush you. After the jump, exhibits A through E:

Why Guillaume Desbiens Broke His Hand

Chris Schneider - AP

What's wrong with this picture? On first glance, this picture is great! A Canucks fourth-liner, Desbiens, stepping up to fight Colorado's Cody McLeod to keep the Canucks momentum going in a sterling 3-0 win last night. What's more, Desbiens conclusively won the fight, bloodying McLeod with some solid punches.

And then he left the game with a broken hand.

Take another look at that picture.

Closer.

What in the world is Desbiens' thumb doing inside his fist?! I'm a pacifist and I know better than to do that! Desbiens, on the other hand, is meant to be a competent pugilist with fighting a big part of his resumé for playing on an NHL fourth line. It's simple: "Never make a fist with your thumb inside your other fingers. When you punch this way you will end up breaking your thumb."

Desbiens tucked his thumb under his other fingers in his fist. He broke his hand. There is a cause and effect relation. The only possible reason that I can think of for why he hadn't broken his hand previous to this fight is that he hasn't hit anyone hard enough.

Edit: I just noticed that there's an intriguing theory being bandied about on the Canucks.com forums that Guillaume Desbiens formed a fist in this way and punched Cody McLeod in the helmet in order to guarantee himself an NHL salary while he is on the IR. With Rick Rypien returning from suspension, the theory goes, Desbiens would be worried about being sent down to the Manitoba Moose, where his salary would drop from $550,000 for the year to $55,000.

While I find this theory a bit absurd, it's mainly because I cannot possibly conceive actually injuring myself in order to make more money, especially because it's not guaranteed that Desbiens would be sent down. At the same time, Desbiens is undoubtedly a tougher person than I am. So I offer the following picture of a previous fight Desbiens was in without comment:

The Endless Cycle of Enforcement

I don't understand why Darcy Hordichuk's place in the #Canucks lineup is even in question. Who else is going to show up to do what he does?

~ @rcamcole

Who is going to do what Darcy Hordichuk does?

The first question to ask is what does Darcy Hordichuk do?

As I established in a post back in June, I like fighting in hockey. I firmly believe that fighting is necessary as a deterrent for cheap shots, to protect star players, and to pump up teammates and fans, but beyond all the logical and reasonable arguments for fighting, I simply enjoy it. Call it barbarism, but I enjoy seeing a good, old-fashioned hockey fight.

What I don't enjoy seeing is a player with limited ability costing my team points in the standings. I get annoyed when I see a player consistently get beaten in the defensive zone, mishandle a pass, or take a stupid penalty. As soon as such a player hits the ice, the fans collectively hold their breath, just waiting for him to make a mistake and hoping that he gets off the ice as soon as possible. The question arises: how does a person who so clearly cannot play professional hockey at the NHL level get a job playing professional hockey at the NHL level? Because this particular specimen is an "enforcer" and is paid not to play hockey, but to punch people on skates.

When Darcy Hordichuk was signed by the Canucks in 2008, I was initially pleased, as were a great many other Canucks fans. By all reports, Darcy Hordichuk is a wonderful person and a great teammate. Furthermore, the team had been without a legitimate heavyweight fighter for years, with Jeff Cowan attempting to fill that role in the previous season. Hordichuk was seen as a guy who could skate a regular shift on the 4th line, a reliable checker who could, at the very least, skate. Turns out, that wasn't exactly true. He has not been reliable; instead, he's been a liability. Sure, he'll throw a few hits, but they're hardly impactful. Otherwise, he doesn't do much of anything other than occasionally fight.

Which means, his only purpose is to fight. And the only people he fights are other enforcers. Which means his fights don't do what a hockey fight is meant to do.

An enforcer like Hordichuk doesn't fight an opposing team's cheap-shot artists. If Matt Cooke, for example, elbows an opponent or catches a player with his head down, he may be challenged to a fight, but no one expects him to fight a heavyweight like Derek Boogaard, Darcy Hordichuk, or George Parros. It would be considered ludicrous, akin to Zdeno Chara flipping Bryan McCabe around like a matador's cape. A player like Evander Kane, on the other hand, can take on Matt Cooke, because it's reasonable for him to do so. Evander Kane can play hockey and he can fight a cheap-shot artist.

