Lots to talk about this week, both on ice and off. Olympic nominations! The World Juniors! Off-ice shenanigans! Oh yes, and the Canucks also played a couple of games as well. While everyone was out celebrating Christmas and Festivus, I was staying on top of things in Canuckland. Here’s what you need to know about the Week That Was.

Shameless Plugs (That Didn’t Play With The Sedins)

I wrote a bit about the Mikael Samuelsson ‘F-Gate’ situation and addressed some oddball decisions made by Sweden’s management in naming their Olympic Roster. The short of it? Sweden loves Samuelsson and I still have disdain for Mattias Weinhandl.

I also talked about Ryan Kesler and his Selke chances. He’s got a great opportunity to win the NHL’s trophy for best defensive forward and I compare him alongside some other current favorites to win the Selke. Spoiler alert: Kesler’s got the best chance in my estimation.

Games

Going into the week, the biggest concern with the Canucks was their road record and whether or not they could perform well on the road. With three wins and a SO loss (picking up their first ‘loser point’ of the season) I think it’s safe to say that the Canucks are starting to come around just in time. To recap,

The Canucks went out and absolutely destroyed the Calgary Flames, as Mason Raymond notched a hat trick. The C of Red wound up getting charted by Battleship Luongo, as the Flames faithful in Calgary gave booed their team thanks to salvos fired by Mason Raymond, who earned his first NHL career hat trick. Sadly, I missed the whole game due to the wonder that is Air Canada. And Mendoza. CURSE YOU, MENDOZA.

They followed things up with the aforementioned shootout loss to the Coyotes. Aside from some bad breaks, the Canucks played a pretty solid road game and they were rewarded with a loser point, which relieved many fans who had been fretting about the Canucks lack of any loser points.

Things continued to go well in the last game of 2009 as the Canucks as they walked into St. Louis and engineered a come from behind victory against the Blues, a team that had their number in the 2 games prior to this one.

Finally, the Canucks closed out their road trip with a win against Marc Crawford and Marty Turco’s Dallas Stars, a victory that saw Henrik Sedin briefly share the lead in the NHL scoring race with Joe Thornton.

Injuries

Unfortunately, all was not fine with the Canucks, as Kevin Bieksa hopped back onto the injured reserve with another deep laceration from a skate blade in the Phoenix game. Early reports have Bieksa out for up to three months, making this wound about as severe as the cut he suffered against Nashville’s Vern Fiddler, which forced him to miss 47 games.

Ryan Johnson had some tests done regarding his foot. No major updates on him, though.

Nothing new with Demitra, although Jason Botchford did state that he is ‘close‘ which should be seen as a positive sign.

Off Ice

The biggest news to come this week was the naming of the Olympic roster squads. The Canucks ended up with 7 of their players representing their countries. The Magnificent Seven include Roberto Luongo for Team Canada, Ryan Kesler for the America, Daniel and Henrik Sedin for Sweden, Sami Salo representing Finland, Christian Ehrhoff for Ze Germans and in a surprise decision, Pavol Demitra for Slovakia. While this is an impressive number of players going to the Olympics (tied for 2nd best among NHL teams), it’s one shy of the 2006 Olympians, which saw Ed Jovanovski and Todd Bertuzzi get named for Canada, the Sedins, Markus Naslund and Mattias Ohlund for Sweden and Ruutu and Salo for Finland. Naslund and Jovo both ended up pulling out, which resulted in six players actually participating in the Olympics. Congratulations to all players!

Two glaring omissions from that list were Alex Edler and Mikael Samuelsson who, depending on how injuries go for Sweden, may still have a shot at playing in the Olympics. For a more in-depth look at Sweden and Edler/Samuelsson, check out my thoughts on Samuelsson’s reaction to being overlooked.

More details have begun to emerge regarding Mathieu Schneider and it’s not really painting a great picture of someone who I had said was a ‘class act.’ This comes on the heels of Schneider being placed on waivers and clearing. Even with Bieksa getting injured, Alain Vigneault has said that the injury ‘changes nothing‘ with the veteran blueliner. What that exactly entails isn’t clear, but it is coming out that Schneider seemed to have rather different expectations of what his role was on the team than what was actually happening.

