SEDINS TRY TO SLOW DOWNWARD SLIDE
As the Sedins slump, the Canucks are telling us not to worry — but yet we do
I wouldn’t say we’re worried. We know where we are right now, but we’ve got time to make changes and make it right.
HENRIK SEDIN CANUCKS CAPTAIN
This was going to be a sentimental column about a National Hockey League team from Winnipeg visiting the Vancouver Canucks for the first time since 1996, the history the teams share, new yarn in the fabric hockey weaves through our country.
We could tell you the Jets’ last visit was a day before Valentine’s 16 years ago, and how hearts in Winnipeg had already been broken by the sale of the team to owners who were taking it to Phoenix and by the trade a week earlier of Teemu Selanne to Anaheim for luminaries Oleg Tverdovsky and Chad Kilger. And that neither the franchise nor the city it was abandoning was the same after that.
And how February in Phoenix is nice and all and February in Winnipeg is never nice at all, but weather aside we missed the Jets and the rivalry of a team whose fans possessed the same values and passion for the game that we did.
But screw the Jets. The Canucks have lost four out of five!
Only in Canada — maybe even only on the intemperate West Coast — could a pre- playoff lull by an elite team take on the gravity of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yes, our children’s future is at stake. Henrik Sedin has gone six games without a point.
Probably everything will be okay. Probably Khrushchev’s ships will make a U- turn and so will the Canucks. But just in case, make sure the bomb shelter is ready.
“We’ve got 15 more games,” Sedin calmly explained Wednesday to reporters carrying microphones, notepads, pitchforks and torches. “I wouldn’t say we’re worried. We know where we are right now, but we’ve got time to make changes and make it right.”
Earlier, the Canuck captain observed: “It feels like we’re the least- worried guys in the city.”
Henrik, who won the Art Ross and Hart trophies two years ago with a 112- point season, has two goals and 14 points in 22 games. He had a four- point night against the Toronto Maple Leafs — hey, who doesn’t? — which otherwise leaves him with 10 points in 21 games.
Brother Daniel, who won the Ross and Ted Lindsay awards last year with a 104- point season, has nine goals and 15 points in 21 games.
And the power play, paramount to the success of the twins and the Canucks, is fivefor51 in the last 20 games. That is a 9.8- per- cent success rate over the equivalent of an entire quarter of the NHL season. For context, the Phoenix Coyotes have the worst power play in the league this season at 13 per cent.
Vancouver’s power play scored 33 times in the first 29 games and only 16 times in 38 games since then.
Now, for the record, the Canucks are a single point out of the lead in the Western Conference and NHL, and would have topped both had they won Tuesday against the Dallas Stars instead of losing 5- 2 to a far hungrier team, which the Winnipeg Jets will be tonight.
Also, we often look back at these Canuck “slumps” with a what- were- we- thinking sense of embarrassment — like seeing video of yourself dancing or remembering how you wore red mittens during the Olympics.
But it’s the sneaky duration of the power play’s failure and scoring problems of Vancouver’s best players that make this Canuck crisis exceptional compared with the bimonthly ones.
The Sedins feel great, but look tired. The team says it badly wants to win the Presidents’ Trophy, but lacks the motivation of opponents desperate to make the playoffs. The Canucks say “don’t worry.” But we do. If people had cared this much in Atlanta, Winnipeg would still be trying to get its team back from Arizona.
“They might come out to you and say: ‘ Well, it’s not that bad,” coach Alain Vigneault, who said he hasn’t seen the Sedins struggle like this during his six years in Vancouver, explained after Wednesday’s brisk, brief practice. “Not to say that you guys are negative in any way — I wouldn’t want to insinuate that at all — but sometimes you like to spin things in a more negative way. So we’re trying to look at the glass half- full, trying to be a little bit more positive. I’m telling you I believe in these guys, and I do. I do believe in Hank and Danny and the players that we have.”
The Sedins are accustomed to criticism. Daniel said the volume of complaints hurled at them early in their careers, often lacking common sense but not venom, made them stronger.
“We’re worried about winning in the playoffs,” he said Wednesday. “We know we have to be better and score some goals for this team to win. This is the best we’ve felt all season, to be honest with you. Our legs feel really good. I’m more happy about that than anything else. We would love to score goals, too. But right now ... we’re going to work through this and become better players.”
“How long do I stick with the power play?” Vigneault asked. “How long do I stick with those guys? I’m going to stick with them a while because I believe in those people. At the end of the day, that’s what it is.”