Evening Headshots April 11th

#FreeSpirit
Photo Credit: Jeff Vinnick/Behind the Lens.

Today Canucks Army, the Canucks blog that steadfastly refuses to watch the games, we recapped Wednesday night’s 4-1 Canucks victory over the Calgary Flames, we marvelled at Chris Higgin’s penalty-killing prowess, pointed out why some fans and media are making too much of Mason Raymond’s offensive struggles in the postseason and gave Alexandre Burrows some credit for his best defensive season as a professional hockey player.

Read past the jump for more dry wit, Canucks links and stuff about Zack Kassian.

The image that kicks off this post – and I don’t really have much of anything to say about the photo beyond "what?!!" – is from Jeff Vinnick’s excellent Behind the Lens series with Canucks.com. Jeff Vinnick occassionally supplies us with enough visual material for an entire post and his Behind the Lens series is an absolute highlight of Canucks roadtrips. Check it out. [Canucks.com]

Jason Botchford hopes that Zack Kassian is given a long leash to establish some chemistry with Ryan Kesler on Vancouver’s second line. After Kassian’s atrocious outing last night (the Flames had twelve scoring chances with Kassian on the ice at even-strength, which is more than the Canucks allow in an entire sixty minutes most nights), if he’s still in the top-six to start Saturday’s game – I’ll consider Kassian as having been given an appropriate amount of leeway – frankly. A quick aside: the morning "Hat Trick" posts over at the Province’s White Towel blog have become an absolute must read for me over the course of this season. The Province Sports team deserves some serious credit for figuring out a catchy, simple way of maximizing their "White Towel" property, which for years was underutilized. [The White Towel]

Zack Kassian’s weak performance on Wednesday didn’t escape the notice of the ever scheming, petulant J.D. Burke over at We’ve Got Twins who writes that, "Whenever Zack Kassian struggles there’s a million reasons why and none of them ever have anything to do with Kassian just not playing well." That’s absolutely true I think, and ties into the whole "young players as vessels for the hopes and dreams of a passionate fanbases" thing… [We’ve Got Twins]

Brad Ziemer is the bearer of good news today, as he reports that Chris Higgins’ injury is just a "mild knee strain" and that the team is now putting a two week timeline on his return. Two weeks sounds a whole hell of a lot better than "indefinitely." [Vancouver Sun]

Ben Kuzma is also onboard the "good news" express as he reports that Cory Schneider’s flu symptoms are largely subsiding and Vancouver’s starter may practice on Friday ahead of the team’s Saturday matinée in Colorado. [The Province]

This week on Canucks Hockey Blog TV, bartender Jay Jones of the Donnely Group – who I might add has tremendous facial hair – makes some Canucks themed cocktails including the "#5 Garrison" (whiskey, bitters, some brown sugar and some orange zest), the "Dirty Higgins" (basically a caesar with pickle brine and bourbon instead of vodka – which sounds fucking excellent really), and the Honey Badger (which is a fruity cocktail that I’d never order as a first drink, but would probably like a lot when I was already tipsy and my girlfriend made me try a sip of hers). Neat stuff if you like Canucks talk and alcohol. [Canucks Hockey Blog]

Daniel Wagner looks at how the Canucks stack up with a variety of potential first round Western Conference foes. Some quality analysis here, though Daniel overrates the Detroit Red Wings and underrates the St. Louis Blues, who are ridiculously good outside of their goaltending in my opinion. Anyway I’ll potentially elaborate on those topics further when I blatantly rip off this post at some point next week. (What? You’re saying I shouldn’t rip off a rival’s content? Well I wrote a similar post a year ago and also am shameless. Don’t judge me!). [Pass it to Bulis]

Not Canucks related in particular but still awesome, the NHL and NHLPA officially got on board with the You Can Play movement today

Harrison Mooney over at Puck Daddy wrote about the deal:

Amen.

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Tune into Headshots tomorrow when I try to solve the age old question: what is a NucksIceMan?