Mark Leiren-Young2013-06-19T04:59:51-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=mark-leirenyoungCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Mark Leiren-YoungGood old fashioned elbow grease.If Ovechkin Can't Play, it's Soccer on Icetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14636012012-05-02T16:23:06-04:002012-07-02T05:12:13-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-leirenyoung/
There are officially eight teams playing for the Stanley Cup in round two -- but with the exception of the Philadelphia Flyers I'm not sure what game they're playing. I just know that if Alexander Ovechkin isn't allowed on the ice, it can't possibly be hockey.
In Game Seven of the first round series against the Boston Bruins, the highest paid player in the league, pretty much the only superstar who doesn't have a history of concussions, played 16 minutes in the series, ending overtime game ranking 11th in team ice time for the Washington Capitals. The team captain played less than 10 other skaters including future trivial pursuits answer Jay Beagle, the Caps stellar -- um, does anyone know what position Beagle plays?
Right wing? Defense? Left tackle? Shortstop?
In Game Four against Boston, Ovy played less than two minutes in the third period of what used to be billed as "the fastest game on ice." This is not a typo. This is from NBC Sports. The next line in their story, "In Game Five at Boston, he spent a career playoff low 15:34 on the ice."
But as the Boston Bruins proved last season, skill doesn't win Stanley Cups. Nevermind the finals when the refs declared that you're allowed a dozen penalty-free punches per Sedin per game. Look at Game Seven of the eastern finals when the Bruins beat the faster, flashier, more talented Tampa Bay Lightning in what was apparently the cleanest game in the history of the NHL playoffs, since it was the only post-season game ever played without a single penalty call.
Based on the Lightning's electric power play, they were one Bruins' foul away from facing the Canucks in the finals. But the refs couldn't find a single fault with the team's gritty style.
As far as I'm concerned Tampa Bay fans were the ones with a legitimate reason to have a hockey riot.
After seeing the Canucks lose the chance to kiss the cup last season, after watching Mason Raymond carried off the ice on a stretcher with a broken back after an, um, really super clean hit requiring no penalty, or supplementary discipline at all, GM Mike Gillis saw which way the whistles were blowing (or not, as the case may be), read the writing on the Jumbotron, and replaced several fast forwards with players whose biggest qualifications was how big they were. And based on how the Canucks played their opening round series last week against the Kings there's a case to be made that the player the team missed the most wasn't top scorer Daniel Sedin, but top defenseman Alex Edler who inexplicably played more like a promising rookie than a future Norris contender.
Clearly the key to winning playoff games in today's NHL is keeping it dull. These games aren't about taking shots, they're about blocking them.
I've always mocked "fans" who leave the arena early -- especially when the outcome is still in doubt, but there's one game I left after the second period. It was about a decade ago and I'd paid over $100 I couldn't really afford for a lower bowl seat to watch the Canucks challenge the New Jersey Devils. Or perhaps I'm confused and it was some other team coached by a defensive guru like Jacques Lemaire. After two periods, the score was tied at one, and I wasn't sure I could stay awake for another twenty minutes of alleged hockey.
To be clear I love goaltending duels. My favourite players are often goalies, sometimes backup goalies. I'm one of those freaks who finds zero-zero games exciting and I've always been willing to watch any two teams in overtime. But this was not a goaltending duel. This was a game where the players spent so much time in the neutral zone, the only excitement would have been if the Klingons arrived. Neither team was playing to score, they were playing to avoid being scored against. This was... soccer on skates.
And I thought if this is what it takes to win the cup, I'm okay watching a team that isn't a contender. I'd rather see this season's edition of the Edmonton Oilers play pretty much anyone other than the Devils or Rangers versus any of the four teams still standing in the West. Other than the Flyers name, there isn't a single team left in the race that's generally fun to watch for anyone who isn't already a fan of the team.
Before the start of the second round, only two of the top nine scorers in the playoffs -- and only six of the top 19 -- didn't belong to the Penguins or Flyers. And that can't all be racked up to abysmal goaltending -- even if the Penguins did take the unorthodox step of replacing Marc-Andre Fleury with Theoren Fleury. The Amazing Ovechkin was in an 11-way tie for 20th spot with five whole points.
