Lower-body injury will keep Canucks’ Dan Hamhuis out of Tuesday night’s game vs. Habs

Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin/USA TODAY Sports

The Vancouver Canucks will be without veteran defender Dan Hamhuis on Tuesday night, when they attempt to prevent the Montreal Canadiens from making NHL history on Rogers Arena ice.

Hamhuis, 32, will miss the game with what the club is describing as a lower-body injury. In Hamhuis’ absence Matt Bartkowski will draw back into the lineup according to Brad Zeimer of the Vancouver Sun. I’d expect Bartkowski to play on a – scare quotes – “second pair” with Yannick Weber. 

UPDATE: based on line rushes the Canucks have opted to put Ben Hutton on a pair with Weber, which means that Bartkowski will be partnered with Luca Sbisa. We’ll have to watch how the ice time unfolds, but I’d suspect that Sbisa and Bartkowski will log second pair minutes at 5-on-5 for the Canucks tonight…

In eight games this season Hamhuis has held down a second-pairing role at even-strength while pitching in very successfully on the penalty kill. In those eight contests he’s notched two assists and the Canucks have outscored their opponents when he’s been on the ice at 5-on-5. 

The steady veteran is in his fifth season with the Canucks. He’s been a good solider for the franchise and has provided the club with tremendous value for the contract he signed as an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2010. That said, he’s begun to show some diminishing returns this season and is averaging fewer than 20 minutes per game – far and away the lightest usage he’s held down in his time with the Canucks organization.

Typically Hamhuis has been a very strong puck possession player, though he’s well below water by shot attempt differential so far this season. That may be in part a product of playing on a defensive pairing with Matt Bartkowski, with whom Hamhuis has had limited chemistry to my eyes. On the other hand in 13 minutes at 5-on-5 in which Hamhuis has played on a pair with Yannick Weber, the Canucks have controlled better than 69 percent of on-ice shot attempts. It’s a micro-split, but it perhaps offers a glimmer of hope that Hamhuis has some quality hockey left in the tank.

The decision to scratch Hamhuis comes as something of a surprise. The veteran defender logged nearly five-and-a-half minutes of ice time in the third period of Saturday night’s loss to the Detroit Red Wings, and he was on the ice for a shift in overtime. Presumably we’ll find out more  about his ailment when Willie Desjardins addresses the media following Tuesday night’s game.

Hamhuis is a pending unrestricted free agent, and so far the Canucks have seemed reluctant to engage the long-time Canucks blue liner in contract extension talks.