The Vancouver Canucks held their season-ending media availabiity with their players on Monday—an event that ran for over two hours once ever player had been paraded out to the podium in his group of four (or two, in the case of the final grouping of Bo Horvat and Linden Vey).
Canucks.com has broken down the video into bite-sized segments, so you can check in at any time if you desire.
There wasn't anything too earth-shattering over the course of the day, but we did learn a few things, especially about the health of various players. In a nutshell:
Sounds like Brad Richardson is the only player scheduled to have surgery:
I still can't believe that Richardson was injured so badly by a Chris Tanev shot, of all things. This is a rough situation for him, as he's about to become an unrestricted free agent.
Think about how long it took for David Booth to rehab his ankle issue—basically, a full year. If I was a GM, I'd have a tough time offering a deal to Richardson without knowing how he'll come through this procedure. I hope, for his sake, that he can make good progress before July 1.
Thankfully, no surgery is required for Alex Burrows:
Burrows said he was initially hurt at the end of his third-period fight with Kris Russell.
The ambulance to the hospital and his subsequent stay in Calgary were largely for precautionary reasons. Burrows was in pain and there was concern that he could puncture a lung or his spleen. Now, it's just a matter of rest and rehab.
The same is true for forgotten man Zack Kassian, who says he doesn't need surgery for his nagging back issue.
Kassian said he has had good days and bad days, and was never told that he was shut down for the season.
Also following the Burrows pattern, Kassian admitted that he was injured in the scrum that followed his scrap with Dion Phaneuf back on March 14.
As for Ryan Miller—and, by extension, Eddie Lack—let's turn to
this Brad Ziemer story in the
Vancouver Sun.
Ziemer says Miller suffered torn ligaments in his knee when he was injured on Feb. 22, and that he has plenty of rehab still to do.
“I need to get the muscles strong in that area,” Miller said. “I have to get them back to being as quick-firing as they were before the injury.”
Miller is encouraged by the fact that when he suffered a high-ankle sprain late one season he was able to spend the summer “re-teaching it how to work” and had a strong season the following year.
I don't want to be the one to break it to Miller that rehabs get tougher as we get older. Let's keep him thinking positively!
The Ziemer story also suggests that we'll see Miller and Lack back in tandem again next season, though Eddie'd like to see a more even workload.
Earlier in the season, Jim Benning talked about how he thought the Canucks would need both goalies, and they certainly did. If Miller and Lack both return, that leaves restricted free agent Jacob Markstrom in the AHL wasteland, but it certainly seems like the path of least resistance.
As for the other players, the idea of injury was really only invoked as a reason not to go to the World Championships, which start in Prague this weekend.
The twins and Radim Vrbata all copped to general soreness, Jannik Hansen complained of a minor groin issue and Luca Sbisa said his knees were sore.
Dan Hamhuis, who some speculated had been playing hurt since coming back from his groin injury in January, says he's in good health and has agreed to play once again for Team Canada.
As well as playing in the 2014 Olympics, Hamhuis has been a regular at the World Championships—joining the team as a Canuck in 2013 and four times during his younger days as a Nashville Predator. He was part of the group that won gold in 2007 and silver in 2008 and 2009.
Nick Bonino is the other Canuck who will be making the trip across the pond, for Team USA. This will be 27-year-old Bonino's first trip to the Worlds.
I'm glad to hear the Canucks will have some representation at the Worlds. Stay tuned for some news coming up on that front.
To close today—if you missed it, I was asked by CBC Vancouver to come into their studio yesterday to offer my thoughts on what went wrong for the Canucks in the playoffs and where we go from here. The piece ran during the newscast after the Lightning/Red Wings game—three minutes that flew by when we taped it, but seemed like quite a long segment when I watched it back within the context of a modern newscast.
I hardly fancy myself a talking head, but it was pretty exciting to be invited to give my two cents. As I told you in Sunday's blog, I think Game 6 fell apart when the Canucks failed to capitalize on Calgary's four consecutive icings early in the second period, then the Flames came back shortly afterwards to narrow the lead to 3-2. If Vancouver had gotten up 4-2 on that sequence, we might have been celebrating the Game 7 win today instead of wondering what might have been.
I know we'll talk much more about changes that come down over the summer. Let's see what Mr. Benning and his team have to say on Wednesday when they're grilled about asking players to waive their no-trade clauses...
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»