Unfortunately, Schneider’s ego was writing cheques that his body couldn’t cash as he missed a chunk of the season recovering from shoulder surgery and then didn’t look that good out there after finally getting healthy.

It’s really interesting that things turned so foul so quickly. Remember that Gillis was Schneider’s former agent and that Schneider had many great things to say about the city of Vancouver and the Canucks prior to this whole controversy coming to light. Then again, it seems Schneider may have always had this attitude in some way but it just wasn’t well publicized.

Bieksa’s injury did not stop Gillis from calling for some reinforcements, as Brad Lukowich was finally recalled by the Canucks and cleared. Strangely enough, I caught Lukowich’s last game down in the AHL, where he was playing with the Texas Stars. He looked decent and had one or two moments where he stood out for me in a good way. Glad to have him on the roster, as it’ll keep Shane O’Brien honest and will most likely see Aaron Rome sit.

Alex Bolduc was also called up to take over fourth line center duties for the injured Ryan Johnson. Bolduc has had a couple of moments where he’s looked out of place, but I still insist he’s a better alternative to Rypien centering the fourth line (no offense to Rypper, I just think he’s far more effective as a winger.)

As mentioned, Henrik Sedin was briefly tied with Joe Thornton for the scoring lead on Saturday. A great accomplishment for a great player. Hopefully he’ll be able to keep up the torrid pace he’s been on and make a challenge for the Art Ross by the end of the season.

Although this isn’t directly related to the Canucks, after their come from behind win over the Blues Thursday, head coach Andy Murray was fired from his position. This makes the second coach that the Canucks have gotten fired this season after a loss: the Philadelphia Flyers canned John Stevens as well.

Down On The Farm

The Moose ended up winning both games against the Abbotsford Heat, although I didn’t catch either game. They continued their winning ways New Year’s Eve against the Texas Stars winning 3-2 in a close affair and then destroyed two leads the Stars built up in their second game, winning in 5-4 in the shootout. Michael Grabner continues to impress, as he now has 7 goals in 9 games played with the Moose this season and has scored in three of his last four games since being sent back down from the Canucks.

Sergei Shirokov has also looked good as well, having a big 3 point night in the second Stars game. Evan Oberg and Eric Walsky show signs of improving their play, although Walsky could really, really use a goal (or four.) A lot of noise hasn’t really been made about them since being signed by the Canucks in the off-season, but they are starting to show improvement. Speaking of the Russian, Shirokov was named to the AHL’s ‘Team USA’ squad for the upcoming AHL All Star Game. For those wondering what the hell a Russian is doing playing for the World Police, the AHL All Star format is Canada vs. The World. Why they don’t just go with ‘the world’ is beyond me, but hey, whatever.

As mentioned, Nolan Baumgartner was also named to the All Star Game, although he’ll be playing as captain for Team Canada.

Baby Canucks

This week was also busy for the prospects in the Canucks system, as the World Juniors Tournament kicked off on Boxing Day.

Anton Rodin got off to a great start, posting 6 points in 2 games and looking like a Swedish Timex out there as he took a lot of punishment, including a rather nasty elbow from Team Canada captain Patrice Cormier. He’s been having a great tournament so far.

Jordan Schroeder got off to a rather slow start with the tournament, which was a little surprising given that this is his third time at the World Juniors. However, he turned on his (US)A game against quality opponents breaking out against Team Canada on New Year’s Eve, scoring a great shorthanded goal. Schroeder also had a three point performance Saturday against Finland which put him ahead of Jeremy Roenick for all time scoring by American players at the World Juniors tournament. He also passed Eric Lindros for third on the all time assists board. That’s good company to be keeping, for sure!

Taylor Matson injured himself Saturday in a game, injuring his ankle with what appears to be a minor sprain. Matson’s already missed a significant chunk of playing time last season as he went out with a knee and only played 13 games. Hopefully he’ll be back soon.

Cody Hodgson is alive and well and did his torch bearer stint in Markham earlier this week. Expect a Steve Simmons article complaining about the decision to have him run the torch in his hometown any day now.