Canucks Training Camp Roster VI

In this visual metaphor, Ryan Hollweg is Darcy Hordichuk, and Darcy Hordichuk is the harsh reality of the new NHL.

We're a little late on the draw here but I just found out that, before the Anaheim game, the Canucks sent two more players down to Manitoba: Sergei Shirokov and Yann Sauve. As well, since our last roster update, Shane O'Brien and Darcy Hordichuk were put on waivers in what might have been the most shocking moves of the preseason, for some. Skeeter and I kinda figured. I don't think the Canucks were ever happy with Shane O'Brien's play here, and his ticket out of town was punched when Andrew Alberts proved he could provide what the Canucks acquired him for. Hordichuk lost his job two years ago when the NHL changed and he didn't, but, like Office Space's Milton Waddams, he somehow stuck around doing nothing. We wish he and his red Swingline stapler all the best in Manitoba. Skeeter has more on these two big-time demotions.

Shirokov and Sauve's causes for demotion are completely opposite. Sauve never even got a chance: he was in a car accident that left him unable to play for the time being. It sucks for him as he never got a chance to show the Canucks what he could do or how he'd improved. On the bright side, it was the sort of car accident one can walk away from and, as car accidents go, that's all you can really hope for.

Shirokov, on the other hand, was given every opportunity. It seems to me the Canucks figured he'd make the opening night roster, much like he did last year. The hope was that a year in the AHL had given him a new defensive awareness and ability to play North American-style hockey. The Canucks gave him a training regimen to follow over the summer, optimistic he'd follow it. Unfortunately, Shirokov didn't, instead becoming the fourth player in the Gillis era to have his conditioning publicly decried. Like Cody Hodgson (who spent the summer rehabbing his back rather than eating Arby's on it), he'll have to get himself back to NHL shape before he can challenge for the right to live in a hotel in Vancouver.

This leaves the Canucks with 32 guys on the training camp roster, below, and now the real questions begin. You'll notice that Alex Burrows and Sami Salo are still on these lists. That's by design, as they have to be put on the original 23-man roster before they can be put on Long-term injury and gives the Canucks the cap relief. You have to believe that's the plan.

On defense, that means that the opening night seven are basically set. Lee Sweatt will be sent down to Manitoba, and Aaron Rome will occupy the pressbox. The other six are the six you'll see. We can only hope that, among those six, Juice and Hips find different partners than one another.

At forward, questions continue to linger. Alex Burrows aside, the Canucks can keep twelve forwards with the club. The rest have to be sent down or waived before one of them can be brought back up. We know that Kesler, Malhotra, Raymond, Samuelsson, the Sedins and Raffi Torres are safe. The other five spots are a toss-up. I'm sure there will be at least one decision in the next week that will stir a hearty debate between Skeeter and I. For example: it could be argued that one of Peter Schaefer and Brendan Morrison could be offered a contract. Who and why?

Here are the remaining 32 guys:

Forwards (20)
Alex Bolduc, Alex Burrows, Guillaume Desbiens, Tanner Glass, Jannik Hansen, Cody Hodgson, Ryan Kesler, Manny Malhotra, Brendan Morrison, Victor Oreskovich, Joel Perrault, Mason Raymond, Rick Rypien, Mikael Samuelsson, Peter Schaefer, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, Bill Sweatt, Jeff Tambellini, Raffi Torres.

Defensemen (9)
Andrew Alberts, Keith Ballard, Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler, Christian Ehrhoff, Dan Hamhuis, Aaron Rome, Sami Salo, Lee Sweatt.

Goalies (3)
Eddie Lack, Roberto Luongo, Cory Schneider.

Shane O'Brien and Darcy Hordichuk on Waivers

As originally reported by Michael Russo and confirmed by Dan Murphy, Shane O'Brien and Darcy Hordichuk have been put on waivers by the Vancouver Canucks. According to Bruce Garrioch, Mike Gillis tried to deal SOB, but failed to find any takers.

As I said in yesterday's post on enforcers, I saw no need for Darcy Hordichuk in the lineup. He's been badly outplayed by other potential 4th-line players. Even Guillaume Desbiens has been better than Hordichuk. And while he's a great team guy, I made the argument that we don't need him if all he will do is fight other heavyweight enforcers around the league. There's no room on the team for someone who can't play hockey.

It's tough to hear that Shane "Pain Lion" O'Brien, because we honestly like the guy. I think he has far more skill than he was initially given credit for and he's great at protecting the puck in the defensive and offensive zone. He was, however, outplayed in the preseason by Andrew "Give Us Barrabas" Alberts. Alberts is cheaper, bigger, and won't give the Canucks the PR concerns that Shane "Meet Me at the Roxy" O'Brien did last season. Still, SOB is a solid 6th defenceman and will likely get picked up on waivers.

That gives the Canucks the following defencemen:

Hamhuis - Edler

Ballard - Ehrhoff

Bieksa - Alberts

Rome

LTIR: Salo

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.

