Can you spell "toughness" without "Volpatti"? || December, 4, 2011

Aaron Volpatti

Now with Volpatti out for the rest of the season with shoulder surgery, where does that place the Canucks on the "toughness standings"?  Volpatti was Vancouver's only consistent 'tough guy', which should be concerning to those people who blamed the Stanley Cup Finals loss due to lack of toughness.  So what now?

Mike Gillis brought in Dale Weise and he has proven he can throw the body around and fight from time to time.  He has also been a great energy player and makes the most out of every second of ice time he gets, but he can't be the lone hitter on the team.  Lapierre has emerged as a forechecker extraordinaire and will lay into somebody once in a while, but his game has changed - or evolved - into more than someone who runs around with their head chopped off.  Without Volpatti, that dropped Vancouver's list of forwards who are willing to hit on a regular basis by about 25%.  Hansen is the only other forward who will really look for the hit, but it seems he is playing a different role too much of the time to be bothered with that.

Dale Weise

Now the Canucks have about 90% of their roster not looking to finish their checks.  You could argue that their philosophy should be "beat them on the power play", but that is a very dangerous thing to rely on.  Boston won the Stanley Cup because they had a little bit of everybody, and they all did their jobs.  Their fourth line got under our skin, the third line forechecked and shut down top players, their first and second lines scored.  That's exactly what has to be done.  You can't have 3 1/2 lines trying to play like top 6 players, there are roles on a team for a reason.  Sure, every line should help contribute offensively (in a perfect world), but their main goal should be to do what they got hired to do.  We didn't bring in Weise or Volpatti to try and light the lamp, they are there for energy and grit.  Now it's just Weise, and he can only do so much.

So now what?  Who do we bring up to try and strengthen the bottom six?  Right now, the Canucks are as physically intimidating as your grandmother on Christmas after a few too many 'eggnogs'.

Your turn to talk, what do you think the Canucks should do to bring in some toughness?