In case you haven't heard, Sami Salo will be making his season-debut for the Canucks' in tomorrow night's game versus the Calgary Flames after rehabbing an offseason tear to his Achilles tendon suffered during a game of floorball. It should be an exciting moment for Salo, who no doubt suffered through a lot of mental and physical resistance to make it to this point.
Any time that Salo returns to the lineup from an injury, however, it's worth taking pause to marvel at how many he's had over the years. Muscle tears; burning sensations; snake bites; testicular fulminations--Salo's had it all. He's averaged about three a year for his career. That's insane. It's unbelievable.
In fact, it's too unbelievable. Early in PITB's run, Daniel posited a pretty theory that made sense of Salo's bizarro injury history. Sami Salo's a superhero.
Quick Hits (From Behind) is an irregular feature on Pass it To Bulis, wherein two hockey fans chip in their thoughts on current hockey news and get assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct.
Hi there! Do you like links? Because PITB's got a handful of good reads to help you with your chronic e-somnambulism. But come back here when you're done. We need you.
Nowadays, he's a gutless puke, but there was a time when Matt Cooke was a fan favourite player in Vancouver. Give Charron credit for bravely being the first former Cooke acolyte to admit the dirty truth:
I used to be a huge Matt Cooke fan when he was with the Canucks, but that was before he morphed into the Matt Cooke he is today. There was a time when he was a pest, but he didn't hit dirty, he just annoyed. There was a time when, in the wake of the Todd Bertuzzi suspension, Matt Cooke was moved to his spot on the Canucks' top line with Brendan Morrison and Markus Naslund and scored three goals and was a +9 during a six game winning streak which won the Canucks the division title
[...] Matt Cooke was once what Alex Burrows is right now: a marginal top line player who was a fan favourite. Burrows isn't dirty, just annoying if you're wearing a different jersey, and this is what Matt Cooke used to be, and, while I hate the 'pest' role, a lot of players do it very effectively without putting anyone but themselves in danger.
Oh my, Matt, how things have changed.
Charron is spot on about Cooke once being what Burrows is now, and fans love those sorts of players: underdogs who find chemistry with the stars and find an invaluable niche filling gaps. I've gone on record that Alex Burrows is my favourite player (or was, before a certain fourth-line winger agreed to Scrabble me), and Matt Cooke once was for a lot of the same reasons. I'm not so into him now.
We like to poke fun at Sami Salo's injury history (it's sort of remarkable). But HTTN points out the guts and resolve it takes to rehabilitate that many debilitating injuries. He deserves a ton of credit for working his way back, especially at his age. HTTN:
At the age of 36, [Salo] has suffered no fewer than 40 injuries during his hockey playing career. The latest of which is a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered in the off-season, which to this point still offers no guarantee of a complete recovery.
Salo is not like me – just another person who’s into an active, healthy lifestyle. We’re talking about a professional athlete, someone who has dedicated his entire life to playing hockey, and whose sport has only given back grief.
Everytime Salo has been injured, it has been gut-check time. Will he have it in him to perform the rehab necessary to repair this injury? After the muscles, tendons, and bones are healed, will he be willing to get his body back into the same shape it was in before? We’re not talking about good shape, or excellent shape, we’re talking elite athlete shape.
We often forget the humanity of the athletes for whom we cheer. Salo had to be even more frustrated than the fans were with this latest freak accident, but rather than show him support or root for his return, we grumbled about his cap hit and wished the injury-prone blight away. And, of course, al he did instead was work his ass off to get back when he could have safely retired without anybody batting an eye. Great work by HTTN.
Friedman's 30 thoughts are always a must-read, and this week's installment is no exception. But I'm particularly interested in thought #4, which sounds suspiciously like a speculation made by PITB at the beginning of the season. Friedman:
No one was happier about Henrik Sedin's Hart Trophy victory than brother Daniel. I would wager, however, that part of the motivation for Daniel's spectacular season is Henrik owning that hardware. They are fiercely competitive with each other (in a good way) and Daniel undoubtedly doesn't like Henrik having one up on him.
The phrase you are looking for, Elliotte, is out for blood, and the praise you are looking for is rightly ours. Fork it over, pal.
