Tuesday December 3 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Ottawa Senators - 7 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, RDS, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 28 GP, 13-11-4, 30 pts, fifth in Pacific Division
Ottawa Senators: 27 GP, 11-15-1, 23 pts, seventh in Atlantic Division
Alex Burrows will be inducted into the Vancouver Canucks' Ring of Honour on Tuesday night as the team he finished his career with, the Ottawa Senators, continues its Western road swing.
When I think of Burrows, I think of three things:
• He scored back-to-back hat tricks during my first two games doing Stats in the press box — January 5, 2010, in a 7-3 win over Columbus and January 7 in a 4-0 win over Phoenix.
I feel like that's around the time that the masses started to quiet down about his new four-year contract that paid him $2 million a season, and had been seen as an overpayment when it was signed the previous March. Playing mostly with the Sedins, Burrows ended up hitting his regular-season offensive peak that year, with 35 goals and 67 points.
• His dragon-slayer goal to eliminate the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the 2011 playoffs was one of the more triumphant moments in Canucks history. I'll never forget the feeling of that moment, how my jaw dropped and I looked over at my seat-mate in the press box, Randip Janda. Simultaneously, we both mouthed, "It's in!"
When I left the arena, I was startled to find cars honking and fans celebrating — after all, it *was* only a first-round series. But it started an awesome ride that rolled on for the next two months before ending in such bitter disappointment.
Over at The Athletic, Thomas Drance has composed a fun oral history of that goal, including quotes from all the key Canucks like Ryan Kesler, Roberto Luongo, Kevin Bieksa, the twins and more, plus Blackhawks including Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Dave Bolland and Chris Campoli. Alain Vigneault even makes an appearance — and Burrows himself, of course. I'd forgotten that his wife gave birth the very next day!
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• My third big Burrows memory came on February 1, 2017 — when the rumours that he could get moved at the trade deadline later that month were reaching a fever pitch.
He was forthright and candid when I went way back to quiz him on how he managed to climb from an undrafted prospect all the way to a top-line NHLer, and share some thoughts on his teammates and the direction of the Canucks at that time.
Of course, Jonathan Dahlen didn't turn out to be the top-level prospect we'd all hoped for when he came to the Canucks from the Senators when that deadline deal was completed.
Dahlen's tearing it up back in Sweden this year, with 34 points in 25 games for Timra in Allsvenskan. The player he was traded for last spring, Linus Karlsson, has 14 points in 26 games with Karlskrona, in the same league.
This is awesome. In his return to Vancouver for his accolades, Burrows and his family made time to visit Canuck Place on Monday.
I'll leave the final word on Burr for Henrik Sedin, courtesy of Iain MacIntyre:
Should be a great ceremony tonight!
After that, of course, a game will be played. And we have some clarification on Travis Green's line deployment courtesy of Tuesday's morning skate:
Clearly, they didn't go for my 'sign Carson Focht' suggestion. Too bad.
Tim Schaller will get the nod in the middle on the fourth line, skating with Loui Eriksson and Zack MacEwen, while Nikolay Goldobin draws back in to replace the absent Jake Virtanen.
Jake did take a hit from James Neal on his second-last shift of the game on Sunday, with about six and a half minutes left in the third. After that, he played just one more 35-second shift with Tim Schaller and Adam Gaudette with just over four minutes left to play, changing on the fly at both ends.
As we did expect, Alex Edler is also missing, which means another big night of work for Jordie Benn. He played 21:26 on Sunday against Edmonton — not a season high, but he did lead all Canucks with a career-high seven shots on goal.
Two bits of good news...
• Antoine Roussel is indeed back in the mix, and will slot onto the wing on the third line. Doesn't it seem appropriate that his return after nine months of rehab would come on Alex Burrows' big night?
• Micheal Ferland skated on a fourth defense pair, but wore a full-contact jersey for the first time. That would suggest that he's also not too far away from getting back into action.
Ferland's placement on long-term injured reserve on Monday was a salary-cap move, retroactive to the end of October. He has already been sidelined long enough that the team will be able to activate him whenever he's ready to go.
Seems like Sutter and Beagle are both still a bit further away — and Edler a bit further than that.
Here's the personnel update from the coach. Sounds like there's a chance that Virtanen could draw in.
As for the Ottawa Senators, I've scored a few of their games in recent weeks. They're not getting consistent results yet, but they're playing with a lot more heart than last season under new coach D.J. Smith. They were one of just two teams to earn a regulation win over Philadelphia last month, and I was really impressed with their 4-1 win over Carolina back on November 9 — an insanely grinding game in which the Sens laid 35 hits while the Canes replied with 31 of their own.
Smith has been getting quality minutes out of his bottom six, and impending RFA and Ottawa native Jean-Gabriel Pageau is on pace for a career year, leading his team with 14 goals and 20 points in 27 games. With 15 points, Brady Tkachuk's scoring pace isn't quite as torrid as last season, but his agitation factor is still strong, and Anthony Duclair has finally found his game after bouncing from Arizona to Chicago to Columbus before landing in Ottawa late last season. With 10 goals already this season, he's showing the form of his rookie year in 2015-16, when he had 20 goals and 44 points with the Coyotes.
The Sens also acquired some much-needed goaltending stability when they picked up Anders Nilsson from the Canucks last January. Last May, Ottawa signed the impending free agent to a two-year contract worth $2.6 million a season, and he has outplayed Craig Anderson while splitting duties with him so far this year. Nilsson is 7-6-1, with a very respectable .917 save percentage to go along with his 2.92 goals-against average.
To wrap up on a busy day — the Sens' media team had some fun with Mark Borowiecki's vigilante justice turn on Sunday, when he clotheslined a would-be thief off his bike as he tried to make off with a bag stolen out of a car.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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