The Canucks are lucky to be deep on 'D' while the Flames keep flirting with a playoff position.
RALEIGH -- Some thoughts from Raleigh, while trying to find time in my day to fit in the Hockey for Huggies news conference, the Hindu Society of North Carolina dance/music performance, and everybody's favourite, the Paperhand Puppet Parade.
You know, Paperhand Puppet Parades always make me cry…
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Here's betting the Sedins get split up in Friday evening's draft.
If I know one thing about NHL players, it's that they love to put each other into subtle, humorous yet uncomfortable positions. The Sedins, who admitted this week that they have never played organized sports against each other, are sensing that different coloured uniforms are in their future.
"I think there's something going on," Daniel Sedin was quoted in the Globe and Mail. "I've seen some signs."
Clearly, if one team gets both brothers it would be a huge advantage in a game where most line combinations have little or no chemistry together. Once one goes, I'd expect the other to be the very next pick.
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Canucks GM Mike Gillis says "we're going to have to do things by committee" when it comes to replacing the injured Alex Edler, who will go under the knife to repair a torn disc in his back.
But give Gillis credit for shoring up the defence last summer when he picked up Dam Hamhuis and Keith Ballard. Depth wins championships, because there isn't a team that doesn't lose a major component to injury somewhere along the line.
This Canucks team is well set to handle the loss. Last year's edition was not.
Now, we're no doctor. We just play one in this space occasionally.
But people who are talking about a playoff return for Edler after disc surgery are sounding a tad hopeful. Edler is the prize jewel of the Canucks’ blue-line. To insert him into playoff hockey, where defencemen take their lives into their hands every time they go back to retrieve a dump-in, is the kind of risk I don't see Gillis taking in Rounds 1 or 2.
If Edler plays again this season that's good news for Canucks fans. It means they're still alive in the conference finals -- or perhaps even beyond that.
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Here's something I can't believe I didn't know.
All-Star linesman Don Henderson and long-time Washington and Ottawa scout Archie Henderson are brothers. We've known Archie for 15 years, and watched Henderson work the lines since '95.
Officials tend to get just one all-star assignment in their careers. Henderson and Darren Gibbs have the lines Sunday, with Tom Kowal and Kevin Pollock.
Archie Henderson, not currently affiliated with an NHL club, has been a good scout for a long time, working out of Calgary. He'd a great fit there if the Flames restructure somewhat.
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Speaking of Calgary, "The goal here has not changed since Day 1 -- to be a playoff team. That’s the directive from ownership," acting GM Jay Feaster said over the phone Friday.
Any ownership group in any city makes playoff gates a priority, and well they should.
With his team just two points out of seventh place in the West -- yet still, officially, in 12th place -- it looks like there will be no Plan B for Feaster this spring, which would have been to actively dump salary at the Feb. 28 trading deadline.
And why not? Flames ownership can't give up on the playoffs at this point, even though Feaster told us unequivocally three weeks ago that another eighth-place finish and first-round exit would not represent progress for his team.
"It's not," he said then. "And that's not what we want to build. It isn't about just squeaking in and getting knocked out in the first round. We aspire to more than that."
So instead of embarking on any long-term plans at this trading deadline, Feaster will postpone any major moves until the draft.
It is simply a case of allowing more time for something good to happen, before embarking on what could be a painful process, if the Flames decide a rebuild is in order.
"The assets we have that would be attractive at the trade deadline are assets that would be attractive at the draft in the summer as well," he said.
Quietly, however, Feaster has waived Ales Kotalik and Craig Conroy. Kotalik cleared waivers and will be sent to Abbotsford of the AHL. He's got buy-out and a trip to the KHL written allover him this summer.
Even then, Feaster is still in a big salary bind with more than $56 million committed for next season.