The New Jersey Devils may not win the cup this year, but if they don't, they should certainly receive an honourable mention. Because unless the Flyers hold down the fort for fans of that fast game on skates I grew up loving -- or Caps coach Dale Hunter is willing to risk letting one of the most skilled forwards in the world play hockey -- then whoever hoists the NHL's Holy Grail will be playing the classic Devils game, and that means the fans lose. Whatever this sport is called, if Alexander Ovechkin can't play it, why would anyone want to watch?]]>Canucks v Canucks: Fighting the Old Devilstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14165002012-04-13T16:18:12-04:002012-06-13T05:12:01-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-leirenyoung/
Last season was as easy as cheering for the Oilers in the '80s. The good players played like stars, the stars played like All Stars, Luongo was a Vezina finalist, Manny Malhotra was a faceoff God and Ryan Kesler apparently made a pact with the devil. The Canucks led the league in almost every stat that mattered, and it seemed like half the players on the team were up for awards or All-Star spots. Flip the score in game seven of the finals, and it was as dominating a year as any hockey team has seen in the history of the NHL.
This year the Sedins who had rarely played back-to-back stinkers ran into an honest-to-Gretzky slump. Kesler never looked like he fully recovered from his surgery. Manny can't see the faceoff circle anymore. And every time Luongo appeared to have regained Vezina form, he had a game where the fans were praying for him to be pulled.
The most exciting player on the team wasn't Kesler or Alex Burrows or even Mason Raymond -- but Cody Hodgson, the rookie who went to the Sabres at the trade deadline. The only player who consistently looked like a bonafide superstar was the back-up goalie, Cory Schneider.
The Canucks kept racking up wins, but they weren't flashy, fun, wins. They were ugly, nail-biting, old-time New Jersey Devils one goal, frequently in extra time with a "lucky bounce" wins.
Meanwhile, a player survey declared the Canucks "the most overrated team in the NHL." Although as I look at playoff predictions that seem to be universally declaring an eastern conference Cup winner -- naming Nashville, Phoenix and Chicago as the likely western contenders -- I'm not quite sure who is overrating them. Certainly not Canucks fans who spent the year in the kind of crazed glassy-eyed funk usually reserved for Maple Leafs diehards.
Six weeks ago the Canucks were skidding so quickly some fans were calling for coach Alain Vigneault -- the most successful coach in the team's history -- to be run out of town and replaced by...the ghost of Scotty Bowman.
Then, with less than a month left in the season, disaster struck. Actually, it was more like an elbow belonging to Duncan Keith. Daniel Sedin, the team's leading scorer and MVP candidate, went down like a sack of Swedish meatballs and the Canucks were doomed, the season was over, the President's Trophy was toast, the Stanley Cup dream was dead. We'd played this scene before in Vancouver -- the season Marcus Naslund went down with a concussion when he was leading the scoring race; the year Bure blew out his leg, and the Russian Rocket could no longer liftoff; and any year Mark Messier wore the C (because he was apparently still playing for the Rangers...)
And that's when we finally saw what made this season's Canucks different from last season's Canucks. The individual players still aren't playing at the superhuman level they were last year, but the team found an all-new gear. Daniel Sedin wasn't there to score the big goals so Chris Higgins, David Booth and Sammy Pahlsson did.
In the nine games since Daniel started seeing stars (of the non-Dallas variety), the Canucks lost exactly one and that's when it became clear: Last season the players were better, but this season the team is better.
Reading the playoff predictions, the big question mark around the Canucks is whether Luongo will bring his A-game, or his meh-game. I'm not quite sure why that's a cause for panic because if Lu doesn't deliver lights out goaltending, Schneider will -- and he does have Vezina stats for the 33 games he played this season. And the last time I checked the rulebook teams were allowed to have more than one goalie.
During the 2011 playoff run there were times the media was making a case for Alex Burrows, Kevin Bieksa, Kesler, both Sedins and Luongo for the Conn Smythe. If the Canucks play the same type of game during the playoffs that they did during the season, there may not be anyone on the team who's even a great hockey pool pick, nevermind a favourite for the Conn Smythe -- there could be eight or nine defensemen rotating through the lineup, Higgins may score as many goals as the Sedins, and there will likely be two goalies sharing the ice time -- and I doubt any of the players will care when they're kissing the Cup.
Yes, this was a strange season to be a Canucks fan -- and I think it's going to be the best post-season ever.]]>What We Talk About When We Talk About Hating the Leafstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13933212012-04-03T15:27:08-04:002012-06-03T05:12:01-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-leirenyoung/
The Leafs last saw playoff action in 2004, and the last time their players' names were engraved on Lord Stanley's Cup was 1967 -- which isn't the longest drought in NHL history, but probably causes more pain to more fans than any other losing streak, if only because of the Tragically Hip song about Bill Barilko.
