JONATHAN HAYWARD
Ryan Miller's concussion, the result of being run down by Boston Bruins winger Milan Lucic, is ringing in Vancouver.
Roberto Luongo has an undisclosed "upper-body injury," Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault revealed Tuesday, after the struggling netminder missed his second consecutive practice – a rarity. Backup Cory Schneider will start the key match against the archrival Chicago Blackhawks, who arrive in Vancouver with the NHL's best record (11-4-3).
Vigneault took a playoff pose and spoke about Luongo only in vague generalities. He said it was "nothing serious," but left observers to cobble together a theory about what ails the goalie.
Concussion symptoms, tying together threads, seemed to a possible bet, in lieu of actual facts.
In the third period of last Sunday's win against the hapless New York Islanders, Luongo made an impressive save on a slap shot that came off a rebound. He sprawled across his crease in wildly extended splits – and the puck ricocheted off his head, slightly bending his facemask.
When Luongo skipped an optional practice last Monday – unusual in itself – he seemed fine when he spoke with reporters. He said the puck to the head didn't hurt and didn't complain about a groin pull, which was bandied about as a worry.
Come Tuesday, however, Vigneault invoked the spectre of Buffalo Sabres netminder Miller to justify his playoff-like secrecy. Miller was hurt after colliding with Lucic last Saturday.
The coach cited "the goalie situation right now" – the league's general managers talked goalie safety in Toronto on Tuesday – and suggested Luongo could be exposed to further injury if put in the firing line against Chicago on Wednesday.
"We'll leave it at that," Vigneault concluded.
The Canucks are in the same place the 'Hawks were a year ago, suffering from a hard-to-shake Stanley Cup hangover.
Since the 2004-05 lockout, a run to the Stanley Cup final has been closely correlated with a mediocre campaign in the following season, the Detroit Red Wings-Pittsburgh Penguins Cup rematch of 2009 notwithstanding.
Last year, with a new championship banner in the rafters of the United Center, a depleted Chicago started poorly and barely made the playoffs, where it took seven games, and overtime, for Vancouver to vanquish its rival.
This year, as the one-quarter mark of the season approaches, it is the Canucks, and the defending champion Bruins, that struggle – neither team would make the playoffs if it was April, rather than November.
Chicago, meanwhile, is reinvigorated. The Blackhawks bring a three-game win streak to Vancouver, looking to avenge a humiliating 6-2 smoking the Canucks delivered in Chicago earlier this month.
Patrick Kane, the 22-year-old winger now installed at centre, feels the 'Hawks could have made a run back to the final in 2011 if they had managed to get past Vancouver. Still, the weak start to the year was no help.
"If you get off to that slow start, it's tough to really rebound, and regain yourself," he said after practice. "You want to start off the season right, which it seems like a lot of teams don't really do."
For Vancouver (9-8-1), while there is no sense of stress, no sense of a season's promise slipping from grasp, there is a quiet urgency.
"This is the time, now, to really put some wins together," captain Henrik Sedin said. "You need to get on a roll and win four or five games in a row, to get that hump above .500. Right now, we're hovering around .500. That's tough. Every game is a must win for us."
Sedin, and other Canucks players, say they feel momentum percolating, that the team is close to the sterling form it displayed nightly last year, that the talent in the locker room isn't always what's appeared on the ice this season.
Alexandre Burrows, the hero of last April's Game 7 over Chicago with his cannon-shot winner five minutes into overtime, resisted the drum of reporters to hype the tense rivalry between the teams.
In the past three seasons, the Canucks and 'Hawks have battled more than 30 times, including three successive playoffs. The Canucks are 15-17 over that stretch. The squads have split each season's four games.
"There are a lot of good teams in this league," Burrows said, "and they're one of them."
CUP CURSE?
In the era of parity since the 2004-05 lockout, NHL clubs who have made the cup final generally struggled in their subsequent season. The Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks are, so far, suffering the same fate.
6th
Average conference placing the season after a Stanley Cup appearance
97.2 points
Average number of points
10th
Vancouver's Western Conference rank on Nov. 15
12th
Boston's Eastern Conference rank
20 per cent
Odds of teams to make it back to semi-finals or final
0.520
Playoff winning percentage after Stanley Cup, for a total of 10 rounds won, and 7 lost
David Ebner