| | Before the season, the consensus was Vancouver would toss its youngsters into the NHL cauldron and let them season in time for the savior Sedin twins to arrive next year.
That may have been the franchise's intention as well; however, the results do not resemble a team in the rebuilding process. Instead, coach Marc Crawford's squad, 6-3-2-1 after beating the Flyers 5-2 Tuesday night, sits atop the Northwest Division.
|  | | Schaefer has been one of many surprises in Vancouver. |
Beyond the rejuvenated Mark Messier, a major reason for the surprising start has to be rookie Peter Schaefer.
Schaefer, 22, has come out of nowhere to become the team catalyst, scoring four goals and six points with a plus-five in the last two games. All this for a kid with four goals in 25 games last season.
"Stay away from him," teammate Adrian Aucoin told the Vancouver Sun. "You might burn your hand if you touch him. It's great when a guy's on fire like that."
So much talk in Vancouver surrounds the impending arrival of Henrik and Daniel Sedin, twin brothers from Sweden taken in the first round of the '99 draft. Even diminutive but talented Steve Kariya, younger brother of Anaheim star Paul Kariya, has received decidedly more attention than Schaefer.
No longer.
The rookie left wing (6-6-12) leads the team in scoring, ahead of such luminaries as Messier and Alexander Mogilny.
"The first five games I felt like I couldn't do anything right," Schaefer said. "There's going to be good spurts and bad spurts. You just try to have the bad ones (last) not too long."
And hope the good ones last as long as possible.
Empty netters keep Mess piling up
Speaking of the Canucks, Messier quietly -- and somewhat dubiously -- passed Mario Lemieux for the sixth spot on the all-time goal-scoring list with 614.
The tying and passing goals both were empty netters.
"I keep saying, I never considered myself a natural goal-scorer," Messier said. "My game is more honed to finding ways to win. Mario (Lemieux) was a great player, and we all know he did it in half the games I did."
Sens for sale?
The Ottawa Senators may be the next Canadian team to flee south of the border.
According to the Canadian Press, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has received at least three verbal expressions of interest in buying the team and moving it to the United States. Reportedly, the purchase offers are worth between $122 million and $130 million.
Bettman received the overtures because owner Rod Bryden won't entertain offers until all options for keeping the team in Ottawa are exhausted. "I have consistently said that I am not discussing with anyone movement of the team from Ottawa," Bryden said in a released statement. "When this issue first gained public notice early this year, there were a number of unsolicited inquiries to which we provided no substantive response.
"I have not had discussions with any potential buyer to move the team from Ottawa, nor are any such discussions planned at this time."
Brian A. Shactman is the NHL editor for ESPN.com. | |
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