Canucks unleash the Bulldog to hound rivals

GAME DAY: OTTAWA AT VANCOUVER, 7 P.M.

VANCOUVER — The move didn’t exactly excite the masses but, at the NHL trade deadline, the Vancouver Canucks quietly added a player to their lineup who’s since emerged as a key piece on their blue-line.

In the 11 games since the deadline, this defenceman has averaged more than 20 minutes a night while playing a robust, physical game with positive underlying numbers. He also has six points over that span, all at even strength, while producing 23 shots on goal — which is six more than Elias Pettersson produced over the same number of games.

This player, in short, has been found money for a team that is suddenly on a four-game undefeated streak, and if a larger recognition has eluded Alex Biega, look at the bright side: at least he’s used to it.

“I don’t take things for granted at this point in my career,” Biega said following the Canucks’ 3-2 overtime win in Chicago on Monday. “Hopefully, the coaches like it.” We can think of one who does. “He’s playing more minutes than he ever has in the NHL,” Canucks head coach Travis Green said. “He’s a guy who works hard and he’s been a good teammate for all our players. The game’s fast now. You have to be able to skate and move the puck. And he’s hard to play against.” And harder not to love. Against the Blackhawks, Biega — a.k.a. The Bulldog — put in what’s become a standard shift, logging 22 minutes of ice time and recording three shots on goal while seeing a lot of pesky Patrick Kane.

True, he was on the ice when Erik Gustafsson’s floater from the blue-line went in off Alex Edler, tying the game in the final three minutes.

But the mere fact that Biega was on the ice with Edler, protecting a one-goal lead in the dying minutes, speaks volumes about his rise in the Canucks’ lineup. The previous night in Dallas, a 3-2 shootout win for the Canucks, Biega played just under 25 minutes and against New Jersey, he logged a season-high 25:37.

Since the Canucks moved out Erik Gudbranson at the deadline, Biega has become the No. 3 man on the defence behind Edler and Troy Stecher. The D-corps also features three other players who’ve spent the bulk of this season in the AHL — Luke Schenn, Ashton Sautner and Guillaume Brisebois — but even if the unit is held together with duct tape and hope, the Canucks are 5-4-2 since the deadline.

“They’ve been awesome,” Bo Horvat said. “It’s not easy to come in at this time of year, but they’ve established themselves as really good hockey players.”

OK, that might be overstating the point, but the last four weeks has represented Biega’s high-water mark as a Canuck. This is — can it be? — his fifth year in the organization and nothing has ever been given to the hockey everyman.

He was signed to a one-year contract as a minor-league free agent in the summer of 2013 and spent the season in Utica, New York. He worked his way into callup consideration the next year, then played 51 games with the Canucks in 2015-16.

And that’s the way things have gone the last three seasons. The Canucks try to get younger and sexier on the back end. Their plans go awry. And they turn to the Bulldog to help stabilize things.

Canucks GM Jim Benning has said the team will be looking for another puck-moving defenceman this off-season and there’s some suggestion they might be interested in Erik Karlsson.

But why spend $10 million US on Karlsson when you’ve got Biega locked up for $700,000 next season?

Biega has another year left on his deal with the Canucks, which means we might be writing the same story again this time next year. But since he signed in Vancouver, the game has also changed, and suddenly Biega is a little more than a gritty overachiever.

The NHL of 2019 places a premium on mobility and puck movement from the back end which, as luck would have it, is the strength of Biega’s game. Again, at 5-10 and 200 pounds, he doesn’t exactly register as a prototypical defenceman, but he can skate and, when you come right down to it, no one tries harder.

“I think the league has changed the last year or two,” he said. “I think it’s moved to my kind of game, a good skating defenceman who can move the puck and play physical.”