Canucks’ Biega aims to keep roster spot
Biega quick to bare his teeth in fight to keep his spot on the Canucks roster
In the only scrimmage of training camp, Alex Biega made his mark Sunday. It’s probably still there, across the lower back of Vancouver Canucks forward Mike Zalewski.
Battling along the boards in the defensive zone, Biega shoved, jabbed and whacked at Zalewski from the corner to the faceoff hash marks, departing with a final cross-check that caused Zalewski to spin and chop back at Biega.
Apparently, Bulldog Biega isn’t giving up his roster spot without a dogfight.
If the squat defenceman listened to the low lineup projections most people have had for him over the years, Biega never would have left Montreal for Harvard University and, eventually, the long, hard slog through professional hockey that brought him Sunday to the Canucks’ intra-squad game at Meadow Park Sports Centre.
Biega isn’t fooled by the oneway contract he earned from the Canucks last season when, at age 27, he finally played regularly in the NHL. He knows this is a twoway street that could carry him back to the American Hockey League far more quickly than it brought him here.
It’s great for Biega that he secured a depth spot on the Canucks last season, and it’s terrible because, at that precarious position, he may spend the rest of his career fighting off challengers hungry to also work in the NHL.
“I’ve always had the mindset that I’ve got to be comfortable being uncomfortable,” he said.
“I guess I’ve been lucky — well, I don’t want to say lucky — but I’ve gone through the road of adversity, had to fight through adversity, and that has really shaped who I am today,” Biega said after the scrimmage. “We live in an industry that’s tough. Everything is not necessarily fair, but that’s life. You don’t always get what you want.
“But I’ve always had the approach that, if you’re a good person and you work hard and you bring that every single day, good things will happen to good people. That’s kind of how I live my life every single day, and good
things have happened to me. So I really have no reason to change my mindset.”
Given the Canucks’ commitment to probable third-pairing defencemen Luca Sbisa and Philip Larsen, it appears that Biega, Tryamkin and Pedan are competing for the two depth spots on the NHL roster.
Ideally, Tryamkin, who last spring was auditioned in the NHL straight out of the Kontinental Hockey League, should learn the North American game by playing big minutes for the Canucks’ farm team in Utica, N.Y., this season. But the 6-foot-7 Russian has an out clause in his contract with the Canucks that allows him to return to Europe if he doesn’t make the NHL roster, and Tryamkin can bank a lot more money in Yekaterinburg, Russia, than Utica.
Based on last season, Pedan should clearly be behind both Biega and Tryamkin. But the tough, 6-foot-5 Lithuanian appears to have improved his footwork in the off-season and has big, literally and figuratively, potential.
Pedan partnered Biega on Sunday and, not to be outdone, also launched Zalewski into the boards.
It would be nice if the Canucks simply chose the best eight defencemen available at the end of the pre-season, which Vancouver opens with a game Tuesday in San Jose. But like Biega said, hockey isn’t always fair. The potential for Tryamkin and Pedan may trump Biega’s dependability.
“You always make the best decision you can for the organization,” coach Willie Desjardins said when asked about the selection criteria for the final places on the blue-line. “It always gets back to the focus on where you want to go. Sometimes, a guy may not be your best guy at the start of the year, but you believe he can be your best guy at the end of the year. So that might change a little bit who you go with initially.
“I think (Biega is) capable of playing in the top six. I think other guys can play in that group, too.”
It’s important to remember that Desjardins actually loves Biega. Given the chance to play last year due to injuries, Biega averaged 16:45 of ice time in 51 games and, for a spell, partnered Alex Edler on the defence’s top pairing.
It’s unlikely that he or Pedan will clear waivers if the Canucks try to send one of them back to the AHL in three weeks. Tryamkin is not subject to waivers.
“At the end-of-the-year meeting with Willie and Dougie (Lidster, the assistant coach), I told them you just never really know how good you can be until the you get the opportunity,” Biega said. “I got the opportunity last year and I was playing with Eddie against first-line guys ... and I proved I can play at that level.
“Once you get that belief, you want more and want to prove consistently on every single shift that you can be a top-four defenceman, you can be a toptwo defenceman.”
Biega is aiming far higher than anyone else is aiming him.