Well, ex-Canucks were not quite as dominant in Thursday's playoff action.
• Raphael Diaz was a healthy scratch for the New York Rangers in their win over the Flyers.
• Keith Ballard was also a healthy scratch for the Minnesota Wild as they fell in OT to Colorado.
• Matt Cooke had a good game for Minnesota. He played nearly 20 minutes, was a plus-one, and registered six hits.
• Max Lapierre was a buzz-saw for St. Louis in their triple-overtime win over Chicago. I didn't see that whole game, but heard he had a critical shot-block in overtime that helped give the Blues their chance to win. He played 22:51 through 100+ minutes of hockey and was a plus-one, with an assist on the Blues' first goal.
I liveblogged the Kings and Sharks, which was an unbelievable hit-fest. The hits were something like 29-26 by the end of the first period, and ended up 69/52 in favour of the Kings. I've never even seen numbers like that before...and this is Game 1.
Ex-Canuck Raffi Torres was back in the lineup for the Sharks. His fitness looks questionable—he was a red-faced pile of hot air on the bench after an early shift—but he scored what turned out to be the winning goal for the Sharks and led his team with seven hits.
I don't know if he'll be able to sustain that level of play. It looks like this will be a last-man-standing kind of a series.
I think that's everybody. Let me know if I missed any other ex-Canucks out in playoff-land.
In other news, I came across
this story from Darrin Hayes at
The Hockey Writers , which offers a little more detail on the prospective candidates for the Canucks' GM search.
In Hayes' mind, the key names are Nashville assistant GM Paul Fenton, Boston assistant GM Jim Benning and Flyers assistant GM Ron Hextall. The article does a good job of breaking down each man's background and what he would bring to the table.
Iain MacIntyre also mentioned Hextall's name on Thursday:
One final note today—I had forgotten that Jannik Hansen has a modified no-trade clause as part of his contract extension that'll kick in next season.
Click here for the details of that deal, from capgeek.com: four years with a cap hit of $2.5 million per season.
I believe that clause will come into effect on July 1. Despite his brutal season, do you think the Canucks can move him before he becomes un-movable?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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