There is a certain bias involved in judging which Vancouver Canucks players are the best and what number they get to wear. It is unavoidable whether the question is asked by the public or answered by an individual. Not everyone will agree – but that’s what lists are for, damn it!
Here is the previous entry.
Vancouver Canucks – Best by number: 20-24
The players who were around when you first started caring will hold a special place in your heart. No matter how old you are, no matter when or how long ago it was, the team you started following will probably be your favorite. Want proof? Let’s start with jersey number 24.
24 – Curt Fraser
It’s always a little bonus when a local kid is successful. Okay, the Victoria Cougars aren’t quite local-local in Vancouver, but close enough. Curt Fraser was selected by the Canucks in the 1978 Amateur Draft and immediately stepped onto the ice with the Canucks.
Fraser was never the Canucks’ man, but he was a solid midfielder. He played 346 games for the Canucks, scoring 92 goals and 205 points and having 651 penalty minutes. If they had alternate captains in the early 80s, he would have worn an A.
Fraser was a reliable, consistent guy with skills and toughness and even a homegrown talent. When he was traded away, he brought back Tony Tante1-for-1. This is a player who was good for you every second he was on the team.
The other player considered for that spot was probably more famous outside the team than inside. If you could connect hate to a turbine, Matt Cooke would power entire city blocks. A sixth-round pick in 1997, he made the team by simply being too annoying to ignore.
Cooke played 30 NHL games in his rookie season, recording two assists. He also didn’t get many penalty minutes, just 27. But boy, did he draw them. At a time when the league was trying to crack down on fights, Cooke specialized in getting the attention of enforcers.
Shots that came a little too late, a stick that found its way into the back of the opponent’s legs… He got A LOT of attention. That troublemaker role kept him on the ice for 566 games, where he scored 83 goals and 203 points.
23 – Alexander Edler
Longevity is important. When looking back at a player’s career, it’s hard to say whether a brief stint is “better” than a long-term one. Still, some credit has to be given to the first Canadian to be a star defenseman.
Paul Reinhart hasn’t scored more points than any other defenseman up to that point. His two 57-point seasons were very good, appearing in 64 and 67 games, respectively. But those were the fourth and fifth highest scoring seasons in Vancouver history. There’s not much to tell on their own.
The way he scored, however, was a complete change for the Canucks. Doug Lidster was solid in his game and scored an exceptional number of points in one season. Rick Lanz could shoot from the blue line as long as he got there in time. Dennis Kearns It was just a matter of getting the puck up – what the strikers then did with it was their business.
Reinhart got the puck and Ice skating with that. All smooth control, picking his spots and finding the right moments to attack. He wasn’t a player Vancouver had for long, and retired after two more seasons. But boy was he worth watching when he was still around.
The captain who should have been
Alexander Edler was drafted 91st overall in the third round in 2004. A real bargain considering he was playing in the Swedish third division at the time. The next season he moved from there to MoDo and then to the Kelowna Rockets in the WHL. A big, solid kid who wasn’t the best skater but could score some points.
Edler got his first taste of the NHL the following season, playing primarily for Vancouver’s AHL club in Manitoba. He then played two games in the minors in 2007-08 and never saw them again. As a rookie in the NHL, Edler averaged over 21 minutes of ice time per game. He stayed.
It would take 13 seasons for Edler to drop below the 21-minute mark, and in his final year with the club he averaged 20:54. He was reliable, protected the puck reasonably well, but mostly defended his zone. He made smart, safe plays, which is why he was easy to overlook.
Edler was a big man, but you didn’t realize it until he landed a huge punch that stopped an opponent dead in his tracks. That happened to him every few games and it was always a shock.
Unfortunately, while Edler is clearly the Canucks’ best player wearing number 23, he was also one of their most fragile. Those long-minute games took their toll and he often missed 20 or more games in a season. He finished his career with the Canucks with 925 games played, 99 goals and 409 points.
22 – Daniel Sedin
OK, so after two long entries, it’s time for a very, very simple decision. A quick tip of the hat to Dave Tiger Williams for everything he did for the team, but we’re going with the Hall of Famer.
Daniel Sedin – “Thanks” to his brother “Hank” – played 1,306 games for Vancouver. He scored 393 goals and 1,041 points – one of two players with more than 800 points as a Canuck. He is one of the best Canucks to wear any number and won a Art RossA Ted Lindsay Award and the King Clancy Commemorative trophy.
Before we continue, however, we would like to tell you a little, curious fact: Although Daniel is the top scorer of the two, he has never scored a shorthanded goal, while Henrik has seven goals.
21 – Jyrki Lumme
When Reinhart limped off the stage, his replacement was already there. Jyrki Lumme took the title of greatest figure skater of all time from Reinhart and, well, ran with it. He held on to that title until the team’s current captain arrived.
Other teams have had players like Lumme, but not Vancouver. The defenseman was poached by the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round pick towards the end of the 1989/90 season. In his 11 games with Vancouver, he scored 10 points. A nice introduction to a new city!
Of course, he would not continue at that pace, but in 579 games he scored 83 goals and 321 points. Those 321 points would hardly be surpassed by Mattias Öhlund (who played 191 more games) and more convincingly by Alexander Edler (who played 346 more games).
These two were certainly good defenders! But until Quinn HughesLumme was the Canucks’ defenseman that other scoring defensemen were compared to.
20 – Chris Higgins
Before we get to our pick here, we have to pay our respects to every player nicknamed “Flea”. Bobby Lalonde was selected 17th in the draft, making him a second-round pick in 1971. The 5’5″ and 150-pound Lalonde played eleven NHL seasons, including six in Vancouver.
In 353 games for the Canucks, he scored 72 goals and 189 points. Obviously not a rough guy, he still received 185 penalty minutes. At 20th place, he is not the Canucks’ best player, but a player worth mentioning.
Brandon Sutter is one of the options we considered at #20. He has a bad reputation among most Canucks fans, but that’s not really his fault. He was brought in and given a five-year contract before he’d played a single game, sure. Wouldn’t you sign a contract that doubled your income for five years? But he was brought in for a reason: He was a veteran center with a good reputation on defense.
This was a big deal because the only other centers they had behind Daniel Sedin were second-year Bo Horvat and rookie Jared McCann. The Canucks NEEDED someone in the middle to take the pressure off Sedin and the kids. Yes, it was a lot of money and a lot of time, but overpaying happens with free agents. And he was perfect for that role. And he was reliable, missing only three games in the last five seasons.
Sutter had to undergo immediate hernia surgery in November and was forced to sit out the rest of the season due to a broken jaw in February. That pushed Horvat into the second-line center position and a matchup role he probably wasn’t ready for so early in his career. Still, Sutter played 275 injury-plagued games with Vancouver, scoring 54 goals and 50 points while playing the toughest minutes, good enough for second place.
The winners! Er, winners!
The question of who is the Canucks’ best player with the number 20 can be answered in two parts: Chris Higgins and Chris Higgins’ abs. After the disappointment of 2011, those abs gave Canucks fans and media people something to laugh/stare at. The rest of Higgins was pretty decent too, though. He was a reliable second goal scorer, although experiments with him on the front line failed.
Higgins retired in 2016, but joined the team as a coach three years later. He played a total of 314 games with the Canucks, scoring 62 goals and 142 points.
Next time the Canucks will be the best in numbers!
Award winner! Brief Genius! And this guy! Tune in next week!
Main photo by: Bob Frid – USA Today Sports