If you think the injuries, cap issues, and the looming trade deadline are throwing the Canucks' roster into a bit of a tizzy, consider the poor Manitoba Moose, who have to deal with all the same issues as well as another hockey team taking their players. Imagine having to worry about the roster of two hockey teams at once. Sometimes we forget that every prospect who gets a brief sniff of the NHL is actually a vital part of the Moose's core. Campbell also details how Alex Edler and Sami Salo's injuries have effected the Moose, and how Chris Tanev's return would be welcome. I'm particularly interested in Lorne Henning's indication that Tanev has too much potential to stay with the team just to sit:
If Andrew Alberts is ready to go after his latest injury setback, and there were indications that could have been in last night's late game, then the Canucks will have eight defencemen with Salo's return.
And that leaves open the possibility of Tanev's return to the Moose.
"Andrew Alberts is coming back, too, so we're going to have a lot of defencemen," Canucks assistant GM Lorne Henning said Monday. "Chris has played very well but if everybody's back, chances are we'll want him to keep playing. He's played phenomenal."
Unfortunately for Moose fans, he jinxed everything and the Keith Ballard injury knocked the Canucks back down a guy. It also complicated things for both organizations' plans for Tanev. The Canucks and the Moose want him to play somewhere, but if Salo returns to starting roster on Saturday, Tanev will effectively be the Canucks' seventh healthy defenseman. What do they do with him at this point? Ballard and Edler are a long way off. Provided nobody else gets hurt, how long do the Canucks let Tanev sit in the press box without game action? If I were Rome and Alberts, I'd watch it, because every shaky outing is an excuse to get Tanev back in the lineup. Should keep both guys on their toes.
Canuck fans have every right to temper their expectations about Sami Salo's return to the lineup this season. The guy attracts injuries like banana-eaters attract mosquitoes, and his most recent near-mortal wound in a game of floorball (a.k.a. hockey so thoroughly neutered it can be played on gym floors without fear of scuffing) was a sort of last straw for many. Moreover, even if you're optimistic that Salo can remain healthy once healthy, you'd have to think that he couldn't possibly get back to the level at which he operates when healthy. A torn Achilles tendon is a Hell of a thing to rehabilitate.
Sami Salo appears to be aware of your concerns. Down in the AHL on a conditioning assignment, Casper scored two goals in his first game with the Manitoba Moose. Take that, haters. If you were finding it difficult to muster Salo-based excitement, have a gander at the above video. Salo's goals come 0:43 and 2:48 into the clip, and it's evident that his game hasn't changed. Both goals are typically saloesque: one is a backdoor play and the other a howitzer. The only major difference is that he's wearing 22, but honestly, if you know anything about Sami Salo's game, you'd recognize him if he were dressed as Shrek.
Jeff Tambellini recently told Justin Bourne that Salo would soon step in to replace Edler without the Canucks missing a beat. We wondered if this was insider information. Now, with Salo needing about a millisecond to show he's too good for the AHL, it appears that it was. Rumour has it Salo could be back in the lineup as early as next Saturday, and this video is evidence we should be at least a little bit excited about that.
Backbreaking news for fans still basking in the glow of last night's solid victory over the Nashville Predators, as it has been announced that Alex Edler's back spasms that kept him out of the game are more serious than initially thought. Edler will undergo micro discectomy surgery on his back and will be out indefinitely.
While Lee Sweatt performed admirably in his absence, scoring the game-winning goal and finishing +2, he still had under 9 minutes of icetime and often seemed overmatched physically. Keith Ballard, on the other hand, stepped up and played a team-high 23:53, boosted by Ehrhoff missing some shifts to get stitches after getting whacked in the face by Ryan Kesler. With Aaron Rome and Andrew Alberts still out of commission, this latest wrinkle forces the Canucks to contend with a depleted blueline that may require further call-ups from the Manitoba Moose and more ice-time from the maligned Ballard.
Alternatively, with Edler sure to go on long-term injured reserve and the all-star game providing a brief break in the schedule, this may be the time to push Sami Salo harder in practice to see if he is ready to slot back into the lineup. The need to clear salary to fit Salo under the cap has suddenly disappeared.
Update: Edler's back surgeon, Dr. Marcel Weird Keyboard Dvorak, has suggested that Edler should recover in 8 to 10 weeks. Edler's surgery is scheduled for Monday, which would put his potential return at March 28th to April 11th if Dr. Dvorak is correct. The Canucks' final game of the regular season will be April 9th, meaning Edler could still return in time for the playoffs.
