If you’re the new GM of the Vancouver Canucks and you’ve suggested one of your priorities is to rebuild an offensive-style game, what’s tops on your agenda?

If rethinking the team’s association with Daniel and Henrik Sedin was your first guess, you’re smarter than I am.  From TSN:

For those of us whose favorite teams are currently hanging on golf courses, beaches or making out with with B-list celebrities in front of tabloid reporters, the fun of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is a bit muted.  But rather than wallow in bitterness, we can always start planning for next year.  So I took a look at NHL Numbers and their developing list of free agents—RFAs and UFAs—coming to the market this summer, and did some window shopping. 

The list is below, but a note of caution from NHL Numbers:

“This is an incomplete list of free agents. Players who did not spend any time on the NHL club’s active roster are not included. Also, some RFA’s may actually be Group 6 UFA’s (I will update ASAP).”

Check their site for the latest updates. Meanwhile, here’s the mostly-current list of players, alphabetized by team, so take a gander and see if there’s anyone you’d like to kidnap for your team next season:

From hockey fan Captain Salamander on Gabby’s Gobbledygook, complete text of his blog post today:

Separated at Birth?

You know those side by side photos of celebrities and regular folk who look remarkably alike? Well here’s one of two hockey players who must be identical twins.

Daniel Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks and Henrik Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks.

Those ESPN links were included by the Captain to further illustrate the spooky similarities that lead to this breakthrough realization of his.

I only wish I could have been there for the final epiphanies. Probably went something like: “Hold on—they even have the same birthdays. I’m starting to see a pattern developing!”

Awesome.

World Hockey Championships: Canada 10 - Germany 1

Eric Staal scored four goals, Martin St. Louis had five assists, and the remaining goals were scored by Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, Patrick Sharp, Derek Roy and Mike Green. And don’t leave out Dan Hamhuis who inadvertently helped Germany get on the board by putting the puck past his own goalie. 

All and all, not a fun day for Germany, as noted by their coach Uwe Krupp:

“Our team was outmatched in just about every aspect of the game,” Krupp said. “I think it was a sobering experience for everybody. Thank God you don’t have too many days like this.”

Courtesy of TSN, video highlights of the game can be seen here, and a complete schedule and results for all teams here. Team Canada’s next game is Monday against Finland. Team USA plays the Finns on Sunday.

Note: Dion Phaneuf sends a special message of encouragement and congrats to his Canadian mates. What a guy…

Pulled from a press release from McFarlane Toys/Spawn.com:

McFarlane Toys is teaming up with the Vancouver Canucks for an exclusive Sports Picks figure for one of the most-beloved Canucks of all time.  McFarlane Toys has created a new look for our classic Trevor Linden figure - showing off the new-look Vancouver jerseys they wore in the 2007-08 season.

This limited-edition figure will be available exclusively through the Vancouver Canucks and their Web site, canucks.nhl.com this October.

Below is a photo. Sometimes I’m very tempted to start collecting these, but it’s a hobby I expect could fast exceed the cost of actually attending a season’s worth of Canucks games.

In today’s Vancouver Province, news which warms my cold, blackened, disappointed Canucks-fan heart:

For a week now, Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault has spent his days at GM Place on the hot seat. 

For a couple hours, sometimes more, each day, he’s been brought in to informally defend, dissect and rehash a season most are trying to forget. He’s not done yet.

“It’s still ongoing, it’s going to take even more time,” Canucks GM Mike Gillis said.

An FYI to TSN and their heartfelt commitment to the source who tells them the Leafs have actually spoken to Dave Nonis, a note from Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun:

Nonis denied early Thursday in an interview that anyone from the Leafs had even contacted him.

“I haven’t talked to anyone from Toronto at this time,” Nonis told TEAM 1040 radio in the morning. “Right now, Toronto is not one of the teams I’ve spoken to and we’ll see if they do contact me. I don’t really have any intentions of rushing into something unless it looks like something I have to do. I’d prefer to sit and wait. It’s still very early.”

TSN—who almost certainly listened to that same interview—still managed to come up with this:

Just a few stories mildly related to Canuckish-type things:

• Dave Nonis is being summoned for an interview in hell
• Alex Edler made a not-so-endearing contribution to one very embarrassing Swedish team loss at the World Championships - a 10 minute game misconduct penalty
• A company called Coleman Analytics has five NHL teams (and they’re looking to add Vancouver to their list of clients) that are paying them up to $100K a year for “basic” analytics services. Honestly, I bet plenty of obsessive & mathematically-inclined hockey fans would gladly kick those numbers out for free, or maybe a bit of swag. (I know, I know. I’m over-simplifying… but at least let The Forechecker bid for the job.)

As soon as I saw this photo, all I could think of was the thousands of Colorado Avs fans (among others) with long memories who’d want to catapult their computers through a plate glass window as soon as they saw it. 

But I figure, rather than damage your pricey technology, why not just caption it in your own special way?

*original photo from this Free Press photo gallery

Canada vs USA—3:30pm ET
Video —In Canada on TSN & RDS; In the USA, only by a paid feed; International viewers check here
Audio—Fan590 streaming live.
Info—Complete tournament schedule [PDF], and power rankings.

So there’s some hype building in the World Championships.  TSN says it’s a “rivalry renewed” [video], and the Globe & Mail’s Roy MacGregor is ready for a couple of teams to “get their hate on.”

This post will update periodically with screenshots of the action during the game, and a box score link will always be provided at game time. 

Should be fun: it’s Team Tortorella vs Team Hitchcock, which might make for some seriously-bad language being thrown around. If I work on my lip-reading skills, perhaps I can transcribe some John Tortorella gems…

Video may have killed the radio star, but HDTV has sure been good at resurrecting the hockey fan.  I came across this from Lynn Kiesling at the Technophobiac Finance Blog:

But the economics of technological change is reviving my love of hockey. When we moved back into our renovated house at the end of March, we also bought ... a 40” LCD 1080p high-definition TV. We hooked it up on a Sunday, and what was the first thing we saw when we turned it on? A Penguins-Rangers game. In Pittsburgh. And the Pens won.

All I can say is this: woof. Hockey is fabulous in HD. Of course I’m watching my Penguins (and I got home from my woolly weekend in enough time yesterday to see them win the series against the Rangers in overtime, yay!), but I’m also watching the other series. Because it just looks so freaking awesome in HD.

Some thoughts from Minnesota, à la Michael Russo at the Star Tribune:

Oh, and lastly, this is unconfirmed by me but being told to me by a Vancouver reporter, but apparently Pavol Demitra was in Vancouver over the weekend being given a tour of the area by Canucks captain Markus Naslund.

As I’ve intimated here, the chances of the Wild even attempting to bring Demitra back is slim to none, and there’s a question whether he’d even want to return.

Demitra signing with Vancouver makes sense. His agent — or now, I guess, former agent — is Mike Gillis, the now-GM of the Canucks. Naslund is also now a former client of Gillis. 

Both are unrestricted free agents, and you can bet Gillis may very well take care of his former clients. In fact, maybe Pavel Bure comes out of retirement and returns to Vancouver.

[updated below - Demitra did indeed spend time in Vancouver in recent days.]