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With Matt Cooke having been traded in February and Brendan Morrison signing with Anaheim, my favourite Canucks have been reduced down to a singular Canuck, Mattias Ohlund. Thankfully, he’s always been my #1 fave.

Ohlie is the greatest, he is the backbone of our defense and he also has a scoring touch. He’s so humble and always rock solid, he’s a beautiful hockey player. He’s spent his entire NHL career as a Canuck, being drafted in the first round by us in 1994 and playing in his first game in 1997. I hope he retires as a Canuck.

Anyways, Canucks-related off-season moves so far have left us with 2 major players leaving and a bunch coming in.

Out:

• Brendan Morrison (centre), 32, 5′11. 315 points in 674 games, 12.6% shooting.
• Markus Naslund (winger), 35, 6′0. 823 points in 1035 games, 13.1% shooting.

In:

• Pavol Demitra (forward), 33, 6′0. 699 points in 750 games, 14.3% shooting.
• Matt Cullen (centre), 29, 5′11. 16 points in 32 games, 14.3% shooting.
• Steve Bernier (winger), 23, 6′2. 90 points in 177 games, 14.5% shooting.
• Kyle Wellwood (centre), 25, 5′10. 108 points in 189 games, 11.3% shooting.

It makes sense that all (notable) movement has involved forwards as we have a solid defence and the best goaltender… everyone knows we just need to freakin score.

Other forwards we’ve signed include Darcy Hordichuk (27, 26 pts over 302 games) who is a fighter, as well as Ryan Johnson (32, 102 pts over 547 games) and Jason Krog (32, 58 pts over 198 games) as grinders. I don’t expect that these guys will get any time except rotating on and off the 4th line.

So, while I am very sad that Morrison has moved on, Demitra is exciting, I think Bernier has a lot of upside, and Wellwood could definitely surprise a lot of people - he’s averaging more than half a point a game and he’s young, what’s not to like about that.

I’ve never been a fan of Naslund so I don’t mind that he’s left to the bright lights of New York and am eager to see how Demitra fills his shoes (or skates, rather). I don’t mean in the leader sense, I mean pure hockey playing sense. Naslund always having that deflated look could never get me excited.

Hey, maybe Ohlund will be the new captain…? Since Naslund, Morrison and Linden (retired) are now gone… leaving also room for new assistant captains. Interesting. I think Willie Mitchell will be one of the A’s, and maybe Kevin Bieksa as the other. They’re both stand-up, dependable, vocal guys.

Last but not least on the news front, very new news, reported this morning is that Mats Sundin has accepted the Canucks offer of $20 million over 2 years. Now everyone’s just waiting to see if this becomes official word or if the report is busted as false.