As a hockey lover who was born and raised in Vancouver -- heck, as a Canadian who isn't from Toronto -- I know it's my moral if not legal obligation to hate the Leafs, but I've never quite managed to pull it off. I got the idea of hating the Canadiens back when the Cup seemed to belong in Montreal by divine right. It was no problem hating the Oilers when Gretzky was lighting up the red bulb behind Canucks' goalie Kirk McLean like it was Rudolph's nose on a foggy Christmas night.
It was easy hating the Flyers for their thuggery. And I will always loathe any team coached by Jacques Lemaire, or any Lemaire wannabe, for turning hockey into a slower version of soccer on skates. But the Leafs? What did the Leafs ever do to me?
I got hating their longtime owner, Harold Ballard. Ballard was a xenophobic cartoon capitalist and pompous "patriot" of a breed rarely seen in Canada. He had a nasty streak that would have made the pre-Christmas Grinch cringe. The ugliest Ballard story I know isn't about his scorn for the Soviets, or his self-defeating disdain for players from outside North America. The nastiest Ballard stories aren't about how he treated his "enemies," but his friends.
Ballard waged his own personal cold war with Captain Dave Keon -- a guy who gave his heart, soul, and all working body parts to the Leafs. Ballard preferred torturing Keon to trading him. Legend has it that Keon had the chance to join the New York Islanders -- sorry that should read THE New York Islanders -- the Cup-owning Islanders of Bossy and Potvin, where Keon would have fit like a hockey glove. Instead, Ballard practically put his captain on the bus to the short-lived World Hockey Association. Keon was so bitter he refused to attend Leafs events until after Ballard died. When I heard this I wondered if the biggest Leafs hater in history was Ballard or Keon.
I quizzed my Facebook friends to find out if/why they hated the Leafs and discovered it's possible that after watching hockey and complaining about the weather Canada's third most popular pastime is hating the Leafs.
Why hate the Leafs? One professional comedienne answered, "because they're from Toronto."
And while that's good enough for a lot of Canadians a few friends dug a bit deeper.
B.C.-raised, Toronto-based comedian Harry Doupe says he hates the Leafs "because I had them rammed down my throat every Saturday of my early life. The rare exception we got to see the Canucks in those early days resulted in Brian Spencer's father dead in a Prince George TV station and a s****y Atom Egoyan TV movie. There's also an arrogance among their fans and the media that surround them that is similar to that of those that support the Yankees, but without winning. Also, from the early days of TSN where anyone from any other team could put forth a play-of-the-year effort only to see a Leafs icing be, 'Highlight of the Night.'"
This season Hockey Night in Canada broadcast 26 games featuring the Toronto team that hasn't made the playoffs since before the invention of the iPhone -- nine more games than they devoted to the Stanley Cup finalist Vancouver Canucks. The exciting young Oilers scored only half the airtime Toronto did and the Calgary Flames, who are always contenders for a playoff spot, merited one game less than that. And even when the Leafs aren't the featured team on the show, they're often the featured topic in the intermission segments.
While I didn't hate the Leafs I used to hate Hockey Night in Canada for always showcasing them instead of my beloved Canucks -- or at least the Canadian teams that, you know, won. One friend who was born and raised in B.C., but now makes T.V. and movies in Toronto, says he puts all the blame for the national Leafs-loathing on the media. Here were his thoughts Friday morning: "TSN SportsCentre just started. They spent the first 10 minutes of the show talking about the Leafs. We're a week away from the playoffs and they lead with a team that imploded months ago. They're not talking about the Canucks who are near the top of the league, Ottawa who is clinging to a playoff spot, the new Jets who are making a last ditch effort to make the real show or the Flames who are in a tight playoff race. Of course, lead your newscast with 10 minutes on the changes the Leafs need to make for next year. "
So why do most Canadians hate the Leafs? Because even when they're not a factor in the playoff race except, maybe, as a speed bump for teams racing for position, the damn media won't stop talking about... oops.]]>Suspend Keith in the Playoffs, Suspend Ref Nowtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13776512012-03-25T10:37:05-04:002012-05-25T05:12:02-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-leirenyoung/
I get that this looks like a big deal by NHL standards because this is Keith's first suspension for headhunting a superstar, but I'd be more inclined to take it seriously if it included the stipulation that in the event the Canucks meet the Hawks in the playoffs (for their fourth annual death match) and Daniel Sedin can't dress because of an "upper body injury" Keith has to watch the series beside him in the press box.
