Mid-Day Headshots July 29th

Mid-Day Headshots is a CanucksArmy feature where we round up today’s freshest Canucks news including funny gifs, awesome videos, cool photos and interesting links. If you’ve written a Canucks blog-post and want it to be featured here, e-mail me at thom.drance@gmail.com.

Former Canucks defenseman Brent Sopel has left the NHL to play for Mettalurg Novokuznetsk in the KHL next season. Says Slava Malamud "Sopel should prepare for some baffling taunts" as his last name basically means "snot" in Russian. 

Yesterday, the Province’s Jason Botchford told me on twitter that he thought the Canucks were probably done tinkering with their roster for a while, and that he doubted their interest in Brad Winchester. 

Also from Botchford – a solid take on Jannik Hansen staying with the Canucks for below market value. Says Hansen of his bargain basement new deal "If you want to be in a position to win, you have to make some sacrifices here and there. The most important thing to me was to come back to Vancouver for more than one year." The team is lucky to have a guy like this.

Interesting philisophical take by PassittoBulis’ Daniel Wagner on intangibles. Quite an accomplishment to write a post in defense of intangibles that didn’t make me roll my eyes a single time – no wonder Mr. Wagner is on to the green pastures of higher education.

Illuminating interview with Daniel Sedin in local Ornskoldsvik paper Allehanda.se. Here’s the clumsy google translation of the article. Some interesting features of the interview: winning the Ted Lindsay Award means more to Daniel (or so he says) than the Hart. The Sedins are aware of the "they can’t win the big game" criticism – and seem motivated to prove the doubters wrong. The twins say they are working their asses off in the gym this summer, and believe their increased fitness level and strength have been a major reason for their increased success the last couple of years. He also talks a bit about the attention he gets in Vancouver, and how he’s turned to fishing to help him get away from the hullabaloo.