On Thursday, Vancouver Canucks president Trevor Linden sat down with Matt Sekeres at TSN1040 for an in-depth look at the team's plans for the upcoming season.
If you're interested in listening to the whole thing, you can do so here:
If you'd prefer to read a summary of the key points that came up in discussion, Thomas Drance has a good one here at Canucks Army.
Considering the strong reactions that have surfaced after some of the team's other media appearances this offseason—especially the Summer Summit—I'm rather relieved that the biggest talking point to come out on Thursday was the announcement that the Canucks would dust off their black skate jerseys as part of the 20th anniversary celebration for Rogers Arena when they take on the Toronto Maple Leafs on February 13.
Trev has been setting up this idea for awhile. He was most animated about this option when quizzing the Summer Summit attendees about which retro jersey they'd most like to see back in the mix. Also, Linden, Kirk McLean and Pavel Bure wore a modernized version of the jersey for Pat Quinn's celebration of life back in March:
It's no surprise that jersey holds such a place in Linden's heart. He played arguably the best individual game of his career in the black skate when he scored Vancouver's only two goals in the team's 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers in Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Final.
The downward-angled skate design was widely-ridiculed back in the day. Nostaglia can be a magical force.
The other key idea that Linden made clear is that he doesn't think it's possible to gut a team with the intention of securing a high draft pick in order to improve in the future. Watch the video here—he gets pretty agitated when Matt Sekeres poses the question.
Linden: I believe STRONGLY that we need to integrate young players with some sort of structure and foundation for them to be successful
Linden spends a good chunk of his interview defending Jim Benning and emphasizing his ability to be decisive and make tough decisions. He also speaks positively of newly-promoted John Weisbrod and the shift from longtime trainer Mike Burnstein to human performance consultant Dr. Rick Celebrini.
I'll be very interested to see if the Canucks are able to lower their games lost to injury next season. The graphics on the front page at Man Games Lost show a very strong correlation between healthy teams and those who made the playoffs last year—and, over time, who contend for and win Stanley Cups.
The Canucks ranked just below the middle of the pack last season—reasonably healthy at No. 17 overall with 221 man games lost and also 17th with 151 games lost to injury.
Since the 2009-10 season, however, the Canucks rank 10th overall with 1617 man-games lost. Even more interestingly, Vancouver is second only to the Pittsburgh Penguins as the most impacted by the quality of their injuries, according to the website's metrics.
Three of the four teams that have lost the least man games over the past six seasons are our three Stanley Cup winners. Los Angeles has lost just 817 games, Boston has lost 846 and Chicago has lost 944, with Arizona rather remarkably sandwiched among that group at 910.
There's no guarantee, of course, but it stands to reason that a healthier Canucks team going forward *should* also be a more successful Canucks team.
Speaking of injuries, Sami Salo will be moving his family back to Vancouver as his permanent retirement home.
Linden on Salo: Sami is moving his family back to Vancouver and is making this his home. "We'll see" if there's a role with the Canucks
We're now just four weeks away from the Young Stars tournament in Penticton. It won't be too much longer until we start to see whether Linden's vision for his team will bear fruit the way he hopes.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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