On a recent visit to snopes.com, I noted that the hockey section of their website is woefully underpopulated by hilariously fake urban legends, crazy rumours, and weird myths. Indeed, the site only has three hockey-related entries, with two of them boringly true. This is incredibly disappointing and, frankly, a disgrace. It's especially disgraceful when a bland sport such as baseball has 20 total entries, the vast majority of them patently false, none of them related to steroids.
To rectify this awful, terrible situation, we at Pass it to Bulis have come up with some wildly untrue urban legends that we encourage you to e-mail to your dumbest and loudest friends. Feel free to add, twist, or distort any of these into whatever form you wish: that is the mark of a good urban legend.
Here presented for your enjoyment and dissemination are 10 Tru Fakts.*
Famed enforcer and all-time NHL penalty-minute leader David "Tiger" Williams got into his fair share of scraps in his day. This was back before mouthguards were common, and he would often knock out a tooth or two from his opponent. He had a standing arrangement with the crew at each arena to collect the teeth from the ice after each fight and give them to him after the game, usually slipping $50 back their way. He strung the teeth on a necklace that he wore under his sweater.
Pavel Bure drank a gallon of milk and expelled the milk via vomiting prior to every single hockey game. He attributed his great speed on the ice to this habit.
Unbeknownst to hockey fans, the NHL, in an attempt to increase hockey's profile in the US, increased the size of the away nets in the LA King's home arena, The Forum, by less than half an inch from 1988 to 1991, leading to inflated point totals for Wayne Gretzky, a high-profile star at the time.
Vancouver Canuck Sami Salo once ruptured a testicle blocking a slapshot. The injury occurred in a playoff game against the Chicago Blackhawks on May 9, 2010. The Canucks went on to win the game and Salo returned to action the following game despite the testicular trauma.
In college, Bill Clinton was a standout in hockey at Georgetown University and was offered a contract by several NHL teams, including the New York Rangers, but chose to instead go to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. The hockey program at Georgetown has since collapsed due to lack of funding.
In 2002, former Vancouver Canuck Harold Druken once paid a $500 fine entirely in Loonies to then General Manager Brian Burke. Burke did not take the joke well: Druken was traded shortly after to the Carolina Hurricanes on November 1, 2002.
There is a human skeleton in the foundations of Nassau Coliseum, but it wasn't due to a construction accident. The owner of the New York Islanders and New York Nets at the time, Roy Boe, famously loved urban legends and believed that all great construction projects needed one. He tasked one of his employees, Harvey Ringwold, to acquire a skeleton to place in the building's foundation or walls. Ringwold procured the skeleton from the NYU School of Medicine under the pretense of outfitting the Coliseum's medical room.
Prior to the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals in 1984, Grant Fuhr was asked by a white reporter, "How long have you been a black goaltender?" Fuhr's response: "I've been a goalie since I was nine. I've been black all my life."
From 1972 until 1987, the rule for icing did not actually appear in the NHL rulebook. A clerical error in printing a new edition of the official NHL rulebook in 1972 led to the rule accidentally being left out. It continued to be called as per usual and wasn't noticed as missing until the 1987 edition.
Gordie Howe famously met his wife, Colleen, at a Detroit bowling alley. Lesser known was that Gordie Howe was an internationally ranked ten-pin bowler, once reaching as high as 17. It was said that he could have had a long professional career in bowling if he hadn't been so good at hockey. He frequently bowled under the pseudonym "Gordon Hoyle" to avoid attracting attention.
* Tru Fakts are in no way related to true facts. Pass it to Bulis cannot be held responsible for any injury incurred while using Tru Fakts.
Last year's Canuck defense corps scored 42 of the team's 268 goals, an impressive total good for second among team scoring by defenseman to the Phoenix Coyotes. Offense from the blue line was preached all season long, and the offensive abilities of a newly-acquired Christian Ehrhoff and a still-developing Alex Edler were allowed to flourish. With this year's acquisitions of Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis, as well as, hopefully, a healthy Kevin Bieksa, these numbers could be even higher. But why are we looking ahead? Let's take this week to revisit each and every one of the 42 goals scored by a Canuck defenseman. In bold, you will find each goal's chronological standing among the 42.Up today: Sami "The Friendly Ghost" Salo and his 9 goals.
