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Quinn Hughes' case for the Calder & Mikael Samuelsson's Canucks career |
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Let's start by putting the spotlight on Quinn Hughes. He appeared on the NHL's Zoom media call on Monday morning, along with other high-scoring rookie defensemen Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche and Adam Fox of the New York Rangers.
Here's a handy highlight reel of Hughes' rookie season.
Nothing really new from Hughes, who's isolating at the family home in Michigan with his brothers and got out for a spin on the rollerblades last week. Makar said when he saw that video on social media, he ordered some blades of his own, not wanting to be left behind!
During his interviews over the last week or so, Bo Horvat has been adamant that Hughes is deserving of the Calder Trophy over Cale Makar for two reasons — because of the minutes he played, and because he was able to stay healthy.
Averaging 21:53 of ice time per game, Quinn actually sat second in ice time for rookies when the pause went into effect, behind Ethan Bear of the Edmonton Oilers at 21:58. Makar was third at 21:01 — but Bo argues in Quinn's favour because Hughes missed just one game due to injury this season — that knee issue that knocked him out of Vancouver's November 1 road game against San Jose, and kept him out of the lineup the following night in Los Angeles.
Listed at just 5'10" and 170 pounds, Hughes showed that he's shifty enough to stay out of the crosshairs of opposing forwards. He did go into the pause at a minus-10 because his plus-minus took a hit after Jacob Markstrom's February injury — Hughes was minus-9 in the five subsequent games — but Travis Green continued to lean on him. After peaking at 23:04 of ice time per game during the month of December, he continued with 22:35 in January, 22:47 in February and 22:54 during the five games that were played in March.
By contrast, Makar was at a plus-12 when the pause went into effect, but had just returned to action after missing five games with an upper-body injury. He also missed eight games earlier in the season. So while Hughes leads in total points, with 53, Makar's 50 points in 57 games give him 0.88 points per game, while Hughes is at 0.78.
Makar and Fox are also part of a group of five rookies that led the league with four game-winning goals this season, while Hughes tallied two.
Makar's no behemoth, either — he's listed at 5'11" and 187 pounds — but Horvat's not wrong in pointing out that Hughes' durability this season has been impressive, especially given his size. Also, coming out of college where his season was much shorter, he showed no signs of slowing down as the season wore on, even under his massive workload.
One detail that amuses me is that if the NHL is able to re-start the season, Hughes' defense partner Chris Tanev will once again have the opportunity to play every game. The injury-prone Tanev was knocked out of the Canucks' last game against the New York Islanders with a lower-body injury, but is now healthy and would be good to go if/when the season resumes.
For the latest on that, I'll point you to the Monday-morning news roundup by Greg Wyshynski and Emily Kaplan over at ESPN.
There's a report that NBA players could start filtering back to training facilities, where allowed, by the end of this week. The NHL doesn't have anything that concrete in place yet but has formed a return-to-play committee that includes reps from the league, the NHL Players' Association and a handful of active players. They're tasked with sorting through the details in an attempt to come up with some kind of viable plan.
Those details seem overwhelming. But if there's one thing I've learned from pro athletes, it's the importance of taking things day by day and not getting overwhelmed by things that are outside of my control. For now, I'll continue to keep my fingers crossed that a plan can be worked out — for our entertainment, of course, and also for the financial good of the league and the players.
Wrapping up — did you catch Game 3 of the 2011 Canucks/Blackhawks series on Sportsnet last night? Raffi Torres' big-time hit on Brent Seabrook is as noteworthy as ever — and coming from the blind side, it certainly seems like it would be a suspension if it happened today. Seabrook did pop right back up, which is presumably why Torres only received a minor penalty — and the Blackhawks scored with the man advantage, to tie the game back up at 2-2 after the Canucks had struck quickly to take the lead earlier in the second period.
Mikael Samuelsson untimately scored the game-winning goal — his only goal of the 2011 playoffs. Iain MacIntyre used that as a jumping-off point to explore Samuelsson's two years in Vancouver, and the important role that he played before his career was derailed by injury.
My big memory of Samuelsson was going into the 2010 playoffs, thinking about how he'd earned a ring with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008 and how that Stanley Cup experience could help the Canucks take the next step. And Samuelsson was impactful in the 2010 postseason, leading the Canucks in scoring with 15 points in 12 games before they were eliminated by Chicago.
Samuelsson played 75 regular-season games for Vancouver in 2010-11, recording his second-straight 50-point season — the only two of his career. But he'd dealt with a groin injury that kept him out during the stretch run, then missed Game 1 against Chicago due to the flu, and was knocked out of the playoffs early in Game 5 against Nashville with a torn abdominal muscle. He finished with just three points in 11 games in the 2011 postseason.
After playing six games with Vancouver at the beginning of the 2011-12 season, Samuelsson, then 34, was traded to Florida as part of the deal that brought David Booth to Vancouver. Samuelsson played only 78 more games in the NHL over the next three seasons before finishing out his playing career back in Sweden in the 2014-15 season.
After winning Game 3 in Chicago, it looked like the Canucks had the series well in hand and would finally find a way to vanquish the Blackhawks — but of course, we know now how hard it was to finish that off. One worrisome sign for Vancouver was the seven penalties they drew in Chicago in Game 3, after the officials had mostly put their whistles in their pockets during the first two games in Vancouver. Both Blackhawks goals in Game 3 came with the man advantage — and (spoiler alert) the penalty kill would continue to struggle as the Canucks tried to close out the series.
Game 4 will air Thursday on Sportsnet.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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