First off—Cody Hodgson had another two goals for Team Canada in Friday's 6-1 win over Italy at the World Championships.
The bad news—Alex Burrows left the game late in the third period after a knee-on-knee hit, though Stephen Whyno of the Canadian Press says the injury might not be as bad as it initially appeared:
Apparently coach Dave Tippett echoed this thought in his post-game comments. He was less-than-pleased with his team's overall performance, despite the win.
Canada's next game will be more of a test—against Sweden on Sunday.
Speaking of which, remember how Eddie Lack wasn't allowed to go to the World Championships because he was supposed to stay here for treatment? Well, whatever they were doing is complete. He's on his way home to Sweden for the summer...
Joacim Eriksson has dressed as the backup for Sweden in three games but hasn't seen any action.
Canucks Town Hall Meetings Begin
The Canucks held their first of four planned summer town hall meetings on Thursday. Nucker has done the best job I've seen of curating the relevant tweets in yesterday's comment section, though I'm not seeing anything especially newsworthy:
The GM search is in full swing, Trevor was interested in Ron Hextall for the GM job, Trevor has talked to Jim Benning in the last couple of days, Trevor is excited about young players, especially Hunter Shinkaruk, Victor de Bonis promises more washrooms at Rogers Arena when the current construction is complete.
The tidbits are a little more substantial than the big bubble of doublespeak that Brendan Shanahan dished out to the Toronto media in his first real sit-down with them earlier in the week, but really doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know.
Ian Hanomansing had an interesting photo, which I believe would have been taken at the meeting:
As some of the comments point out, season ticket holders have the option to relocate for next season, but that only happens when tickets are available. The white signs definitely indicate plenty of inventory—but a lot of those signs correspond with the spots where we saw empty seats during this season. These are not all new desertions.
Knives out for Torts
Gary Mason of
The Globe and Mail made an appearance on TEAM1040 on Thursday afternoon, where he dished on some of John Tortorella's more unusual coaching strategies during his time in Vancouver. The writing is a bit sensational, but OmarCanuck of VanCityBuzz has a post that summarizes the key points.
Click here to read.
The stuff about practice, we already knew. Considering that Torts is known for his use of video, it's interesting that he never used tape of upcoming opponents, though that's completely unsurprising given the chaos we saw on the ice during games.
I am shocked to hear that he didn't talk with Travis Green in Utica at any point during the season though, once again, it helps to explain his rather random pattern of call-ups.
And the idea that he'd want the team to buy out Alex Burrows? Well, that plays to my belief that he knew nothing about our players coming in—and never really bothered to learn about them. If your only exposure to Burrows was this injury-plagued season where he couldn't score to save his life—sure, it's an idea that bears weight. But of all the Canucks' problems this season, Burrows is where he focused his energy? Crazy.
On another quick note about our ex-coaches, Alain Vigneault has arranged for the entire New York Rangers team to accompany Martin St. Louis to his mother's funeral on Sunday, on the team's day off after Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final.
Click here for that story.
Given what an important inspiration Marty's mom was for the Rangers during their comeback against Pittsburgh, this could be an incredible bonding experience for the team. It also paints the Rangers in a very sympathetic light in Quebec, especially after the Habs' war against the Big Bad Bruins. I assume the French-Canadian coach and grieving French-Canadian star will get a more gentle treatment from Canadiens fans.
Ray Shero Fired in Pittsburgh, Dan Bylsma Stays
The situation in Pittsburgh didn't shake down quite the way we expected. General Manager Ray Shero has been fired, but coach Dan Bylsma has been retained. In
this article from the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mario Lemieux calls Bylsma a "good coach" and talks about how other teams would have been keen to hire him. He doesn't rule out the possibility that the new GM could bring in his own guy.
So—that changes our view a bit from here in Vancouver. We haven't really debated the merits of Shero as a new GM. I certainly hope Trevor reaches out to him for a chat.
Let's take a look at that Penguins'
draft record over the last seven years, from HockeyDB.com. Like the Canucks, they haven't had many high picks.
Using my "more than 100 games" criteria, the only player from those seven seasons who breaks that barrier is actually Jake Muzzin, now with Los Angeles. He was drafted in the fifth round in 2007.
Pittsburgh is trying to integrate Rob Bortuzzo, Simon Despres and Beau Bennett into their lineup, and they have two defensive gems from 2011 in Olli Maatta and Derrick Pouliot, but that's about it. As a good team with star players eating up a lot of ice time, Pittsburgh has had the same problem as Vancouver—though they certainly had enough injuries this season to have been able to gain some traction.
I wonder what would have happened if Gillis and Shero had managed to find common ground and execute on the Kesler trade at the deadline? Would they both still have jobs today? It appears that sometimes inaction isn't necessarily the safest action.
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