Salo's first goal of the season, the 13th by a Canuck defenseman last season, is scored the way most of his goals are: a pass to the point from a Sedin, followed by a wicked slapshot. You will see this time and time again, and if you're surprised that this is how he scores the majority of his goals, you haven't been watching him for a decade like I have. Salo doesn't deke. He just shoots through goalies. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that Salo, who can pass through solid objects like ghost worth his salt, thinks he can put pucks through solid objects as well.
2. Dec. 14 vs. the Los Angeles Kings(17) A Salo power play goal, but this one is scored by Sami's willingness to sneak in from the blue line. Daniel's cross-ice pass is deflected by the Kings defender, and Salo picks it up right in front, where he wires a wrist shot.
3. Dec. 22 vs. the Nashville Predators(19) Salo scores here with a slapshot. Are you surprised? It must be nice for the Sedins to know that, at any time, they can send the puck back to the point and Salo will crush it. That's exactly what happens in this clip.
4. Jan. 5 vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets(22) Salo's slapshot is legendary, and if there's one thing I think Alex Edler can still learn from Sami, it's how to step into a slapshot out of nowhere and simply murder it into the back of the net. Edler has a better slapshot, but tomorrow you'll see that he only scored one goal with it last season. He doesn't trust it yet in the way Sami trusts his. This puck squeaks free as a result of some good pressure along the boards by Daniel Sedin, but it's all Salo after that.
5. Jan. 20 vs. the Edmonton Oilers(24) Beautiful passing by the Sedins, and Salo one-times a slap shot for a goal. The Sedins find him so often, you think he's a mercenary for their cause. Maybe they've contracted him out because they don't like slapping pucks?
6. Feb. 12 vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets (at 3:36 of clip) (28) More of the same from the Sedins and Salo. The shot here is money, as you can hear the ping of the post and the click-clack of a typewriter writing an article comparing Steve Mason to Jim Carey.
7. Mar. 3 vs. the Detroit Red Wings(31) Salo scores from the point on a wrist shot here, but it's the screens of Mikael Samuelsson and Brad Stuart that let the puck slip through Jimmy Howard's legs. He doesn't quite seem set, but I'm sure he was waiting for Salo to wind up. It really wasn't the best time to shoot it, but perhaps the presence of Samuelsson on the ice inspired Salo to try a shot that seemed foolish at the time. It worked out.
8. Mar. 13 vs. the Ottawa Senators(34) A wrist shot tallies Salo's eighth goal of the season, as a beautiful Canucks 3-on-2 rush fails to produce a goal. Samuelsson keeps after the puck, and gives it to Edler, who puts it across to Salo for the goal. My favorite thing about this clip: watch for when Henrik passes to Daniel, and Samuelsson makes like he's accepting the pass there, then shades away to one-time Daniel's touch pass instead. A subtle piece of trickery that, had it worked, might have made some highlight reels.
9. Apr. 4 vs. the Minnesota Wild(39) Salo's 9th goal of the season is an overtime winner scored in the same way he scores most of his other goals. I imagine if he didn't score on that slap shot, the Canucks would just kept trying it for the next two and a half minutes. I know Sami Salo's hurt a lot, but let's be honest: it really can't be helped (unless he really is a superhero), and nobody else on the Canucks scores this exact goal with regularity the way Salo does. It's nice that this guy wears the Orca.
No, seriously, have you seen this paragraph? This is Brad Zeimer from the Vancouver Sun, raising an eyebrow at the secrecy around Sami Salo's injury.
Salo has obviously been told not to talk. I called him on his cell phone in Finland on Friday and we had a crystal-clear connection. When he answered, I said, 'Is this Sami?' and he said 'yes.' I said, 'Sami, this is Brad Ziemer from The Sun.' Then Sami suddenly had a hard time hearing me. "Hello, hello, hello," he said, before hanging up.
I find this absolutely hilarious. This is the strangest paragraph written about Sami Salo since that time his testicle exploded, which, come to think of it, wasn't that long ago. What is the deal with this guy? I believe he is insane.
This is the last time I'm going to report on this story, as I feel, like the testicle itself, it's been beaten to a pulp. But here's a photo of Sami Salo walking. More impressively, he's wearing a suit and carrying his own bags.