An enforcer like Hordichuk doesn't protect a team's star players. Quite frankly, if Hordichuk is on the ice at the same time as the Sedins, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. If someone does target the Sedins, Hordichuk may come off the bench the following shift, but he's not going to fight the offending player. Instead, he's going to fight the other team's designated fighter. That fighter isn't going to be the player who originally targeted the Sedins, because he can't play hockey either and if he was on the ice at the same time as the Sedins, they just scored a goal.

The only possible purpose, then, of the heavyweight enforcer is to pump up his teammates and the crowd. As I mentioned, I enjoy watching a hockey fight, but I get much more pumped-up watching the speedy fists of Rick Rypien or even the mullet-ness and willingness to take a punch of Tanner "No Third Line For" Glass than the flailing ineptitude of Darcy Hordichuk. Obviously I can't speak for his teammates, but I certainly don't get pumped up watching Darcy Hordichuk fight because I know it plays no role in the outcome of the game. Two team-appointed fighters squaring off holds no appeal to me because they are only members of their respective teams in the most technical of terms.

In many ways, the world of hockey enforcement is akin to the academic world of philosophy; it's insular and frequently serves no purpose to the world at large. In philosophy, it's just philosophers disagreeing with each other completely aside from the issues that actually matter to regular people and in hockey, it's heavyweights fighting with each other completely aside from the hockey that actually decides the result of a game. Darcy Hordichuk only slots into the lineup if there is a player on the opposing team that "needs" to be fought. If the opposing team has no such player, he sits in the press-box, pondering his knuckles. So what would happen if no other team in the NHL had such a player?

What would happen if every team in the NHL broke the cycle of enforcement and cut ties with their players who do nothing but chuck knuckles within the fraternity of fighters?

George Parros might need to actually use his degree from Princeton. Derek Boogaard would have to go back to teaching teenagers how to fight. Darcy Hordichuk could return to his modelling career. Raitis Ivanans would go back to whatever it is that Raitis Ivanans does. And the NHL would drastically cut down on the number of pointless fights.

Enforcers who can play?

Guy Boucher, the new coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning who is about as far-removed from old-school hockey thinking as is humanly possible, summed up his thoughts on enforcers in a recent article by Damian Cristodero:

The reality is you need an enforcer, in my book, if he can play the game. If he can’t play the game it just makes somebody unhappy not playing much. It also prevents some other guys who could bring a lot of stuff on the ice. I’m all for enforcers if they can hog a lot of minutes during the game, use them for penalty kill or against top lines. I don’t like guys sitting on the bench. I use everybody. I use all my four lines. I use all my defense. Everybody has got a role on the team. And when a guy has only that role I don't feel comfortable about it.

The role of the heavyweight enforcer who can't play hockey is, or perhaps should be, dead. It seems strange to say that when Derek Boogaard, the quintessential representative of this fraternity, can get signed by Glen Sather for $6.5 million over 4 years, but that's what happens when an NHL team employs a man married to the old-school vision of hockey. There's a reason the signing was scoffed at: Boogaard has scored a whopping 2 goals over his entire 5-year career. That's not the kind of production that normally nets a multi-year, big-money deal. Of course, Boogaard was not signed to play hockey, he was signed to fight.

But the Boogeyman has only fought 9 times in each of his last two seasons. In all 82 games the Wild played last season, Boogaard fought in 9 of them. He averaged the fewest minutes of any player on the Wild (other than 2-game wunderkind Danny Irmen) with 6:09 and only played in 57 games. That's pretty much the definition of a non-impact player. Boogaard will be paid $1.625 million a year to fight 9 times a year. That's it. He doesn't contribute anything else on the ice. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he fights 10 times a year. That's still a whopping $162,500 per fight.

Still, Boogaard is regarded as one of the premier fighters in the NHL, a bona fide heavyweight enforcer. So why doesn't he fight more often? Because the only people willing to fight him are other bona fide heavyweight enforcers (and Darcy Hordichuk). No one else is willing to fight him because they know he could cave in their faces (literally) with one swing of his Thanksgiving-turkey-sized fists.

