MINORS MIRACLE
Burrows’ remarkable rise to 500 NHL games.
EDMONTON
About a six- hour drive southeast of Nashville, where Alex Burrows will play his 500th NHL game tonight, is Greenville, S. C.
It’s a million miles from the NHL, but it’s where Burrows’ improbable professional hockey journey began nearly a decade ago.
Hockey wasn’t big in Greenville, or for that matter Baton Rouge, La., or Columbia, S. C., the other two stops Burrows made in the East Coast Hockey League.
He remembers long bus rides, punctuated by stops at places like Mcdonald’s and Subway to help the players stretch their paltry per- diems. And he remembers that all anyone seemed to care about in those places was college football and basketball. A hockey puck was a foreign object.
It was a tough environment in which to chase your NHL dream, especially for a player like Burrows who had been passed up in the NHL draft.
“It was always a dream to play in the NHL and it was really a big dream sometimes with those long bus rides,” Burrows said before the Canucks departed Monday for Nashville. “You are going to games where there are no scouts and no one really cares about hockey. It’s all about college football, college basketball, that’s all people really care about. It’s tough to get out of there.”
But Burrows did and here he is 500 games into an NHL career that has exceeded everyone’s expectations.
“Everyone has got their own story, has their own journey,” Burrows said. “Everyone has to work hard to get to 500 games even if you are a first- rounder or not drafted. But for me, it’s nice. I’m really happy with the way things have gone. We’re a Stanley Cup- contending team, we’re feeling good about our game, it’s fun to win and play with two of the best players in the world. It couldn’t be any better.”
Sometimes in those East Coast days, Burrows wondered if it could get any worse. The Greenville Growl, Baton Rouge Kingfish and Columbia Inferno played in some interesting venues.
“The one in Columbia where we played, the rink, it wasn’t even an NHL standard ice rink,” Burrows said. “It was an old basketball arena that they decided to make into a hockey arena. It was much smaller than a normal rink, so we had a really tough team and tried to scare everyone out of the building.”
Think Slap Shot in South Carolina and Burrows, not surprisingly, was in the thick of much of the rough stuff. He had 194 penalty minutes in his one full season in Columbia. The previous year he combined for more than 265 minutes in Greenville and Baton Rouge.
Unlike a fellow French- Canadian, goalie Denis Lemieux, Burrows did not “feel shame” for all the time he spent in the penalty box. It was part of life in the ECHL. You played hard, did what you had to do and prayed that someone noticed.
Craig Heisinger did. The former Manitoba Moose general manager, now an assistant GM with the Winnipeg Jets, is the guy who gave Burrows his first big break, or in Slap Shot terms set him free.
“I owe him so much,” Burrows said. “He really trusted in me.”
Burrows got a two- game look with the Moose in the 2003- 04 season and became a Moose regular the following season during the NHL lockout.
“They had the rule change in the AHL and teams could carry 12 forwards,” Burrow said. “That opened up one more roster spot and I was able to grab it.”
“I’d like to be able to say we saw in Alex what he has become today but the truth of the matter is we didn’t,” Heisinger said Monday. “We thought Alex would be a good replacement for Jimmy Roy, who was an absolute s-- t disturber and that’s how Alex played.
“To say that we projected him to be a first- line winger on one of the best lines in the NHL that would be very much of a stretch. He’s the one who has taken advantage of the opportunity.”
Burrows broke in with the Moose at the same time as defenceman Kevin Bieksa, a fifth- round Canuck draft pick who had just finished his collegiate career at Bowling Green University in Ohio. Bieksa had never heard of Burrows.
“I don’t know if you want my first impressions,” Bieksa said Monday with a laugh of Burrows, whom he now counts as one of his best friends. “You know what, at the time I think I noticed his work ethic right away. He started that year in the East Coast League and got called up five or six games into the year. And when he came up he played the same way he does now. He worked tirelessly, he hounded the puck, he had a good stick and scored some big goals.
“I have always said he is one of the smartest players I have ever played with. And he’s obviously very opportunistic.”
Burrows, who happens to be a member of the Canadian Ball Hockey Hall of Fame, also counts Canucks coach Alain Vigneault as one of those who helped get him to the NHL. Vigneault coached the Moose in 2005- 06 and helped convince then Canucks coach Marc Crawford and GM Dave Nonis to take a look at him later that season.
“I remember when Dave and Marc called and they asked me who our best player at that time was and it was Alex,” Vigneault said. “He got called up and he has been in the NHL ever since.