Last week I wrote about Sidney Crosby's concussion and how the more the NHL claims they're taking head shots seriously, the harder it is to believe they're taking head shots seriously. This week the hockey Gods felt I hadn't made a strong enough case so they smote the best player on the team I cheer for.
With Crosby sidelined last year there was a vacancy in the spot for top scorer and Daniel Sedin stepped up and filled it. Now Sedin may get to meet Crosby to discuss the best specialists for dealing with head injuries. You know how they talk about rock and roll heaven having a helluva band and the NFL being able to put together a team of ex-cons who could compete for the Superbowl -- the NHL's all-concussion squad would be a lock if the Stanley Cup finals were played with Olympic rules... and that's just including players who are still young enough to lace up the skates.
Years ago I remember reading about the curse of the Sports Illustrated cover story. I'm starting to think that in today's NHL the Hart trophy and the Art Ross come with a similar curse -- a bounty on the winner's head.
I've scoured the interweb to get the official Chicago fanboy response to the hit and after getting past the cracks about the Sedins' sexuality because, you know, they're Swedes and they're dumb enough to believe NHL referees will occasionally enforce the NHL rulebook, there seem to be five complaints about the ruling by the NHL's director of discipline and damage control, Brendan Shanahan.
1. Daniel hit Keith first.
Okay, easy one to deal with. NHL referees have a hard enough time noticing when there are seven players on the ice, or when Swedish players are punched in the face during playoff games, without adding extra rules dealing with "attempted elbowing." Heck, the referees for the game where Keith delivered his elbow to Sedin's skull seemed to think it only warranted a two-minute minor. I've even seen calls for Daniel to be suspended for his hit on Keith. Um... the only reason Keith even got two minutes is because Daniel didn't get back up to play. If Keith had spent the rest of the game in the dressing room and the next day with a concussion specialist I'm sure Shanahan would have suspended Daniel for you.
2. The Keith hit wasn't that dirty.
Only if they were playing Ultimate Fighting on skates or, you know, in the Stanley Cup finals where the games are played by Aussie Rules (also known in Canada as Cherry rules).
3. Daniel will probably play again next game and was just playing possum to force a longer suspension. Heck, I've even read that Daniel will sit out the season just to make Keith look bad.
To this one I will reply as tactfully as possible in two parts. Part one: "Did you get an elbow to the head recently?" The Canucks are still in a fight for the President's Trophy and they're gonna sit their top scorer so that a defenseman on a team in their rearview mirror um, feels guilty? It's not like Shanahan's gonna revisit the suspension -- even if Daniel never plays again.
Part two: Even if Daniel had come back to the ice in the third period and scored the winning goal in overtime, Keith very likely guaranteed Daniel's career will end before his twin brother's. Concussions are cumulative. Keith guaranteed Daniel is susceptible to headshots for the rest of his life.
As a Canucks fan I remember way too many of the details of one of the ugliest incidents in NHL history -- the Todd Bertuzzi attack on Avalanche player, Steve Moore. If you weren't following the Canucks that year -- and no one outside of Vancouver was -- it sure looked like the Canucks lost all their mojo after Bertuzzi's savage and unforgiveable attack that broke Moore's back and ended his career. But the truth was they'd lost their mojo, their MVP and the league's leading scorer in the previous game against the Avalanche when Moore knocked the Canucks captain, Marcus Naslund, into the next century. The NHL being the NHL, Moore's cheap hit wasn't penalized or punished in any way and even though Naslund kept playing, the former Hart and Ross contender never recovered his A-Game.
4. If the refs called the first hit by Sedin, this wouldn't have happened.
Maybe, maybe not. But these refs also took the whole head hit concept so lightly they only gave your choirboy a two minute penalty when the NHL just admitted by the suspension that the right call was a five minute match penalty and game misconduct -- and if the refs had made that call then maybe the Hawks lose the game by a touchdown. Here's how former NHL ref Kerry Fraser called it in his column for TSN.ca
The deliberate elbow delivered by Duncan Keith directly to the head of Daniel Sedin was at bare minimum a five-minute major and game misconduct for elbowing. The best call would have been a match penalty under Rule 45.5 for deliberate attempt to injure under the elbowing rule!
Duncan Keith demonstrated absolutely no intent on playing the puck that flew off the glass and was well out of range of Sedin when contact was made. Instead, once the opportunity for a payback on Daniel's non-penalized shoulder contact to Keith's head six and a half minutes earlier reared its ugly head, Duncan Keith seized the moment in an open-ice assault.
