Friday, April 15, 2011

College Stars Power Canucks

---

The best team in the NHL in 2010-11 has a lot of familiar names for college hockey fans.

Nine players – representing nine colleges and four conferences – dotted the Canucks’ roster for Game 1 of their Western Conference Quarterfinal series against Chicago (which itself had 11 ex-collegians on the roster).

The Canadian Press took notice:

On a more serious note, players agree going to college has become a more acceptable path to the NHL.

“A while back there was a stigma that college guys didn’t translate into good NHL players,” said [Keith] Ballard.

“Since the lockout, there’s been an emphasis on speed (and) on skating, which is a huge part of the college game. That is kind of where the game has transcended a little bit.”

The CP also noted the barbs college and major junior alums trade around the team: “Any problem solving, find a college guy,” Ballard said.

Fittingly, former Yale star Chris Higgins started the scoring in Vancouver’s Game 1 win. In all, nine of the 27 goals scored so far in the Stanley Cup playoffs have come from former college players, including four of the eight game-winning goals.

Kevin Bieksa (Bowling Green, pictured) and Ryan Kesler (Ohio State) are alternate captains for the Canucks. Others on the roster are Tannger Glass (Dartmouth), Victor Oreskovich (Notre Dame), Mason Raymond (Minnesota Duluth), Cory Schneider (Boston College) and Jeff Tambellini (Michigan).

Vancouver used 13 former college players in the regular-season. Among them was Chris Tanev, who just a year ago was a freshman at RIT. That gave the Canucks representation from all five Division I conferences.

Those players helped lead Vancouver to 117 points in the standings, 10 more than any other team.

Now they are in the hunt for hockey’s biggest prize.