No one can question Kevin Bieksa's toughness.
Saturday night, the Canucks battled to a 3-3 draw against the Flamers, only to have a reviewed shootout no goal get overruled and turned into a game winning goal for Calgary. Why is the war room in Toronto? They hate the Canucks! I, for one, am getting sick and tired of these OT/SO losses. Sure, we're getting a point, but come on! Alex "Heartthrob" Edler scored twice in the game, with Ryan Kesler getting the shorthanded GTG midway through the third. Brendan Morrison scored for the Flames, in his return to British Columbia, and did well to talk a little crap to the Vancouver media. In the shootout, Tambers scored, but so did Borque and Tanguay (or so they say), so the Flames get the extra point. Bobby Lu finished with 30 saves, while the Vannies put 44 on Kipper.
During the first period, Kevin Bieksa and Tom Kostopoulos (the actor on Mr. Show?) dropped the gloves and brawled it out. Kostopoulos blasted Bieksa with a punch to the face that brought our boy to his knees, and knocked him out of the game. The punch ended up messing Bieksa's eye up pretty bad, and he couldn't even open it by the end of the night. All of Vancouver's fan base gasped collectively, seeing yet another defender go down, as if it was a pre-written script meant to break our hearts. Aaron Rome (knee) and Andrew Alberts (shoulder) have both been out around 2-3 weeks, we have young Chris Tanev from Manitoba backing us up, and seeing Bieksa go down and not be able to open his eye made us all fearful that our newfound blue line weakness would be even worse.
This morning, however, Bieksa addressed the press with his eye barely open (I'd say to a Andrew/Vietnamese level) and said, "I've been hit harder than that before. My daughter has head-butted me harder, and you're naÏve if you think you're going to go through your NHL career without taking a good shot or losing a fight. There's always time for a rematch." How awesome if the X-man? He'll be in the lineup tonight against the very solid Stars.
With Christian Ehrhoff, Alex Edler, Dan Hamhuis, and even Sami Salo's rehab getting the majority of the attention, Bieksa has gone largely unnoticed this year. Fans were calling for Kevin to be sent away to make room for Salo before the season, and now he's put together a campaign to make him a fan favorite yet again. In 47 games so far this season, Kevin has 6 goals, 11 assists, is a +20, has just 53 PMs, 79 hits, 72 blocked shots, and has a 7.4 S%. The shooting percentage, blocked shots, hit, and +/- are all career highs, and we're only 47 games in! His penalty minutes are way below his previous seasons, even with the pace he's on, and overall he's been a defensive force on the ice this year.
However, don't take my word for it. Don't just jump on board with what I say because of the stats. The best way to know how good a player is, is to go to his teammates. Who better than Vannie defender Keith Ballard to show us what to think about Bieksa? Ballard, when acquired by the Canucks in the offseason, was set to be the Canucks #4 defender. However, with the resurgence of Bieksa, coupled with the awful start of Ballard earlier in the year, he fell way back on the depth chart. But, does Ballard harbor ill will? When asked about possibly moving up the chart because of the potential injury to Bieksa's eye, Ballard said, "I'd rather play 15 minutes with Bieksa in the lineup than 20 minutes without him because Bieksa makes us a better team."
I guess the X-Man is as studly as I suggested (and Ballard has shown that he's pretty cool, too).
Tonight, the Orca go toe to toe with the Dallas Stars in a huge battle of Western elites. After the controversial shootout loss to the Flamers, the Canucks are looking to this game against Dallas as a statement game. If we can beat the Stars as we did back on New Year's Eve, it will say a lot about this Canucks team and their overall toughness. Roberto Luongo hasn't lost in regulation in 15 games (10-0-5), but the Stars are 7-1-1 in 2011. It's going to be an exciting battle, and hopefully our boys will prevail.
By the way, Sidney Crosby is clearly not tough at all, as he's sitting out the All Star game because of headaches. At least the All Star game will be more watchable.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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