5. Duncan was innocent... It was an accident... It's a fast game... "I'm so sorry officer Shanahan, but this big, tough Swedish guy just came out of nowhere. Intent to injure, gee gosh, golly I've never even met this Daniel, what did you say his last name was?"
Yeah, if you believe that one I've got this great used stadium I'd love to sell you.
If you told a Canucks fan who spent the last week on the moon that someone scrambled Daniel Sedin's brain with an elbow to the head the first question after "will he ever play again" would be "Hawk" or "Bruin?"
I get that Duncan Keith is officially a first offender.
I get that Keith is an all-star, not a goon.
I get that the Hawks are fighting for playoff position and losing Keith for five games means they could finish lower in the standings.
But mostly I get that that the likeliest way either the Canucks or Hawks get to the Stanley Cup is through each other and Keith just made it a lot easier for his team (or any other) to get past the Canucks -- and with only a handful of games left before these teams could conceivably meet in the playoffs I don't have a clue how this suspension is supposed to be viewed as a deterrent for taking down a top player from a team you're likely to meet in a few weeks when it matters.
I'm not a basketball fan, but I've heard the NBA officials protect their superstars. In the NHL apparently All-Star jerseys come with signs that read: "cheap shot me please."
So here's one other suggestion for disciplinary action... Dan O'Halloran, the referee who missed Sedin's initial hit on Keith and who thought Keith's "open ice assault" on Sedin only merited a two minute slap on the wrist - the same ref who didn't even give the Bruin's Brad Marchand a dirty look for playing Whack-a-Mole with Daniel's face in the 2011 finals -- should be spending the rest of his year in the press box too.]]>Sidney Crosby Is Back Again... But for How Long?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13529282012-03-16T14:10:00-04:002012-05-16T05:12:01-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-leirenyoung/
He turns 25 in August -- does anybody expect he's still going to be playing at 28? Do I hear 27? 26? Does anybody, anybody at all, expect Crosby to be retiring in his 30s?
When Crosby scored the Golden Goal for Canada in Vancouver's 2010 Olympics all was right with the world. Canada and the NHL had a new hockey hero ready, willing and able to finally take the torch as the face of hockey from the Great Gretzky.
Super Mario never quite owned the title, because even when he was healthy and playing like he'd sold his soul for Messier's strength and Gretzky's moves, he never seemed willing to be the face of the game.
Back when he was a teenager Crosby was anointed by Gretzky as the player who might one day break all his records -- the same way Gordie Howe once offered his blessing to the Great One. And Crosby was already on course to challenge some records, topple others and invent new ones. He was the second youngest Hart winner in NHL history and the youngest captain.
And instead of continuing his ascent to becoming the next Gretzky, Sid the Kid is on the road to being the next Eric Lindros -- the guy who coulda been one of the all-time greats if only he didn't have a glass skull.
I remember pundits saying that one day a superstar would get a serious concussion and the NHL would start taking head shots seriously. Today I suspect those pundits are preparing to carve up Marc Crawford for lunch ('cause Crawford's nickname is "crow" -- it'll be funny in a second, really).
Based on the changes in the game since the Crosby hit, I'm convinced hockey brass are about as likely to accept the science on concussions as Rick Santorum is to start taking his cues on global warming from Al Gore.
Players are still skating back out on the ice immediately after, "getting their bell rung."
Headhunters are still only getting suspended for a handful of games. Pat Lafontaine -- another superstar whose career ended early due to head hits -- hopes the NHL will use Crosby's case to introduce zero tolerance for head hits. But despite some progress, when it comes to dealing with penalizing dirty play, NHL general managers and execs still have notoriously thick skulls.
Last year I thought a Penguins team with Crosby would have made it by the Bruins (FYI, I took the Bruins and Canucks last year in my playoff hockey pool). This year I think the Penguins will be the Eastern Conference Cup finalist. If I'm right does anyone out there believe that as games get nastier each round, and refs misplace their whistles and redact their rulebooks that the greatest player in the game will still be skating in the finals?]]>A 21st Century Hockey Hero... Brendan Burketag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13339692012-03-09T14:13:00-05:002012-05-09T05:12:02-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-leirenyoung/
His late son, Brendan, accomplished something more implausible than bringing the Cup back to Toronto, flying the Jets home to Winnipeg, or Don Cherry making it through a segment of Coach's Corner without mentioning anything other than hockey. Brendan Burke inspired his brother Patrick (a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers) and their father Brian to convince hockey stars to speak out against homophobia in a sport where simply being Swedish was once enough to provoke jokes about a player's sexuality. Mike Milbury complained about the dangers of "pansification"and Don Cherry used to get laughs by affecting a stereotypical homothexual lisp.
