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Brock Boeser's back injury is healed, scores hat trick at Da Beauty League

July 13, 2018, 12:10 PM ET [200 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It's perfectly fine to be excited about Brock Boeser's hat-trick performance in his first game of summer hockey with Da Beauty League on Wednesday night.

After all, this is the first time we've seen Boeser on skates since he was helped off the ice at Rogers Arena after suffering that back injury against the New York Islanders on March 5. The incident happened in front of the bench, close to the near boards from my vantage point in the press box. I didn't see the initial contact but I heard the hush fall over the crowd. Once I looked down, a group of players had gathered, so I couldn't see who was down. My heart sank when the writer next to me whispered, "It's Boeser."

After all these years, it's hard not to immediately imagine a worst-case scenario when it comes to the Canucks. It was a huge relief to see Boeser out of hospital after just a few hours, around the team during the Sedins' end-of-season sendoff, and looking no worse for wear at the NHL Awards and enjoying the offseason on his Instagram. But how would he be on the ice?

Just fine, apparently. Yeah, it's no-contact shinny, but what better way for Brock to start getting his confidence back?

If you haven't seen the goals, here's Boeser's highlight package — and by the way, those three goals came on four shots, for a shooting percentage of 75%. Talk about unsustainable!




Da Beauty League boasts a long list of established NHL stars, but Boeser sits at the top of the stats page after the first night of game action as the only player with three goals (Jason Zucker and Jake Guentzel each had two), and the only player with four points. The fans made a good choice when they voted him as Player of the Game.




This is like the All-Star Game all over again, isn't it?

That being said, I don't think there's any reason for the Canucks to rush out and hand him an $8x8 extension next week—and I don't expect anything of the sort to happen. Even Connor McDavid had 127 NHL games played when he signed his extension last year; Jack Eichel had 142. Boeser has just 71—the sample size simply isn't large enough.

Even when I get hopeful and think about how Boeser is tracking to become the Canucks' most dynamic scorer since Pavel Bure, I still worry. Bure had that knee injury and eventually, that trade demand. But those early years were so amazing!

An aside, while I'm thinking about Bure: I am currently reading "The Russian Five," a new book by former Detroit Free Press sportswriter Keith Gave. Russian-born Canucks like Bure, Alexander Mogilny and, of course, Igor Larionov all get some ink but the book is well worth reading just for the cloak-and-dagger tales of the not-exactly-above-board moves that the Red Wings pulled to extract their core of young Russians from the Soviet Union. Just one example: did you know Vladimir Konstantinov got out of his military commitment to the Red Army thanks to a diagnosis of terminal cancer? And that he "recovered" almost instantaneously once he arrived in the U.S.?

"The Russian Five" is full of fascinating content and really well written. Highly recommended!

Anyway—based on this wording, apparently I haven't been alone in my concern for Boeser's well-being and recovery:




Boeser goes into some detail about what he experienced when he was injured. The best part of the interview: he's aiming to come back better than ever.

"My main goal is to be 100 percent healthy and come back as a better player than I was last year," Boeser told the Canucks website Wednesday. "Another goal is to be a better skater than I was last year and make sure my conditioning is there all year."

Let's give the last word on Boeser to one-time Canucks defenseman Keith Ballard, who is coaching Team Bic in Minnesota this summer:




I don't mind the idea of seeing lots more of Boeser and his goal-scoring in my timeline as he competes for Da Beauty's League's coveted John Scott Cup.

One final note to wrap up today: if you missed it, I posted a piece on former Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes grinder and now hockey media star Paul "BizNasty" Bissonette over at Forbes yesterday. I'm super impressed by his hustle and how impressively he's transitioning into life after hockey. And I'm probably even more impressed that he was MVP of the 2003 Top Prospects game—going into the Greatest Draft of All Time. Who knew?

Check out the story here:


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