The Vancouver Canucks are back on the ice at Rogers Arena for an 11 a.m. practice on Monday before facing the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night ahead of this year's All-Star Break.
As expected, the team has already announced that Mike Zalewski has been returned to Utica. He picked up one assist and was a plus-one in his two-game call-up with Vancouver.
That most likely makes room for Brandon Sutter to return to the lineup—11 weeks after his last game.
Sutter is slotting straight into the first line, which puts Jared McCann back on the sidelines.
Here's what we know so far about the Canucks' other injured players:
No sign of Henrik.
Down in Utica, Chris Higgins' first two games with the Comets didn't go so well. The Canucks' AHL affiliate dropped two games in Toronto to the Marlies—4-2 on Saturday and 7-1 on Sunday. Higgins earned one assist but was a minus-three for the weekend.
Higgins has said that he won't speak to the Vancouver media during his time with the Comets, but Sportsnet's
Thomas Drance chatted with him after Saturday's game in Toronto.
Higgins acknowledged that he was playing catch-up with his season after fracturing a bone in his foot during the Canucks' first preseason game, but this quote caught my eye:
“For me it wasn’t too much fun playing the last two years, so getting back to having fun playing hockey, getting back to your roots a little bit and just trying to enjoy yourself - that’s what I’m trying to do,” Higgins said.
With 17 goals and 39 points in 2013-14, Higgins seemed like he was one of John Tortorella's boys—used in all situations and reaching a career high with an average of 19:10 of ice time per game. Though the Canucks struggled as a team under Torts, it was a good year for Higgins.
Maybe when he says "two years" he means last season and this one, under Willie Desjardins? Hard to say.
Higgins is earning praise for his positive attitude in Utica from coach Travis Green. I would think that the Comets' offense sputtered over the weekend, in part, due to a lack of depth up the middle. Centres Linden Vey and Zalewski were both with the Canucks, which left the Comets with only Alex Friesen and Wacey Hamilton as true pivots (Cole Cassels, interestingly, is now listed as a right wing).
One area where the Comets are mirroring their parent team: they were outshot 42-29 in Toronto on Sunday.
Back in Vancouver, excitement is building for the Canucks' #20in20 Retro Game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Feb. 13. The black skate jersey has certainly climbed the ranks of team favourites since Trevor Linden returned to the fold.
I hope this merchandise push goes better than the introduction of the Vancouver Millionaires jerseys—which look sharp but have been bad luck on the ice. In the case of the skate jersey, the Canucks will need to channel their 1992-94 Pacific Coliseum forefathers against the Leafs. By the time the team arrived at what was then GM Place to start the 1995-96 season, the situation was already starting to roll downhill.
The Canucks wore the skate jerseys at the new arena for just two seasons before the Orca was first introduced in 1997.
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A couple of financial notes to wrap up today.
First—an update on the league's escrow situation:
Escrow exists because the current collective bargaining agreement dictates that players are paid from a pool made up of 50 percent of the NHL's hockey-related revenues—down from 57 percent in the previous CBA. No matter what their contract terms on paper, if there's not enough money in the kitty to cover all salaries, every player has to give money back to the league until the total matches that 50 percent figure.
Now, that clawback has risen to 18 percent. So, a player making, say, $3 million a year would have $540,000 of his salary withheld before he pays taxes, agent fees, etc.
The declining Canadian dollar is being blamed for the dip in HRR this season. It's also raising questions about the viability of introducing an expansion franchise in Quebec at the present time.
At Christmastime, there was some hope that the NHL would announce its decision on the Las Vegas franchise, at the very least, during the All-Star Break.
Luke Fox of Sportsnet reports that an expansion meeting was held last week in New York, but no announcements are expected for the foreseeable future.
The delay may be opening the door for Seattle to get back into the mix. Over the weekend,
Geoff Baker at the
Seattle Times reported that a final vote on arena land for Chris Hansen could come by March or April—and that could now be soon enough to vault Seattle back into the expansion conversation.
The falling loonie is causing plenty of problems for the NHL right now, but it might end up working in Gary Bettman's favour if he can ultimately land his two preferred Western Conference locales, Seattle and Las Vegas, as the league's next two expansion teams.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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