I caught Ben Kuzma from The Province in an appearance on TSN 1040 on Friday afternoon.
As he described the latest happenings from training camp, he reminded us of the extraordinary shift that our Canucks team has made over the past few months.
Towards the end of last season, all those empty seats at Rogers Arena were the result of apathy. A lot of people just weren't interested in hockey. Now, there's a real buzz around the team. People are excited to see what's happening and how the group is coming together.
The marketing department is aggressively pushing those last few Ice Packs to hit the team's season ticket goal for the year. We'll see if they can succeed at packing the house for the home opener on October 11.
Canucks.com has posted some solid videos from up at Whistler.
Trevor hits the right notes, but seems a little nervous as he addresses the group for the first time.
Interesting that he points out that the team spends the summer fielding calls from agents who are trying to place their players with the organization. I hadn't thought of it quite that way before.
Willie's first words sound good to me: looking to build a team that's hard to play against and all about winning. We'll get there one step at a time.
Here are more thoughts from Willie, from after the first practise. He admits that there won't be much real player evaluation happening until the exhibition games get underway.
Desjardins sounds very impressed with the overall level of fitness. As you'll see here in this video, a certain Kevin Bieksa seems to have really brought it this year. As usual, the twins are testing at the top of the pack.
Here's a look at the line combinations as they're playing out on Day 2. At a glance, this looks the same as what I saw reported on Friday.
Day 2 groups at #Canucks camp. pic.twitter.com/AYVxPZJxfS
— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) September 20, 2014After last season's chaos, Desjardins is getting positive reviews for grouping his key players according to how they might start the season. The Sedins are with Vrbata, while Nick Bonino is skating with Alex Burrows and Zack Kassian.
Further down the lineup, we see Higgins, Richardson and Hansen, a probable third line, followed up by Matthias, Horvat and Dorsett as well as Sestito, Vey and Jensen—two possible "fourth line" combinations.
Probably not great news for Brendan Gaunce to see him penciled in as a third-line left wing in his group. Dane Fox shows up as a fourth-line left wing on a line with Carter Bancks and Cole Cassels. Hunter Shinkaruk looks like he ranks a little higher, as a second-line left wing in a group with Utica veteran Cal O'Reilly and tryout candidate J.T. Wyman.
On the back end, Willie also gets a thumbs-up for his reunion of old-time partners Kevin Bieksa and Dan Hamhuis. Alex Edler is paired with Chris Tanev and Ryan Stanton is shifted to the right side in a duo with Luca Sbisa.
Should Yannick Weber be concerned that he's listed in a third pairing, with Mackenze Stewart? He's one of the only bona fide NHLers that's not showing up in a top group.
Cam Tucker has a solid summary of Day 1 for Metro. The key points:
• Desjardins broke the tactics of last year's coach, who preferred to ignore the shootout in hopes that it would go away. The team got to work on shootout drills immediately.
• Jim Benning says the Canucks could be comfortable carrying three goalies to start the season. This makes some sense to me. Though a lost roster spot is not good news for the prospects, the only way the Canucks need to showcase Jacob Markstrom if they hope to get any value for him in a trade. If he can play well at the NHL level this season, he might attract some interest on the trade market.
Let's see how it goes; I'm still not ruling out the possibility that they'll try to sneak Markstrom down to Utica on waivers as the season begins.