Third Line Center Options for Canucks

The main one being talked about today is Cody Hodgson. He has been playing injury free with the moose for a couple months now and has been playing decent hockey. His numbers do not reflect it but he has been working hard at creating scoring chances, and every once in a while Rosa or Sweatt will put the puck in the net.

One thing is clear for the Canucks, and it's that neither Bolduc or Lapierre should be relied on for third line center. Bolduc looked terrible last night and Lapierre will need to go back to the fourth line to fill in for the Duker.

Raymond played fourth line center earlier in the year and he looked great. When Samuelsson comes back May Ray could be bumped to the third line. It would be tough for him to win faceoffs against some of the good third line centers out there in the league.

Hansen is another option that has been tested recently. Hansen has proven to be reliable at both ends of the ice. His penalty killing prowess has proven he can be thrown on the ice and the canucks don't have to be worried about being scored on the way they were against LA in the playoffs last year.

Malhotra will be missed. Nobody kills penalties and is as reliable defensively as Malhotra. But it is possible we can find a fit for the third line center position that provides more offense than Malhotra did. This would ease up some of the pressure off the Sedin's and Kesler.

-Hark

Malholtra, Torres, Raymond and Samuelson will pick it up in Dallas

Dallas goalie kari lehtonen is 6-0-1 in his last seven starts. This is the perfect opponent for the Canucks who remember the bitter pain of having their undefeated streak ended. It will be the first game since that loss that the Canucks have played against a top caliber opponent. Dallas is leader of the pacific Division in the NW and will likely be competing with Vancouver for leaders in the Western Conference for the rest of the season.

The droughts go on for all the Canucks forwards besides the sedins and kesler. Remember that game that mason Raymond came back from injury and on the fourth line he scored a goal? Why has he gotten comfortable on the first line and thinks he doesn't need to score on a consistent basis. And Raffi Torres who has been traded the past few trade deadlines, is playing the same streaky hockey that he has become known for. Malholtra you can cut a little bit of slack because he does such a great job on the pk; but at the same time he has been taking some stupid penalties lately. The same goes with burrows whose stupid penalties havent cost the canucks too badly this season but its just a ticking time bomb. samuelson is by far the worst for stupid penalties. he cost us dearly against st. louis back in december.

all in all its shaping up to be a good game. with luongo vs. lehtonen it could be a low scoring affair. even if just one of torres, sameullson, raymond, malholtra or tambellini can find the net juswt once, it might be enough to let the sedins and kesler do the rest.

-hark

how the canucks will stay under the cap.

ok so. the canucks are 1.8 million over the salary cap. plus sami salo and alex burrows who make a combined 3.5 million can not go on injured reserved until after the first game of the season. so the canucks have to do something tricky to bring their roster down by 1.8 million in the meantime before the first game of the season. this is what they will do:

They will waive goalie cory schneider and forward mason raymond. reason being is that both are rfa's and can not be claimed off waivers by other teams. this will free up 3.4 million in cap space. then they will be replaced by cody hodgson and goalie eddie lack who combined make 1 million dollars.

boom!!!!we just saved 2.4 million in caps space. we will play one game without mason raymond which will suck, but at least cody hodgson will have a chance to play in the nhl for one game before the gets sent down to manitoba. And we have to prey to god that roberto luongo's sore groin doesnt act up and we have to put in eddie lack because he is not ready for play yet. then after the first game we will send eddie lack and hodgson down to the ahl and call up raymond and schneider who never really left but were watching the game from the pressbox all along.

Mike Gillis you are a genius! and so are u hark for figuring out his plan.