Salo was like Canucks’ MVP
When he was hurt, which was often, Vancouver would often go into tailspin
It was the eve of the 2010 post-season, and Sami Salo was officially listed day-to-day. That was by the Canucks’ website and head coach Alain Vigneault.
Salo had just missed several practices, and two regular season games, making it his 38th career injury.
Yet, when pressed about what the heck was going on, he volleyed this back to the media:
“That was you guys who made it up.”
Uh, it was? The media made up your injury?
Salo always had a knack for making you think you were crazy.
“So,” someone returned to Salo, “does this mean then you’ll be 100 per cent for the playoffs?” Salo: “No.” Long, long period of silence. “I’ll be 110.” Salo was a beauty. He was great in those playoffs, by the way. He usually was, when healthy.
Of course, he had the luck of a turtle. I mean, the cover athletes for Madden NFL have had better fortune than Salo.
But Salo, who officially acknowledged he was retiring Thursday, was so much more than the games he missed.
In his nine-year Canucks career, Salo proved himself one of the most valuable No. 3 defencemen the team has ever had.
Sure, you wanted him to use the shot more. Yes, the injuries were maddening, and often. But few second-tier players have ever had his kind of impact, one you could directly link to actual wins and losses.
The Canucks were always — always — a better team with Salo in the lineup.
Giving up Peter Schaefer to acquire him back in 2002 wasn’t the steal of the century, but it was among Brian Burke’s most shrewd moves as a general manager.
“Brian Burke didn’t even know who Salo was,” remembered Marc Crawford, Salo’s first head coach in Vancouver.
“I knew the Senators were not going to be able to keep him.
“I pleaded with Burkie all summer: ‘Get this guy, get this guy.’
“I knew he was a really good defenceman. I thought for sure he could be a top four guy. If you get a top four defenceman in the NHL, you got gold.
“I’m not going to toot my own horn, but that was my trade. It was all me.” And it was a good one. “Here was a guy who could play against anyone, anybody,” Crawford said.
It could have been so much more, however, if Salo had any luck at all. It’s something Crawford learned all too well.
At the 2006 Olympics, Salo ran into a teammate, tore his pectoral muscle and missed the rest of the season.
When it happened, the Canucks were second in the division, fifth in the conference. By the end of the season, the Canucks were out of the playoffs.
“One of the reasons I was no longer there was because Salo got hurt,” Crawford said. “I remember coming home from the Olympics and Sven Butenschon was one of our top two defencemen.”
It wasn’t the only time a Salo injury may have shifted Canucks destiny.
In the 2003 post-season, Salo missed Games 6 and 7 against Minnesota after getting an infection in his right foot from abrasions made by his skate laces. It’s one of the under-remembered reasons the Canucks blew a three-game-to-one lead to the Minnesota Wild.
In 2009’s second round, a Duncan Keith slapshot nearly ruptured Salo’s testicle, just when he was playing the best hockey of his career.
In the 2010 playoffs, Salo took a slapshot and ripped up muscles in his buttocks.
Then, later that year in the off-season, he tore his Achilles tendon playing floorball.
I’ll never forget his first meeting with the media after that one. Finally done fielding questions about his latest embarrassing injury, Salo paused, stared down at his walking boot, which ran up past his knee, and said: “Got to run.” With that slanted smile, he turned, and coolly exited Rogers Arena. I learned something that day. You could bruise his rib cartilage, tear up his shoulder, shred his groin tissue, bruise his testicle, pull his rear end and rip his Achilles tendon in half.
What you could never, ever do was take his spirit.