Canucks and Kraken:
Welcome to a partially shared “Simmer’s Sunday 9” this week, in honour of the two clubs making a deal a couple of days ago. As in, Daniel Sprong for a bag of pucks. Actually, the two franchises have a few things besides geography in common. Enjoy …
1) Both the Canucks and Kraken American Hockey League franchises are in the middle of the 10-team Pacific Division pack as the season gets close to a dozen games old.
The Abbotsford Canucks are 5-6-and-1 for 11 points while the Coachella Valley Firebirds are right behind them at 5-and-5 for ten.
2) ‘Spronger’ has to pass two Ed’s to become the all-time leading scorer among NHL players born in the Netherlands. He’s only 13 points behind left-shot defenceman Ed Kea, who played almost 600 games in the 1970’s and ’80’s for the Atlanta Flames and the St. Louis Blues.
Still a little work to do for Sprong to catch the top Dutchman Ed Beers, a lefty forward who played exactly 250 NHL regular season games, tallying 210 points mostly for the Flames after they moved to Calgary, and then for the Blues.
The two never played for the same NHL team at the same time.
Beers – 210 points, Kea – 175, Sprong – 162
3) According to a postgame question from Vancouver radio play-by-play man Brendan Batchelor, the Canucks have given up the first goal in seven straight games. This was head coach Rick Tocchet’s response:
“We just looked as some video, we’re not getting to our game early enough. We’ve got a couple of guys who’ve gotta understand how we’ve got to play more predictable, we’re taking the puck back too much. We survived it after the 1st (period)(in the 7-3 loss to the Oilers), but we’ve gotta make sure we stick to the game plan.”
4) This year is a very rare no-go for me at the Hockey Hall of Fame festivities in Toronto. I’ll miss catching up with a lot of longtime hockey pals and honoured members. Alas …
As for the inductees, the “Magic Man” Pavel Datsyuk is the most captivating. He left his very successful 14-year NHL run with the Red Wings in 2016 to finish out his career back home in Russia.
Datsyuk won two Stanley Cups, three Selke Trophies as the league’s best defensive forward, and four Lady Byng Trophies for the best combination of talent and sportsmanship.
If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a little Youtube collection of the thief’s work. He embarrassed a lot of All-Stars and future Hall-of-Famers with his incredible stickwork.
5) The Kraken can actually get back to .500 on the season if they take care of business at home this week consecutively against the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday and Thursday. Very doable.
Aside from the obvious four points, the Kraken need to establish themselves at Climate Pledge Arena, where they tend to squander games and have a sub-500 record two of the last three seasons.
6) A Datsyuk addendum that just popped into my mind. Why was he good? Among other things, he worked his ass off and was disciplined.
While working with the NHL in New York, our crew and I flew to Detroit to do a series of bits and a show about the Stanley Cup Final in 2009. We shot a bunch of material in the Red Wings dressing room, including a few on-camera stand-ups which I screwed up a number of times. We must have been in there going back and forth to the bench and such for more than an hour.
Heading into the locker room bathroom at the end of it all I happened to look through the window into the Red Wings sauna, and there was Datsyuk riding a stationary bike in the heat. It was an off day, there were no other players around, and ‘Pav’ had been in there pedalling the whole time.
7) Saturday night’s 7-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers was Canucks goalie Kevin Lankinen’s first regulation loss this season. He’s now 7-1-and-2. Meanwhile, Arturs Silovs was sent down to get some work and help the Abbotsford Canucks of the AHL, while 22-year-old netminder Ty Young was called up.
A simple placeholder for the return of Thatcher Demko? All of Vancouver hopes so. “Demmer” got in a good on-ice work-out with the club on Sunday.
8) Also called up, Vancouver’s 2022 1st-round NHL Draft pick (15th-overall) Jonathan Lekkerimaki. The 20-year-old Swedish winger has seven points over seven AHL games played in Abby this season and should make his NHL debut against the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night.
It’s game-2 of Vancouver’s season-long six-game homestand.
9) We’re busy producing informative and entertaining interviews about the Kraken, Canucks, and the Pacific Division. One we’ll pluck here is with HHOF recognized broadcaster Nick Nickson, talking about his first-place LA Kings. How do they do it?
Subscribe to the Youtube channel ‘Simmerpuck’, which is also where you’ll find me on twitter/X, @simmerpuck.
Have a great week and enjoy the hockey action!!
