As Labour Day weekend begins, Canucks players are on their way back into town and reporters are also getting back to work. There's plenty of new material to peruse today.
Hank the Tank broke down Iain MacIntyre's new interview with Jim Benning in yesterday's comments. If you haven't seen the whole article, you should
take a look to see the photo of Benning in front of his new whiteboard.
Benning’s masterpiece is a positional depth chart that includes every team in the National Hockey League, penned by Benning on feltboard and arranged by team rank. It contains the colour-coded names of more than 700 NHL players and occupies most of the south wall of Benning’s office at Rogers Arena.
Over at
The Province, Tony Gallagher has
seized on a weeks-old comment by new assistant coach Perry Pearn about how he thinks the Canucks will be "contenders for the playoffs" to paint a gloomy picture of lowered expectations. In the last paragraph of his column, he acknowledges:
Linden, his GM Jim Benning and new coach Willie Desjardins have all vocalized higher expectations than this on other occasions. But after the John Tortorella meltdown year and these comments coming from a newly hired assistant coach, it would seem they have some work ahead of them convincing the rest of the organization that sights should be set a little higher.
For his part, Benning has now moved his personal bar higher—from "making the playoffs" to a 100-point season and actual potential playoff run:
Benning is emphatic that the Canucks can be a 100-point playoff team and doesn’t accept the popular theory that even if they are that, their Stanley Cup tournament will be over early against a Pacific Division monster like the Los Angeles Kings.
Meanwhile, Ed Willes
chats with Kevin Bieksa after a workout in Richmond. No mention of that big gash on his leg that we saw on Twitter a couple of weeks ago; Bieksa says he's in the best shape of his life and that his teammates are the same. "You can look around the league and I don’t think you’ll find a group of guys our age who are in the shape we’re in." Is it worrisome that even he is mentioning "our age?"
Bieksa says Trevor Linden's hiring has given the team confidence about its direction going forward, but stops short of pointing fingers at last year's coach for the trouble that ensued. "There’s plenty of blame for everyone to share," he says. "I’m not going there."
For now, we can stake our claim on Team Hope or Team Doom. It won't be much longer till we start to see how things play out on the ice.
Kids Only Press Conference
If you have a little hockey fan in your life, take him or her out to the PNE on Monday to participate in a "Kids-only" press conference. At 4:30 p.m. at the Chevrolet Performance Stage, Kevin Bieksa, Eddie Lack and Fin will be on hand to answer questions from the next generation of HockeyBuzz enthusiasts.
Kids will also have a chance to win prizes, including tickets to a preseason game, and 10 lucky kids will get to meet the guests of honour after the press conference.
Great initiative, and good choices for the participants. Bieksa and Lack will be terrific interview subjects.
Who Wore It Best?
With 90 percent of the vote, Gino Odjick was the clearcut winner of our poll for the best to wear No. 29.
Canucks.com concurs.
Don't you miss those wild and woolly days before the jersey tie-down rule?
The Canucks website is continuing the feature up to No. 31, at the end of the month. I'll do a bonus round on Monday for all the higher-numbered players but for now, let's focus on No. 30. A whole lotta goalies—many of whom were short-term backups:
Mike Fountain: Drafted by the Canucks in the second round in 1992, Mike Fountain played just 11 NHL games—six of them with the Canucks. But he started off with a bang. After a long stretch in the minors, waiting for his opportunity, Fountain made his NHL debut against the New Jersey Devils on November 14, 1996.
Not only did he stop all 40 shots he faced to post a shutout in his first NHL game, he almost scored an empty-net goal as well!
Fountain only lasted the season in Vancouver. He was signed as a free agent by Carolina during the summer of 1997. He also had a brief stint with Ottawa before heading back to the minors, then over to Europe. Fountain played in the KHL until 2009 and is now the goaltending coach for the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the USHL.
His career record with Vancouver was 2-2-0, with a goals-against average of 3.43 and a .896 save percentage.
Cesare Maniago: After a long, successful career, largely with the Minnesota North Stars, the Vancouver Canucks acquired 37-year-old Cesare Maniago in exchange for goalie Gary "Suitcase" Smith in August of 1976. The native of Trail, B.C. played two seasons in Vancouver before retiring, then served as the Canucks' goaltending coach for several years.
Maniago's career record with Vancouver was 27-45-17, with a goals-against average of 3.68. He played in the era before save percentage statistics were recorded.
Dunc Wilson: I vaguely remember Dunc Wilson being something of a saviour for the early Vancouver Canucks, but the numbers don't seem to bear that out. Wilson was a youngster claimed by Vancouver in their 1970 expansion draft. After a season in the wings behind 37-year-old starter Charlie Hodge, Wilson took over the No. 1 role in 1971-72. He posted a 16-30-3 record and 3.61 goals-against that year but as Wikipedia helpfully
points out, his backups went 4-20-5. Hence, I suppose, my rose-coloured memories of Wilson.
The Canucks improved their goaltending when they acquired Gary Smith in May of 1973. Two weeks later, Wilson was traded to Toronto for Larry McIntyre and Murray Heatley.
Wilson's career record with Vancouver was 34-86-12, with a goals-against average of 3.92. Those were different days indeed in terms of scoring!
Other Canucks goaltenders who wore No. 30 include Bruce Bullock, Frank Caprice, George Gardner, Ken Lockett, Andrew Raycroft and Garth Snow.
An argument could be made for Snow, who went 33-52-11 with a 2.87 goals-against and .901 save percentage over three seasons, but my memories of the team during his time in Vancouver are so dark! He was here from March of 1998 until the end of the 1999-2000 season. I'll add him to the poll—let's see what you think:
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