Sounds like a pretty intimidating guy, and he is, but he's not intimidating as a hockey player. He is only intimating as a fighter and if another player doesn't want to fight him, he doesn't have to. And, since he barely sees the ice during a game, he's not much of a threat to a team's star players, so there's no need for the opposition to ice their own enforcer to protect those players.

Boogaard is not an enforcer who can play and neither is Hordichuk. Unfortunately, it's entirely possible that Hordichuk will make the Canucks' opening night roster purely on the basis that he can fight the heavyweight goons and the assumption that it's necessary for him to do so. Why do the Canucks need Darcy Hordichuk? To fight Derek Boogaard, George Parros, and Brian McGrattan. Why do the Rangers need Derek Boogaard? To fight George Parros, Brian McGrattan, and Darcy Hordichuk. And so the cycle goes.

The Kurtenblog asked the question, "Do the Canucks need an enforcer?" It seems clear to me that the answer is no, that no team actually needs an enforcer cut from the Hordichuk/Boogaard/Parros cloth. An enforcer that can play, that contributes on the ice when he is not fighting? That is a player worth having. There is no point to having an enforcer who's only job is to fight the opposing team's enforcer. If this is all that he does, what is actually being enforced?

Who is going to do what Hordichuk does? Hopefully no one, because what Hordichuk does is not worth doing.

Tuesday Night is Merely Okay for Fighting

Jake Bogoch's article on the Puckmasters Fight School is a must read. As an inside look at the controversial fight school, it's intriguing; as a look at why fighting is a part of the game of hockey, it's invaluable.

As a borderline pacifist who was raised Mennonite, I've always had trouble defending the presence of fighting in my favorite spectator sport. It's not just the fact that it's there, it's the fact that I enjoy it. There's nothing quite like Rick Rypien looking up at a player eight inches taller and sixty pounds heavier and taking him to task.

When I introduced my wife, an American raised watching baseball and football, to the great game of hockey, fighting was one of the initial barriers. It was something that just didn't make sense. I tried to explain the benefits of protecting star players, pumping up your teammates (and the fans), and even intimidating opponents. All of it rang hollow. While all of those are legitimate reasons for fighting to remain a part of the fabric of hockey, the real reason I don't want fighting out of the NHL is because I enjoy it so much.

As Professor Farnsworth might say: "Oh my, yes."

Let's face it, every hockey fan in North America cheered when Evander Kane knocked out Matt Cooke (perhaps he should have attended the Puckmasters Fight School), though some purists may have attached an asterisk to the moment, noting Kane's visored helmet still securely attached to his head. Every Canucks fan perks up when they see a clueless goon size up Rick Rypien, thinking he's an easy target. Even my wife has taken to the Rypper. Hockey fans love fighting.

The odd thing is, as much as hockey fans love it, fighting continues to be wrapped up in arguments against the violence of hockey. Appeals are made to the wider sports audience, that hockey is too violent for the casual sports fan. Meanwhile, UFC 114 Prelims on Spike TV captured 1.6 million viewers. The moments of violence collated by CBC post-Bertuzzi-incident? Only one involved actual fighting, the legendary night the Lights Went Out, wherein essentially every player involved in the junior Canada-Soviet game squared off, the Cold War taking to the ice. That's a bit of an isolated incident.

But the sidebar to Bogoch's blog about fighting is "A History of Violence," with less electric-drill-based torture and more recapping of the deep-roots violence has in hockey. Every incident mentioned involves swinging a stick at a player's head; none of them involve a hockey fight. To what purpose was that sidebar attached to Bogoch's article about the Fight School? It's an odd editorial decision: the logical sidebar for such an article would be a history of hockey fights. Obviously, someone at Deadspin disagrees.

Not pictured: Hockey.

To finish things off, here's Nucks Misconduct's Top 10 Rick Rypien Fights. Good gravy, I love Rick Rypien. And Darcy Hordichuk had some interesting thoughts on fighting in this old blog post. Worth a read. As is A History of Violence. Very different from the movie.