I expected the Canucks news cycle to be pretty quiet during All-Star Weekend, but we didn't have to wait long at all to hear this news:
Kevin Bieksa out indefinitely with a broken hand. Multiple fractures. Requires surgery. #Canucks
— Dan Murphy (@sportsnetmurph) January 22, 2015I thought the injury was probably pretty serious judging from the way Bieksa dropped his gloves and headed straight off the ice when he was hit by Victor Hedman's shot on Tuesday. He's a pretty tough hombre who typically has a tendency to play through injuries.
When I think of multiple fractures, and what it takes to hold a stick and shoot a puck, I feel like Bieksa could be sidelined for quite awhile. A quick Google search doesn't seem to bring up any injuries that sound similarly severe, which might help give us an idea of the potential timeline.
• Connor McDavid was out for six weeks when he broke one bone in a fight last fall, but got back in time to have a solid World Junior Tournament. • Kris Versteeg is expected to be out about a month after suffering a hand injury at the Winter Classic that didn't require surgery. • Mats Zuccarello suffered a non-displaced fracture during the 2014 Olympics but was back with the New York Rangers within a couple of weeks after the NHL schedule resumed. • Zack Kassian missed five weeks for the Canucks earlier this season with a fractured pinky finger.
The question now—what does this mean for the Canucks blue line?
It's frustrating that we've just had Dan Hamhuis back for three games before we lose another key member of the top six. But who are the top six? Willie Desjardins has been rotating bodies on the back end ever since Hamhuis' return, with a little bit of Frankie Corrado, a little Luca Sbisa, a little Yannick Weber and a dash of Ryan Stanton.
After dodging a serious eye injury when he was clipped in the face by the puck back in early November, Bieksa has appeared in all 45 games to this point in the season, and is second on the team in ice time behind Alex Edler, at 21:16 per game. He has also been a lightning-rod for criticism.
His plus-minus isn't terrible: his minus-4 is the same as Hamhuis, just one tick better than Corrado and miles ahead of Luca Sbisa and his minus-11. By contract, Chris Tanev leads the team at plus-8, Elder's plus-7 and, surprisingly, Ryan Stanton's plus-6 and Yannick Weber's plus-4.
Bieksa's biggest failings this year have come under the eye test. I can't begin to count the times that he's been the defenseman who has made the bad read, or is lying sprawled on the ice as a goal is scored, or is out of position.
Iain MacIntyre offers a pretty balanced assessment of what Bieksa's absence might mean in his latest column for the Vancouver Sun.
He acknowledges that Bieksa's role on the blue line isn't as key as it once was, and quotes Jim Benning, who sounds very pleased with Corrado's progress and thinks he'll be able to step in:
"Frankie has gotten a lot stronger," Benning said. "He's winning one-on-one battles now. He plays with his head up, looks confident and makes a good first pass."
Benning also said, definitively, that they won't be looking to the trade market for a replacement: "We're not going to look to go out and get anybody. We still have seven good defencemen."
It'll be interesting to see if the mistakes diminish without Bieksa in the lineup, but I have two concerns:
• Bieksa's attitude is a unique cornerstone of the Canucks' identity. He showed his commitment to the franchise last year when he talked about going "down with the ship," and I think his leadership and toughness can't be replaced by anybody else on the roster.
• What if this is the beginning of the domino effect of injuries that decimated the team last year? MacIntyre talks about how Henrik Sedin's injury about a year ago started the team's downslide. I'm remembering that stretch starting before New Year's the where the Canucks were losing a defenseman to injury seemingly every game.
Here's how the dominoes fell—defensemen only:
December 26 - Andrew Alberts is sidelined for the rest of the season with a concussion December 31 - Jason Garrison misses four games with lower body injury Jan 13 - Alex Edler misses 16 games with lower body injury Jan 23 - Ryan Stanton misses 15 games with ankle injury Jan 29 - Chris Tanev misses seven games with broken thumb Feb 3 - Yannick Weber misses three games with upper body injury Feb 4 - Dan Hamhuis misses two games with undisclosed injury Feb 24 - Bieksa misses two games with groin injury March 6 - Weber misses another four games with upper body injury
Bieksa was injured again closer to the end of the season but by then, the damage had been done.
The only Canucks defensemen who stayed healthy were Corrado—who played 15 games as an injury replacement, Raphael Diaz—who appeared in six games during his month as a Canuck, and Yann Sauve, who appeared in three games.
So, let me turn it over to you.