I Watched This Game: Canucks at Oilers, September 26, 2010

I Watched This Game is a recurring feature on Pass it to Bulis, chronicling the insights and observations of two guys that watched a hockey game.

Eight goals for the Edmonton Oilers. Eight. What in tarnations?

That was, suffice it to say, a terrible game. If I were coach of the team, I'd cut everyone in this unit and start the season with the squad that beat the Ducks last night. Mind you, that's why I'm not the coach of the team. I have faith that AV will be able to sort through this mess and send the guiltiest parties back to Manitoba (ex: Kevin Bieksa). Thankfully, I won't dwell on this too much. It was a preseason game, and Dexter's on in half an hour. Let's make this quick.

• We watched this game with our wives. During the anthem, they commented on the size of Horcoff's nose. Skeeter's response: "Horcoff has a heck of a honker." Weird.
• Hodgson looked reasonable in his first preseason game, quickly getting into the game with some physical play. He looked strong and confident, though not confident enough to try anything especially creative. He played a safe, responsible game and did not look out of place with Kesler and Raymond. With a couple more strong performances, this could actually be a line we see at the start of the season, with Samuelsson starting with the Sedins. In any case, it's hard to gauge Hodgson's performance given that the team collectively sucked.
• As mentioned above, Bieksa did not have a good game. He wasn't alone, as the defense was just plain bad. Lee Sweatt was arguably the best defender, but he made several mistakes as well, notably a poorly advised pinch on the Oiler's fourth goal. There was a wealth of odd-man rushes for the Oilers to take advantage of, mostly caused by poor positioning by the defense. It's comforting to note that Ehrhoff, Edler, and Hamhuis weren't in this game, but Ballard, Bieksa, and SOB were and they were not good. At all.
• While he didn't have much support in front of him, Cory Schneider had a poor game. He let in 8 goals, there's not much more to say. Quite frankly, Eddie Lack has outplayed Schneider in the preseason. There wasn't a battle for the backup role heading into camp, but 8 goals opens up the debate.
• The following Canucks were not terrible: Oreskovich, Morrison, Kesler, Raymond, Hodgson, and Malhotra. The rest were terrible or, at best, unnoticeable.
• I desperately want to make a drunk Khabibulin joke, but Skeeter's the one typing this (awkwardly writing in the third person), so it's not happening.
• Funniest part of the game was Hordichuk trying to steal Volpatti's fight and getting a penalty. "No, Volpatti, you're not making the team by fighting, I am! That's my job!" Guess what, Hordi, it's not going to be your job in the future. As in, this season.
• Hordichuk did manage to get in a fight with Zack Stortini, but the real highlight was after the fight, when the penalty box camera captured him watching his fight on the Jumbotron and making some sweet reaction shots. The video above stops just before the first of these.
• Burrows claimed that the Canucks' sluggish play might be due, in part, because they flew in that day and didn't get to indulge in their pre-game nap. That puts hockey alongside kindergarten as the only place where a nap makes or breaks the success of the day.

Every Goal, Forward Edition: the Guys with Four Goals or Less

Demitra: Did you see that? Two between-the-legs moves in a row!
Wellwood: Ho ho ho! Golly, that was nifty.
Demitra: We didn't score, but we're satisfied with the skills we've showcased!

Welcome back to the Every Goal series, a nearly exhaustive compendium of every goal the Canucks scored last season, player by player, in chronological order. There are two days left in this beast. Today, we cover the forwards who scored four goals or less as a Canuck last season in descending order: Rick Rypien (4), Tanner Glass (4), Pavol Demitra (3), and the one-goal guys--Darcy Hordichuk, Matt Pettinger, and Ryan Johnson.

Most of these guys deserve to be here. They're the muckers, the grinders, the six minutes a night guys, with the exception of Pavol Demitra. Consider that I've been railing against Glass being used as a third-liner at times last season, but he outscored Pavol Demitra. Injuries be damned, my friends--that is unacceptable. Nucks Misconduct has been touting a Demitra-free existence since July 1, and I have to admit I like breathing the Vancouver air knowing I'm not sharing it with Pavol Demitra. To be fair, he had his moments in Vancouver, but seemingly none of them came while wearing a Vancouver jersey and that's infuriating. Part of me thinks the Demo nickname is more appropriate now that we know Vancouver got the limited demo version of Pavol (hence, why this didn't amount to anything), and the Slovaks got the fully licensed, unlocked version. In the future, Gillis, let's steer clear of shareware. On to the forwards.

Rick Rypien

1. Oct. 16 vs. the Calgary Flames
Rypien's first of the season comes on a feed from Henrik. He comes out from behind the net and then wires a wrist shot, top corner, over Kiprusoff. It's a gorgeous shot. Credit to Henrik, who gets the puck to him with a ton of space to do something.