“One thing with Alex is he’s got great hockey sense and he’s got a lot more skill than people give him credit for. Combine those two and you’ve usually got a pretty good player.” Burrows, of course, has been a very good player for the Canucks. He has cracked the 20- goal mark for the fourth straight season and with 22 goals has a chance to surpass 30 for the second time. Most of his 133 goals as a Canuck have come the hard way, at even- strength. He has more shorthanded goals ( 15) than he does powerplay markers ( 9).
With one more year remaining on a contract that pays him $ 2- million per season, Burrows is truly one of the NHL’S best bargains. He may be underpaid by NHL standards, but Burrows still feels blessed on so many levels.
He gets to play with Daniel and Henrik Sedin and yes, they have certainly helped his career. But the flip side of that is that Burrows helps make the twins better.
At home, Burrows and his wife Nancy have a little girl, Victoria, who was born during last year’s playoff run.
“It puts everything back in perspective with the family now,” he said. “That’s the best part. I have a healthy little girl at home and that is the most important thing.”
All that’s missing is a Stanley Cup.
“That would be another dream come true,” he said.
And Alex Burrows knows better than most that sometimes that happens.
EDMONTON — The Vancouver Canucks log more miles than any other NHL team and they win more away from home as well.
Last season, the Canucks set a franchise record with 27 road wins, which was the most in the NHL. This season, they lead the league with 20 road victories.
“We don’t change anything when we go on the road,” defenceman Kevin Bieksa said Monday before the team left Edmonton for a long flight to Nashville. “Some teams change their style of play, maybe get pucks deep, do this, do that. We play the exact same way at home and on the road.
“And I think beyond that we’re a pretty mentally strong team. I don’t think a whole lot fazes us. Regardless of what the polls say, we don’t get intimidated, we don’t shy away from things, we just go out and go about our business and do our jobs.”
But what about all that arduous travel? The team’s current six- game trip, for example, takes the Canucks on a virtual tour of North America. It started when the Canucks headed north for Sunday night’s game in Edmonton. On Monday, they headed southeast to Nashville and from there it’s on to Detroit, New Jersey, Dallas and Phoenix.
We’ll leave it to Bieksa to put it into perspective.
“It’s not like we are travelling commercial in a middle seat between two large people,” he said. “We’re pretty comfortable and the team takes care of us pretty well.”
With 10 road games remaining, the Canucks face a tall order to improve upon last year’s road record. They’d have to win eight of those 10 games to reach 28 road wins. DEFENCE ON OFFENSIVE: The Canucks continue to get nice offensive contributions from their top four defencemen.
Bieksa and Sami Salo both scored in Sunday night’s 5- 2 win over the Oilers.
Bieksa has goals in back- toback games for the first time in his NHL career. With seven goals and 33 points, he has a chance to challenge his career best numbers of 11 goals and 43 points in 2008- 09.
“We’re having a good year on the back end,” Bieksa said. “The forwards are using us a lot more now. It takes away a lot of pressure when you have defencemen jumping up in the play and getting pucks on net. That’s the way the game is these days.”
Alex Edler leads Canuck defencemen with 39 points and heading into Monday’s schedule stood third among NHL defencemen. Bieksa was tied for 11th, while Dan Hamhuis ( 26 points) was tied for 26th. POWER TIME: Tonight’s game against the Predators will feature a meeting of the NHL’S two top power plays. The Canucks lead the league with an efficiency rate of 22.3 per cent. The Preds are clicking at a rate of 21.5.
Daniel Sedin leads the Canucks with nine powerplay goals. Defenceman Shea Weber leads Nashville with seven power- play goals. DOWN ON THE FARM: The Chicago Wolves, Vancouver’s AHL farm team, have been almost as hot as the Canucks of late. The Wolves, who are on a four- game winning streak, have won nine of their last 11 games.
Goalie Eddie Lack, who had a bit of slow start this season, has had two shutouts while winning five of his last six games. Lack has surrendered just eight goals, five while the team was short- handed, in that stretch. His numbers over the past six games: a 1.32 goalsagainst average and .958 save percentage.
Wolves captain Nolan Baumgartner will play in his 1,000th professional game on Friday night when Chicago meets the Rockford Ice Dogs.
ICE CHIPS: Winger Alex Burrows needed three stitches on his nose to close a cut suffered when he collided with referee Dennis Larue in Saturday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. … Coach Alain Vigneault continues to spread out the ice time. In both weekend games, everyone in the lineup played at least 10 minutes.