There’s a lot of mystery surrounding Anton Rodin, but I know one thing for certain about the Swedish winger: he definitely walked under a ladder while holding 13 black cats, incidentally also knocking over the world's largest salt shaker.
The guy can’t catch a break.
After weeks of confusion over Vancouver’s management of Anton Rodin’s (non) playing time, Jim Benning announced Tuesday that Rodin had reaggravated his knee injury. Y’know, the one that knocked him out of the best season of his career in the Swedish Elite League last year.
He was so far ahead at that point that he still ended up winning the SEL MVP.
This situation has been crazy. Rodin played five games in the pre-season. And he looked good, scoring five points in those games. He was like the second coming of Sergei Shirokov but with better hair.
Now, more than halfway through the season, Rodin has played just three NHL games, playing no more than ten minutes in each showing.
And now he’s out with an injury serious enough to merit a statement from the GM.
Here’s Jim Benning’s tweet on the subject:
Injury update on Anton Rodin: pic.twitter.com/mgHb5Vpfwo
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) January 17, 2017
It makes sense now why Rodin hasn’t been playing in the top six in lieu of, say, Jayson “So Obviously Not A Sedin” Megna.
That said, can we talk about the weird optics for a moment? Dusting off my MathBox 3000, I can’t help but note that January 6th was 11 days ago. In that timeframe, coach Willie Desjardins has been suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous media attention for a sputtering power play and overall lack of scoring.
Early on, Desjardins offered insightful explanations as to Rodin’s lack of playing time, gems like, "There's lots of things with Rodin, I like Anton Rodin."
Well that just says it all, doesn’t it?
Over time it became clear that the knee was the culprit. The quotes from Rodin in this recent Jason Botchford piece are heartbreaking. But rather than declare it an injury, Desjardins opted to call it “not 100%.” It also came out management was pressuring him to play Rodin more.
I can’t defend every Desjardins coaching decision, but choosing not to play someone with a knee injury is something I can usually get on board with. A “reaggravated knee injury” isn’t something one generally shrugs off. Especially for someone whose game relies on explosive quickness. Usually these things are pretty clear cut. Why didn’t they just call him day-to-day with a lower body injury?
Rodin was actually dressed for the game following his injury, but he didn’t see any ice time. He was just the 13th forward because Ben Hutton couldn't play after taking warmup. Hutton, speaking of not catching a break, is out 3-6 weeks with a fractured hand, which is a lot more like catching a break, in retrospect.
The whole situation is odd, and stands to become odder. Rodin will be a Group VI unrestricted free agent this summer. Furthermore, he’ll be up for grabs in the NHL Expansion Draft. His future is less certain than my wife trying to decide what to order.
Vancouver fans hope for a decent look at the forward this season. A crazy thought: Rodin mentioned that his knee was bothering him even in pre-season. That means he put up a point-per-game while not 100%. It also means the Canucks played him in five of the six preseason games when he wasn't fully recovered from a serious knee injury. That's not a good look.
The Megna-Twins experiment is over and the Sedins have thankfully been reunited with Loui Eriksson, but truthfully Vancouver really needed a dynamic scorer like Rodin. It still does, present tense.
Just don’t expect that scorer to be recent waiver claim, Reid Boucher. With Willie Desjardins guaranteeing that of the two Rodin would be the first to play, he obviously won’t play anytime soon.
Better settle in for a long wait, Reid!
