Mark Spector sees something different with this year's Canucks team than he did in year's past.
VANCOUVER - Rick Reilly, one of the finer sports writers of our day, was predicting how the United States would win the 2008 Ryder Cup, noting that European captain Nick Faldo had "violated the time-honored Too Many Swedes theory."
"Swedes are the sweetest people on earth," penned Reilly. "No Swede has ever won a major. Faldo's got two on his team."
It seems like there has always been a two Swede minimum here in Vancouver. And, coincidentally or not over the years, a nicer team you've never met.
From Thomas Gradin, Patrik Sundstrom and Lars Lindgren, through Mattias Ohlund, Markus Naslund, Mats Sundin and the Sedin brothers, the Tre Kronor has run deep through an organization that - coincidentally or not - has always been questioned on grit and playoff toughness.
The solution seen by so many over the years has been to stock up on Western League defencemen, and add the odd winger with but a single eye located in the middle of his forehead.
General manager Mike Gillis' Canucks however, have come up with a far more novel solution: Keep the skilled Euros - like German Christian Ehrhoff, Dane Jannik Hansen, Finn Sami Salo, Swedes Alex Edler, Mikael Samuellson, and the tough-on-the-puck Sedins - and somehow get them to play with an edge.
Vancouver's Western Conference quarter-final against Chicago wasn't a period old when Edler took a hellacious run at Chicago captain Jonathan Toews right at centre ice, a hit that Toews mostly avoided though he was knocked down. Ehrhoff then smoked big Troy Brouwer with an ill-intentioned body check, and Edler took another big run at a Blackhawks player before the period was done.
Even Jannik Hansen was throwing the body around, showing it is indeed possible for something to be rotten in the state of Denmark.
"Last year, halfway through the season, I started to figure out that I needed to be maybe a bit more physical. Finishing checks, grinding away," Hansen said. "It definitely took a couple of years playing pro to get away from the style I was playing in junior, and to some (extent), in the minors."
"I sat out quite a few games, didn't get to play. When I played, I played very limited (minutes). It was a combination of (Manitoba coach) Scott Arniel, Mike Keane, and of course Alain (Canuck coach Vigneault), who kind of pushed into my head that this is the way you need to play if you're going to play at this level."
In today's integrated NHL, the teams with overall skill and toughness - wherever it hails from - tend to win. When skill comes at you not with a smile but with gritted teeth and an ugly demeanor, well, now you have a hockey team, my friend.
"Using your speed differently," Hansen said. "Instead of turning, skating through guys."
"Just trying to do whatever it takes to win," added Ehrhoff, another from perhaps the deepest blue-line in these NHL playoffs. "If it means, at some point, being a little more physical, that's what it takes. You've got to do whatever it takes."
There has always been a disconnect between how the term "whatever it takes" is defined on the two sides of the hockey pond. It is why so many young Euros, like Hansen and draft eligible Gabriel Landeskog, come to the Canadian Hockey League to ready themselves for the NHL.
"It takes everybody, even Canadians, to go through that process," Ehrhoff said. "Everybody has to pay their dues. That's when you get a better player, and a better person."
And, in the Canucks case, a better team. Finally.
"Players evolve," surmised Canucks centre Ryan Kesler. "For us, Edie (Edler) was doing that last year in the playoffs, he was hammering guys. He's come back and he hasn't changed his game. To see Jannik and Hoffer doing it, it's good to see. And I think it's contagious."
And Kesler admits, it is worth something when you see your European guys joining in on the playoff culture. Because you need all hands on deck to win games at this time of year.
"When they're punishing the other team - when Eddy and Hoffer are hitting like that - it makes the other team think. It's good for us."
Mark Spector is the lead columnist for Sportsnet.ca
Follow me on Twitter.com @SportsnetSpec
