VANEK’S CREATIVITY NEEDED MORE THAN EVER NOW IN VANCOUVER
The hired gun is used to it by now.
He knows he’ll always get a look because at 33 he still offers something that is hard to find in today’s game. But it also seems the clock is ticking the moment he arrives in a new town. One season, he played with three different teams. Last year, he had two stops before the Vancouver Canucks offered him a deal just before the start of the season.
He would like to stay in one place for more than a year — or half a year for that matter — and the back of his hockey card suggests he should earn some stability in his life.
But that’s not his reality.
No, this is his reality: five seasons, seven teams and a home for the moment with the Canucks, but nothing guaranteed beyond this season.
“I’ve been through it a few times now, so it’s not that hard,” Thomas Vanek says. “In hockey, everywhere you go, you know somebody who knows somebody. I think I know 300 guys by now.
“I had a great time in Detroit (where he started last season before he was traded to Florida and before he signed with the Canucks and after ... never mind). In the end, it didn’t work out. It would have been nice to stay somewhere and not move.”
Maybe he’ll get that chance in Vancouver. Most likely he won’t, but whatever happens he can take some solace in this: the Canucks can’t complain Vanek isn’t holding up his end of his one-year, $2-million deal.
Heading into Thursday night’s meeting with the Philadelphia Flyers, the veteran winger had represented sound money for a team that was in desperate need of offence when he signed in September. There were 11 Canucks forwards who had averaged more minutes than the Austrian-born sniper, but Vanek sat third on the team in scoring with seven goals and 18 points after 28 games.
That production, moreover, becomes even more vital to the Canucks’ cause with Thursday’s news that top centre Bo Horvat will be out of the lineup for a month and a half. There are a number of reasons for the team’s modest success thus far, but the biggest might be it no longer takes an Act of Parliament for the Canucks to put the puck in the net.
Vanek has a lot to do with that. “I feel really good,” he says. “I feel better than I did three, four years ago. The older you get — and I don’t think 33 is that old — you learn what’s good for your body. The minutes are what they are, but I’ll try to create every shift I’m out there.”
Ah, yes. The minutes. Vanek was averaging 13 minutes 15 seconds per game or just under three minutes less than Markus Granlund.
“I like a lot of parts to his game,” said Canucks head coach Travis Green. “He’s a smart hockey player who’s been in the league a long time. He’s good around the net. He’s a good leader.”
Which makes you wonder how much Vanek would play if Green didn’t like his game.
In truth, the disparity between Vanek’s ice time and production is easily explained. He might be the ultimate risk-reward player and while that makes him fun to watch from a spectator’s perspective, it doesn’t engender trust and goodwill from the head coach.
Vanek’s game, simply put, isn’t compatible with the prevailing NHL zeitgeist and its emphasis on speed and puck management. Today’s game is played with broad strokes. Vanek plays with the fine strokes of an artist. He slows the game down. He looks for plays that aren’t immediately apparent to his less-imaginative colleagues.
When they work, it’s something to behold. When they don’t, it’s an odd-man rush going the other way, which might explain the 13 minutes a game and the minus-8 beside his name.
“That’s my game,” Vanek says. “Sometimes I don’t think Greener likes it too much or any coach. I know that. There are a few turnovers you’d like back, but overall I think I’m getting better defensively. There are times I try things where I kick myself, but I guess that’s part of my game.”
But this is also part of his game. After 13 seasons, he retains that sublime scoring touch. Vanek is 11th among active NHLers in career goals, ahead of players like Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel and Steven Stamkos. He’s also made just under $80 million in his career, so clearly he isn’t chasing the money.
“I’m not proving it to myself,” Vanek said. “I know I can play in this league and still be effective.”
He’s asked if the game has changed since he broke in 13 years ago.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I hear that all the time. I think there are faster individuals in the league, but I don’t know if the game has changed.
“I remember in my early years (in Buffalo), we had Danny Briere. Those fast guys existed back then, too.”
Maybe there just weren’t as many of them.
Vanek’s rookie season came in 2005-06 with the Sabres and there are just a handful of players still active from that team, including old friend Ryan Miller. That year, Sabres captain Chris Drury, who has been retired for seven years now, drew the rookie aside and told him to forget about his stats.
“He said the numbers will come if you play well,” Vanek said.
The numbers are still coming. He just doesn’t know where they will take him next.