Judging who the Vancouver Canucks best players are to wear each number is going to have some bias. You can’t get away from that, whether the question is asked of the public or answered by one individual. Not everyone’s going to agree – but that’s why lists exist, dang it!
Here’s the previous entry.
Vancouver Canucks Best by Number: 20-24
The players who were there when you started paying attention will have a special place in your heart. Any age, any time, and however long ago, the team you started to follow will probably be your favourite. Want proof? Let’s get started at jersey number 24.
24 – Curt Fraser
It’s always a little bonus when a local kid works out. Okay, the Victoria Cougars aren’t quite local-local to Vancouver, but it’s close enough. Curt Fraser was drafted by the Canucks in the 1978 Amateur draft and stepped right onto the ice with the Canucks.
Fraser was never The Man on the Canucks, but he was a solid middle-six guy. He played 346 games in a Canucks jersey, scoring 92 goals and 205 points with 651 penalty minutes. If they had alternate captains in the early ’80s, he’d have worn an A.
Fraser was a steady, reliable guy with skills, toughness, and was even a home-grown talent. Heck, when he got traded away he brought back Tony Tanti, 1-for-1. That’s a player who was good for you every second he was with the team.
The other player considered for this spot was possibly more famous off the team than on it. If you could hook up hatred to a turbine, Matt Cooke would power city blocks. Picked in the sixth round in 1997, he worked his way onto the team by being too damn annoying to ignore.
Cooke played 30 NHL games in his rookie season and had two assists to show for it. He didn’t have many penalty minutes, either, with just 27. But boy, did he draw them. In an era when the league was trying to crack down on fighting, Cooke specialized in drawing enforcer’s attention.
Hits that came just a little late, a stick that found its way to the back of opponents’ legs… He got a LOT of attention. That agitator role kept him on the ice for 566 Canucks games, scoring 83 goals and 203 points.
23 – Alexander Edler
Longevity matters. Looking back on a player’s career, it’s hard to say if a brief flash is “better” than a steady burn. That being said, you have to give some kind of tribute to the first Canuck to be a star defenseman.
Paul Reinhart didn’t score more points than any other defenceman up to that point. His two seasons of 57 each were very good, coming in 64 and 67 games. But those were the fourth- and fifth-highest-scoring seasons in Vancouver history. Alone, not much to talk about.
How he scored, on the other hand, was a complete change for the Canucks. Doug Lidster was workmanlike in his play with one freakishly high-scoring season. Rick Lanz could snipe from the blue line, as long as he could get there in time. Dennis Kearns was all about getting the puck up – what the forwards did with it then was their business.
Reinhart got the puck and skated with it. All smooth control, picking his spots and finding the right moments to go on the attack. He wasn’t a player Vancouver had for long, retiring after two more seasons. But boy, he was worth watching when he was there.
The Captain Who Should Have Been
Alexander Edler was drafted in the third round in 2004, 91st overall. An absolute steal, given he was playing in a third-division Swedish league at the time. He moved from there to MoDo the next season, then to the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets. Big, solid kid who wasn’t the best skater but could get some points.
Edler got his feet wet in the NHL the season after, playing mostly with Vancouver’s AHL club in Manitoba. Then in 2007-08, he played two games in the minors and never saw them again. As a rookie in the NHL, Edler averaged over 21 minutes of ice time per game. He stuck.
It would be 13 seasons before Edler dropped below the 21-minute mark, skating 20:54 in his last year with the club. He was reliable, protecting the puck reasonably well, but mostly defending his zone. He made smart, safe plays which also made him easy to overlook.
Edler was a big man, but you didn’t really see it until he threw one gigantic hit that stopped an opponent cold. He’d do that every few games and it was always a shock.
Unfortunately, while Edler is easily the Canucks best to wear number 23, he was also one of the most fragile. Those high-minute games took their toll, and he often missed 20 or more games in a season. He finished his Canucks career with 925 games played, 99 goals and 409 points.
22 – Daniel Sedin
Right, well. After two long entries, it’s time for a very, very easy decision here. A quick hat tip to Dave Tiger Williams for all he brought to the team, but we’re going with the Hall of Famer.
Daniel Sedin – “Dank” to his brother’s “Hank” – played 1,306 games with Vancouver. He scored 393 goals and 1,041 points – one of two players with more than 800 points as a Canuck. He’s among the Canucks best to wear any number, winning an Art Ross, a Ted Lindsay Award, and the King Clancy Memorial Trophy.
However, let’s give you a weird little fact before we move on. Despite being the “scorer” of the two, Daniel never scored a short-handed goal while Henrik has seven.
21 – Jyrki Lumme
As Reinhart was limping off the stage, his replacement was already there. Jyrki Lumme took the mantle of Best Skating Canuck Ever from Reinhart and, well, skated off with it. He kept that title until the team’s current captain arrived.
Other teams had players like Lumme before, but not Vancouver. The defenceman was stolen from the Montreal Canadiens for a second-round pick late in the 1989-90 season. In his 11 games with Vancouver, he scored 10 points. A nice introduction to a new city!
He wouldn’t continue at such a pace, of course, but in 579 games he scored 83 goals and 321 points. Those 321 points would be barely passed by Mattias Öhlund (who played 191 more games) and more convincingly by Alexander Edler (playing 346 more).
Those two were fine defencemen, certainly! But until Quinn Hughes, Lumme was the Canucks defenceman other scoring blueliners would be compared to.
20 – Chris Higgins
Before we get to our choice here, we have to salute any player nicknamed “Flea”. Bobby Lalonde was the 17th overall pick – which made him a second-rounder back in 1971. The 5’5″ 155-pound Lalonde played 11 NHL seasons, six in Vancouver.
In 353 Canucks games, he scored 72 goals and 189 points. Obviously not a rough-and-tumble guy, he still picked up 185 penalty minutes. Not the Canucks best at number 20, but an early player worth mentioning.
Brandon Sutter is one of the options we considered at #20. He has a poor reputation among most Canucks fans, but that’s not really his fault. He was brought in and handed a five-year contract before playing a single game, sure. Wouldn’t you sign a deal that doubled your income for five years? But he was signed for a reason: he was a veteran centre with a good reputation defensively.
That was a big deal because the only other centres they had behind Daniel Sedin were sophomore Bo Horvat and rookie Jared McCann. The Canucks NEEDED someone down the middle to take the pressure off Sedin and the kids. Yes, it was a lot of money and term, but overpays happen with free agency. And he was perfect for the role. And he was reliable, only missing three games over the past five seasons.
Sutter promptly had hernia surgery that November and lost the rest of the season to a broken jaw in February. That pushed Horvat up to the second-line centre and match-up role he probably wasn’t ready for so soon in his career. Even so, Sutter played 275 injury-riddled games with Vancouver, scoring 54 goals and 50 points while taking the hardest minutes. Good enough for second place.
The Winners! Er, Winner!
The Canucks best player to wear number 20 is a two-parter: Chris Higgins and Chirs Higgins’ abs. Post-2011 disappointment, those abs gave Canucks fans and media types something to laugh about/gawp at. However, the rest of Higgins was pretty decent, too. He was a steady secondary scorer, though experiments with him on the top line failed.
Higgins retired in 2016, but joined the team as a coach three years later. He played a total of 314 games with the Canucks, scoring 62 goals and 142 points.
The Canucks Best by Number Next Time!
Award Winners! Brief Genius! And That Guy! Tune in next week!
Main photo by: Bob Frid – USA Today Sports
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