Vancouver Canucks Hockey Stuff

The Vancouver Canucks announced toay that Coach Alain Vigneault has signed a three year contract extension.  The extension will make Alain the coach through the 2012 2013 NHL season.  Alain has taken the canucks helm for three seasons, wining two division titles in the process.  The canucks ended last season with a record of 45-27-10 with Alain recording his 100th win as a Canucks coach, his 200th NHL coaching win, and 500th game as a head coach in the NHL, all last season.

While manning the bench, Alain has maintained a 133-86-27 with a .595 winning percentage, the best for any head coach in Canucks history, even better than Marc Crawford during the West Coast Express heydays.  Alain is also only the second coach in club history to win the Jack Adams Award. 

Alain has another few seasons as head coach of the Canucks ahead of him, at an important crossroads in the clubs history.  Fans are pressing more than ever for a championship win, and the current roster would like nothing more than to be wearing a championship ring by the end of the Stanley Cup Playoffs next spring.  With the Sedins and Roberto Luongo locked up for several years, it is now or never for coach Vigneault.

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Yesterday the Vancouver Canucks signed forward Rick Rypien to a two year contract extension, that will see him under contract to the Vancouver Canucks through the  2010-2011 NHL season.

Rick Rypien has been with the Vancouver Canucks for five seasons.  This past season he played in twelve regular season games, netting a total of three goals.  he also had 19 penalty minutes in those 12 games.  During the 2 rounds the Canucks made it to in this past post-season, Rypien had two assists and 40 penalty minutes. 

With this contract extension, Rypien is now put into a solid spot in this teams line-up, most likely up on the third line, with possible second line minutes if he can stay healthy.  His knack for injuries is the only thing holding Rypien back from moving into a stronger bigger game.

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Mike Gillis, GM of the Vancouver Canucks, announced today that the Vancouver Canucks have re-signed Canucks forward Steve Bernier.  Bernier, 24, would have been a restricted free agent come July 1st.  He made 2.5 Million this year, and it’s reported that his new contract is a 2 year deal worth 2 million a season.  Along with the contract, the Canucks have challenged Bernier to improve his hands, skating and conditioning over the summer break, providing him with a nutritionist, and a specialized coach to help with his skating stride.  They also have designed a conditioning program for Bernier to follow, that will include game-play like situations that will hopefully improve his awareness and finishing touch around the net.  Steve Bernier had 15 goals for the Canucks this past season, but had a countless number of chances around the net, missing or fanning on great scoring opportunities.

“We all would’ve liked to seen him scores more goals with the opportunities he had,” Mike Gillis said. “But he got those opportunities and he generated those opportunities. We’re hoping he will be able to relax and capitalize on those chances”.

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Breaking News: Alex Burrows Signs 4 year Extension

Just released in the last few minutes, Alex Burrows, has signed a four year contract extension with the Vancouver Canucks, equal to 8 million dollars, at 2 million dollars per year.  Burrows has had 19 goals and 33 points this season in a breakout campaign with the Vancouver Canucks.  He has been playingon the first line with both Daniel and Henrik Sedin, and producing some fantastic first line goals in the last month.  I would not be surprised if Burrows wears an A in the next few seasons.

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Edler Signs Extension, Canucks Go 1-1 over Weekend

The Vancouver Canucks played a comeback game on Saturday night, defeating the Calgary Flames by a score of 5-4 after Pavol Demitra scored the game winner with a minute left in the overtime period. At one point, the Canucks were down 3-1, and came back several times to tie the game, and eventually win in the OT session.   The Canucks went 0 for 5 on the powerplay, and Calgary went  0 for 7.  It was an intense game and was a hard fought win for the Canucks.

Last night, the Canucks came back with a goal by Alex Edler in the first period to tie the game against the Washington Capitals at 1-1, however, the Caps would eventually score four more goals onto a 5 – 1 whomping of the Canucks, breaking their 2 game winning streak.  Luongo was eventually pulled in favour of Curtis Sanford, and the Canucks road trip is 1-1 at this point.  They play again on Wednesday at 4:30pm in Detorit against the Red Wings.

The Vancouver Canucks also announced on friday that they have signed Alex Edler to a 4 year contract extension.  Due to club policies, the amount of the contract was not disclosed.

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