Brendan Burke publicly talked about the challenges of being a gay hockey player in November 2009 when he was managing the hockey team at Ohio's Miami University. Three months later he died in a car accident.
Last week the Burke family launched the You Can Play Project in Brendan's memory and some of the NHL's biggest stars recorded a Public Service Announcement aimed at getting homophobia out of hockey.
It's almost impossible to imagine this happening in the NHL a decade ago -- although if you can imagine it, maybe you can imagine that it would have made retired Flames superstar Theo Fleury less likely to stay silent when his former junior team-mate Sheldon Kennedy spoke out about their sexually abusive coach, Graham James.
Kennedy titled his biography, Why I Didn't Say Anything and the answer he repeated over and over in his book is that James, "was constantly threatening to tell people that I was gay." Kennedy believed that if he ever went public about being abused, "the other players would call me gay and shun me, my hockey career would be finished."
The message from the Burke family is, "if you can play, you can play" -- which seems a whole lot more adult than, say, "don't ask, don't tell." And if it's a message macho hockey players are willing to share, maybe other pro sports will pick up the same pink banner.
For more on Brendan Burke check out these stories at ESPN and The Fifth Estate.]]>Canucks to Cody Hodgson: It's Not You It's Metag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13137892012-03-03T12:02:39-05:002012-05-03T05:12:02-04:00Mark Leiren-Younghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-leirenyoung/
Even in the age of 24-7 news cycles, all-sports radio networks, non-stop bloggers, and duelling hockey talk shows there are still some stories that never quite make it into the light of day.
I remember reading, years ago, a rumour in the now defunct Frank Magazine claiming that one of the Canucks' top defense-men was traded because he was caught "banging the twine" with the goalie's wife. I have no idea if the rumour was true, but it made more sense than the official story in the papers.
I've always assumed Dan Cloutier must have rescued Marc Crawford from a burning building, because there was no other explanation for the latter's career-destroying devotion to Cloutier.
And I can't help but think Cody Hodgson must have once poured ketchup of Coach V's poutine, because no matter how well he did, Hodgson always seemed to be on a very tight leash.
During last year's playoffs, Hodgson had to sit and watch games in which, even if it was just for eight minutes of ice time, he could have made that one goal in that one game that decided whether the Canucks won or lost the Cup. But clearly, Coach V considered him too much of a liability.
On Twitter, sports reported Dan Murphy weighed in with: "General Manager Mike Gillis would not comment on whether Hodgson camp asked for a trade. Said it was gut-wrenching to trade him."
So was it Hodgson who asked for the trade?
Did Gillis realize Hodgson was never going to feel Coach V's love? So maybe rather than have to watch the player be benched for most of the playoffs, he faced the gut-wrenching consequences of a trade?
Was it a pure hockey trade -- skill for size?
Or is there another story between Gillis, Hodgson, and Coach V.
Cody was the surprise of the season for Canuck nation -- the breakout star, the big news story, the new fan favourite -- the forward who showed up to score in games the goalies fought tooth and nail to keep the Canucks in.
But he was also the guy who was never going to get more than a few minutes of ice time, because he was on a team with two centres who likely have at least a half dozen more All-Star appearances left in their careers.
Ignoring the fact that Hodgson was a likely contender for this year's "most exciting player," and "unsung hero," I agree with TSN's Farhan Lalji who tweeted, "This is not a "mortgage the future" trade. Kassian: 21 years old, first round (13th overall). Hodgson: 22 years old, first round, (tenth overall)."
Lalji's other comment was, "For all you lamenting CoHo, he was never going to become a top-two centre with #canucks. Kasian will be a beast. Very good trade for both."
As good as Hodgson was, and as amazing as he's likely to become, he was the Canucks' third line centre. Barring injuries to Hank or Kess, he wasn't going to be much more than that for some time.
And as much as I prefer watching Hodgson's style to that of Kassian's, a player with his size might prevent other teams from "spearing the Sedin," when referees stop calling penalties in playoff games.
That said, I cannot help but feel that there's another reason Gillis was willing to trade 2012's Rookie of the Year. And it's a reason none of us will probably ever know.
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