Evening Headshots: April 9th

Keith Ballard has a pretty solid poker face.
Photo Credit: Jeff Vinnick/Behind the Lens

Today at Canucks Army we recapped Vancouver’s two-to-nothing victory over the Phoenix Coyotes, checked out the early returns on the Derek Roy acquisition, reacted to the latest news about Chris Higgins and Chris Tanev’s injuries and analyzed Cory Schneider’s Major Junior-like career trajectory as an NHL goaltender.

More Lady Gaga references and other Canucks links after the jump.

Daniel Wagner doesn’t know how seriously to take Darren Dreger’s reporting on the topic of Vancouver’s "Luongo asking price". Not sure I blame him. [Pass it to Bulis]

Elliott Pap reports that Chris Tanev is wearing a walking boot and Chris Higgins has a sprained knee. [Vancouver Sun]

Here’s Jason Botchford’s take on what the loss of Chris Higgins and Chris Tanev means for a club with designs on an extended playoff run. [The Province]

With Ryan Kesler back in the lineup and Derek Roy surpassing expectations as a third-line centre, Bure’s Triple Deke is hopping whole hog on the Canucks bandwagon. [Bure’s Triple Deke]

Tony Gallagher praises Jason Garrison (quite rightly) for his stellar performance of late. Remember when everyone and their uncle’s mailman was writing Garrison off as wasted cap-space after ten games? And now he’s playing first-pairing minutes, matching up against the opposition’s best players, and crushing it while playing on his off-side? Wouldn’t you know it, another fancy stats darling vindicated over the course of an extended sample… [The White Towel]

In his latest "Clay’s Canucks Commentary" Clay Imoo welcomes Ryan Kesler back to the Canucks lineup. [Canucks Hockey Blog]

Demonstrating super human pettiness, the good folks at We’ve Got Twins remember the Shane O’Brien own goal against Phoenix from four years ago and claim karma was responsible for Antoine Vermette’s self-tally on Monday night. [We’ve Got Twins]

During an intermission interview with Farhan Lalji on Monday night, Ryan Kesler referenced Allen Iverson’s famous aversion to practicing hard. [Pass it to Bulis]

Iain Macintyre has a take on the seemingly perpetual wait for Alex Edler to transform into a number one defenseman. If that’s the standard that Edler needs to live up to, we’ll be waiting for a long time. Edler is misunderstood, I think, in that he’s not actually paid like a 1A defenseman (he’ll have the 20th highest cap-hit in the league among defenseman when his extension kicks in next season). For all of his errors – and he makes more than your average stay at home defender, like say, non-puck moving blue-liner Sami Salo – what he does do, is make the sort of plays in the offensive end and neutral zone that help the Canucks outscore their opponents. He does that consistently, and at the end of the day that’s what really matters. [Vancouver Sun]

Tony Gallagher talks with Alex Edler, Ryan Kesler and the Sedin twins about a potentially daunting jaunt to Sochi in 2014, should NHL players be included in the Olympics. Interesting quote in the take from Henrik Sedin about how he doesn’t consider himself old, and believes he can get by on experience (which, I think I totally buy since he was never really all that fast to begin with). [The Province]