It's arbitration week in the NHL, but that's not a factor for the Vancouver Canucks. All of Vancouver's restricted free agents have already been re-signed for 2014-15, so the Canucks' roster is basically set.
Toronto was able to settle with Cody Franson ahead of today's hearing, reportedly for $3.3 million a season. On Tuesday, Antoine Roussel of Dallas should be lined up for a big raise from the $625,000 he made last year, then Wednesday will see new deals for young stars Ryan O'Reilly and Chris Kreider.
The arbitration period extends till August 1, with P.K. Subban's hearing scheduled for the final day.
Trevor Linden could be taking a break after all his work over the last few months, but he's still making the media rounds. On Saturday night, he appeared on Brook Ward's weekend sports show on CKNW.
I can't find a stream of the interview, but Thomas Drance did a synopsis for The Score.
Click here for the story. You'll also get to enjoy a photo of Trev taking in a Canucks/Wild game from the club seats alongside Prime Minister Stephen Harper back in 2011.
That night, the extent of Linden's popularity came into sharp focus for me. As I wondered whether he was being courted for a possible run in politics, I watched fans lean across the leader of our country to say a few words to Linden or get his autograph, all night long. Stephen Harper definitely played second-fiddle in that crowd.
As far as today's Canucks, it seems that Linden's focused on making sure he sees the forest, not just the trees. He doesn't discount any possible edge that could be earned from using the latest sports science techniques, but plans to key in on the basic core elements of the game:
We certainly want to look at the best practices from other organizations - whether that be in the NHL, or the NBA, or the NFL - we're certainly going to look at what people are doing and why.
But like I said: I'm a big believer of the fundamentals of the game and they haven't changed in 100 years.
Certainly you're always looking for better ways to do things, but I think you can get down a path where your focus isn't on what's important, but is on the extra 2-or-3%. You have to be really careful with that. You don't want to lose your eye on the ball because you're looking for that extra piece, and sometimes those extra pieces, I'm not really convinced that they're effective anyway.
The Canucks are pushing nutrition and conditioning to the prospects, so it's not like they're being totally old-school. But Linden's dead right when he says that you can't predict the outcome of games simply by looking at teams on paper.
You look at rosters, you look at depth charts, and you put them on the wall and you pick your teams. If we were all doing that you wouldn't bother playing the games.
The reason we have the season and play the games is those intangibles, it's how your team comes together, it's how they gel, it's how they play, it's the trust they have in one another, it's the belief in the system they're playing. So that's what we're going to focus on now, my focus is that we're one of the top-16 teams because we want an opportunity at the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Los Angeles Kings seem to have had great success with that kind of buy-in, turning themselves around quickly with basically the same roster that was languishing outside the Western Conference playoff picture when Darryl Sutter took over in December of 2011.
Every team tries to make this happen. The question is whether or not Trevor and his group have assembled the puzzle-pieces to succeed next season.
Gino Appears at Ceremony in His Honour
Also over the weekend, Gino Odjick made a surprise appearance at the ceremony to rename the hockey rink in his honour in his hometown of Maniwaki, Quebec.
In an earlier story, organizers had talked about wanting to have Odjick appear by video link, but he did them one better with a personal appearance. The APTN story
can be found here.
Gino has been relocated and is now receiving treatment in Ottawa, closer to his roots. It sounds like his health is still reasonably robust.
Although he was thin and appeared weakened from a rare terminal heart ailment that doctors discovered in April, Odjick walked to the stage by himself and often stood when people spoke of his many accomplishments.
The outpouring of support since the announcement of his illness seems to be doing wonders for keeping Gino in high spirits. It's great to see.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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