2. Nov. 3 vs. the New York Rangers
Rypien here is the beneficiary of some incredible work by Ryan Kesler, who enters the zone 1-on-3, dumps the puck in, gets it back, and controls it along the boards before finding Rypien sneaking in. Kesler makes a beautiful pass, and Rypien finishes.

3. Jan. 5 vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets
Rypien rips (pun!) a slapshot past Steve Mason in this clip and it's a bullet. The real story here is Kyle Wellwood's weak little saucer pass, however, as it hops over the defender's stick and then just lays there, waiting for the Rypper to tear into it.

4. Apr. 10 vs. the Calgary Flames
Credit here to Adam Pardy, who does some terrible defensive work, gets beat and loses his stick in Matt Pettinger's legs. The play becomes a 2-on-1, and Pettinger walks in before feeding it to Rypien directly in front of Kiprusoff. Rypien's four goals show he's actually got a pretty good shot, and here he puts it to good use. The guy isn't much of a playmaker, but he actually can finish if he's set up.

Tanner Glass

Tanner Glass, upon realizing that, against all reason, he's skating on the third line tonight.

1. Nov. 1 vs. the Colorado Avalanche (at 1:51 of clip)
Glass scores on a 2-on-1 with Kyle Wellwood by keeping, shooting, and having the puck bank off the defenseman, which is the textbook play, really.

2. Nov. 14 vs. the Colorado Avalanche
Glass's goal is the eighth of the game for the Canucks, so everything was going in for them. That's likely why Glass scores. He shows good strength with the puck here, coming out from behind the net, fighting off his man, and putting it low on the short side.

3. Nov. 26 vs. the Los Angeles Kings (at 5:37 of clip)
Don't believe Shorty's call here. It's Glass that scores, although Wellwood does most of the work, stealing the puck in the neutral zone and feeding Glass. After Quick makes the save, Glass pokes the rebound home.

4. Nov. 28 vs. the Edmonton Oilers
Glass's shows good tenacity on his fourth goal of the season, coming out from behind the net for a shot, then picking up his own rebound and roofing it. I'm not a huge fan of Tanner Glass. Yes, he dished out many hits, but not very good hits, and he didn't bring much else. This despite a number of games where he skated, inexplicably and poorly, on the third line, thereby causing Kyle Wellwood to have to sign a tryout contract with Phoenix. All this said, however, I would have Tanner Glass in November. He scored four goals last season, all in November.

Pavol Demitra

1. Feb. 6 vs. the Boston Bruins
Demitra's first of only three goals last season was a big one. Down late in the third period, he tips this Tanner Glass shot home to tie the game. My favourite part of this clip? Kyle Wellwood, looking hapless. That's him tripping over a Bruin in the corner of the frame on every replay.

2. Mar. 2 vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like everybody on the roster scored a goal on Steve Mason last year. He's just looked terrible in these clips all through the Every Goal series. Anyway, here he is getting beat by a Demitra wrister off a rebound. My favourite thing about this clip? Mikael Samuelsson's interference to give Demo the room to get to this this puck and shoot it. He had body position, but still, it just looks so blatantly like interference.

3. Apr. 8 vs. the San Jose Sharks
Here we have another beautiful yet largely-forgotten piece of wizardous sedinerie, as Henrik and Daniel pull off a give-and-go along the boards. Daniel's no-look, between-the-legs back-pass to Henrik is downright effortless. From there, Henrik feeds Demitra, who makes a nice shot to score the goal. This is a tight angle shot that Demitra absolutely kills.

Darcy Hordichuk
Darcy Hordichuk, after winning a fight with the puck.

1. Nov. 5 vs. the Minnesota Wild
Darcy Hordichuk's only goal of last season comes on a dreadful botched breakout, as Derek Boogaard fails to receive a simple pass, and the puck squirts out to Hordy instead. He slaps the puck past Backstrom. Glen Sather, upon seeing this goal, immediately circled Boogaard's name on his must-sign list.

Matt Pettinger

1. Nov. 5 vs. the Minnesota Wild
Can you believe Matt Pettinger scored his only goal of the season in the same game as Darcy Hordichuk? How odd. Anyway, this one comes off a pretty terrible angle, and banks in off of Backstrom. That's two goals the Wild shouldn't have allowed, both to the Canucks' fourth line. Yes, they lost the game. I love the look on Hordichuk's face when he's on the ice for a goal. It's like, "OMG YOU GUYS WOW." He's genuinely shocked not to be in the minuses.

Ryan Johnson

1. Mar. 18 vs. the San Jose Sharks
What's incredible to me about Ryan Johnson is that, while he rarely scored, the ones he potted weren't easy. This goal is a prime example. Johnson shows speed, stickhandling ability, and quick hands to get to that rebound. This goal is another example. It's a shame this Ryan Johnson only showed up about once a season. Farewell, Balls. You will be missed, just like when you played for us.