Spitballin’ (or Super Pass It To Bulis: All In, if you love adventurous acronymizing) is a feature that allows us to touch on a multitude of things really fast, because in the world of hockey, there are always lots of things to find and colour. Here are a few quick topics.
Cody McLeod should get a suspension for concussing Sven Baertschi…
...but he definitely won’t. I wrote this last night, well before any decision was made, because it was entirely predictable.
It’s a blindside hit directly to the head, well away from the puck. It’s a pure cheap shot, meant to look accidental, but clearly not.
Here is the play where Baertschi got injured - he has yet to return#Canucks pic.twitter.com/o3dx40fKvu
— Ryan Biech (@ryanbiech) February 8, 2017
But the usual excuses will come into play: Baertschi should have kept his head up (his head was up, looking at the play, not expecting a guy to elbow him in the head from the blindside). He needed to be aware that McLeod was on the ice (that rape victim should have know there was a rapist at that party). It was an accidental collision (which is why McLeod winds up and follows through with his elbow).
McLeod makes no effort to avoid running into Baertschi and picks his head with his elbow. Open and shut case. But it’s pretty easy for the Orwellian-named Department of Player Safety to take a quick look and say “What a terrible accident,” like a member of the Sandford Police Department.
But I’m almost more upset that he took a shift after getting hit directly in the head instead of going directly to the locker room to undergo the concussion protocol. Almost. I’m still more upset about the guy who concussed him in the first place.
But still, who knows how bad Baertschi’s concussion will be? Who knows how long his recovery will take? Sending him out for an extra shift was an unnecessary risk.
Brendan Gaunce is gone, baby, gone.
With Ben Hutton back from injury, the Canucks had a quandary: who would they send down to the Utica Comets to make room for Hutton on the roster?
Michael Chaput? Jayson Megna? Reid Boucher? Any of those three would have made sense, but each of those three would require waivers and the Canucks apparently don’t want to risk losing any of them. So they sent down Brendan Gaunce instead.
You could call this good asset management, but I’m not entirely sure I would call Megna and Chaput assets.
Gaunce has pretty much been an ideal fourth liner, playing a grinding, low-event game that has seen the Canucks consistently keep the puck in the offensive zone when he’s on the ice. He may only have five points this season, but he has still been an excellent puck possession player that has prevented the opposition from putting up points themselves.
The difference for the fourth line with and without Gaunce is starker than Winterfell. With Gaunce on their line, Chaput and Jack Skille have excellent 56.1 and 57.0 corsi percentages, respectively. Without Gaunce, they’re at 39.9 and 38.8. Just in case you were wondering which particular straw was stirring that drink.
The question is, what is Gaunce’s upside? Fans and management alike want to see more than a good fourth liner from a first round pick and he saw quick progression in the AHL, jumping from 29 points in 74 games in his rookie year in Utica to 38 points in 46 games last season.
While no one is saying Gaunce has top-six potential, he could still become a legitimate shutdown third-line forward with the ability to contribute more than the five points he has so far this season. A stint in the AHL might remind him that he can do more than just grind out his shifts.
Henrik Sedin on After Hours was perfectly pleasant
After recording his 1000th career point, you had to know Henrik would end up on After Hours the next time the Canucks were on Hockey Night in Canada.
A clear highlight is Roberto Luongo showing up a little over two minutes in to congratulate Henrik “for the third time” about his 1000th point and give a knowing wink about how he let him score.
Henrik nails his choice of “best point” by naming his between the legs tip pass to Daniel for one of the prettiest goals in Canucks history. That it capped off Henrik’s Art Ross-winning season just makes it even sweeter.
Trevor Linden reveals that he used to eat cheesecake with the Sedins when they were on the road back in the day, at which point the Sedins got so thicc their pants didn’t fit.
Anson Carter shows up and calls himself “one of the original brothers on The Brother Line,” which I think answers Harrison’s old question about whether “The Brother Line” was okay or not. Or is this one of those he-can-say-it-but-we-can't situations?
Scott Oake cuts Henrik off right as he’s about to tell an Anson Carter story, which is too bad, but it’s to talk about Henrik’s rainbow Canucks jersey and his role as the Canucks’ ambassador for the NHL’s “Hockey is for everyone” campaign, so I guess I can forgive Scott just this once.
And one more thing: Anton Rodin
For the second straight year, Anton Rodin’s season ends with a knee surgery. This is awful news for Rodin, who now has another six month recovery period to see if he can revive his NHL career.
The reigning MVP of the Swedish Hockey League hasn’t had any luck, but it also raises questions about how the Canucks handled the return of Rodin from his initial injury and surgery. He played in five preseason games, pushing his knee pretty hard and evidently re-aggravating his injury, as he sat for months, only getting into three games before an awkward fall onto his knee knocked off the ice long-term.
The entire thing has been a disappointment for fans. Rodin was an exciting mystery heading into the season. Would he be good? Would he be bad? We had no idea! But instead of finding out, we ended up in this weird limbo state, where he’s neither good nor bad because we haven’t seen him on the ice. He’s Schrödinger's Winger.
The injury will take Rodin to unrestricted free agency this summer. Will the Canucks bring him back for next season or give up on him as a lost cause? Or, secret option C: will Rodin seek greener pastures elsewhere in free agency?