Let me just say, he's a better man than I. If that were me, considering all that had happened, I'd likely look more heavily drugged. Probably my skin would look more sickly and yellow. There's no way I'd wear a suit. If pressed to adhere to the team dress code, I'd wear a bowtie, but I would insist on being barefoot. For comfort and range of motion, I'd see that no other piece of fabric came anywhere near my groin and I'd be wearing a loose-fitting diaper.
In the last twenty-four hours, Sami Salo's testicle has become a nut of legend. The story's been passed around traditional and non-traditional markets (a number of our hits from late last night came from basketball reporters comparing Salo's injury to Steve Nash's), and I'm sure you've told it to a friend or two. It's certainly nearing time to move on. But have we done enough? The opportunity to make Wiener Jokes is fading quickly, and I have a hard time believing the Vancouver media has had all the fun they can.
Let's be honest. The Vancouver media are the sort that titters at the word titter. Tommy Larscheid alone has a tendency towards a saucy double entendre, even if most are unintentional. His Larscheid-isms are classics: "I could watch Paul Kariya play with himself all day", for instance, or the infamous "I just came from the Canucks dressing room and Pavel's groin has never felt better". It's pretty funny stuff. He also once said, "Let's face facts: Jan Bulis is just a dumb hockey player." But hey now, Tommy. Play nice.
What about Willie Mitchell's long stick? Kyle Wellwood's little stick? How about the constant jokes about Roberto Luongo's knob this year alone? There have been dozens. The media loves indirectly referring to twangers. Hell, this is a chance to use words rarely used in journalism, like nutsack. Why the conservative streak all of a sudden when it comes to Sami's grapes? It's gotta be fear. Fear of karma. Fear of having their nuts crushed by a puck because they mocked someone else for the same thing.
There's no other excuse for missing joke potential so obviously. See, for example, Dan Rosen's NHL.com article about the Canucks victory last night. His thesis: it was a gutsy win. His opening sentence: "The word gutsy kept coming up in the Canucks dressing room late Sunday night."
Come on, man. You know what's a synonym for guts? You know what else was probably "coming up" for other reasons? You know what's a way better word choice? Balls. Just say balls, Dan Rosen. You know you want to. The word "balls" kept coming up in the Vancouver Canucks' dressing room late Sunday night. This is a much better opener. Sami Salo's nut basically exploded last night. Is there any excuse for an article in which the only tongue-in-cheek reference about it is inadvertent? "'The boys stepped up huge,' said [Shane] O'Brien.
You've missed out on a golden opportunity, everyone.
Update: maybe he didn't after all? Considering how crazy the Internet has gone in the last four hours (Twitter feeds! Facebook pages! Youtube parodies! Puck Daddy mentions!), part of me kind of hopes that this all went down as initially reported. The sensationalist side of me. The other part of me (my nuts, y'all) just wants Salo's testicle to be okay.
More postgame coverage to come on the Canucks' win tonight, including our I Watched This Game, but I just wanted to pause and have a moment of silence for Sami Salo, who left the game at the end of the first-period after being hti with a Duncan Keith shot in the midsection. After some speculation (broken rib? collapsed organ?), TSN spilled the beans, so to speak, by letting everyone know that Sami Salo had a ruptured testicle.
The first Google return is from Kids Health. What the Hell? Anyway, here's what they had to say:
Testicular rupture [...] is a rare type of testicular trauma. This can happen when the testicle receives a forceful direct blow or when the testicle is crushed against the pubic bone (the bone that forms the front of the pelvis), causing blood to leak into the scrotum. Testicular rupture, like testicular torsion and other serious injuries to the testicles, causes extreme pain, swelling in the scrotum, nausea, and vomiting. To fix the problem, surgery is necessary to repair the ruptured testicle.
Whaaaaaaat? That sounds horrible. Now unless this has happened before, which I doubt, I do believe it's his 39th unique career injury. And it is undoubtedly the worst. Let us take a moment to mourn the loss of Sami Salo's testicle, and pray for the doctors who will try to save his nethers.
In case you haven't heard, Sami Salo will be making his season-debut for the Canucks' in tomorrow night's game versus the Calgary Flames after rehabbing an offseason tear to his Achilles tendon suffered during a game of floorball. It should be an exciting moment for Salo, who no doubt suffered through a lot of mental and physical resistance to make it to this point.
