Canuck Ryan Kesler puts muscle where his mouth is
By BRAD ZIEMER, VANCOUVER SUNNovember 4, 2009
During a recent Canuck game, one of the officials skated over to the Vancouver bench and suggested to coach Alain Vigneault that he needed to persuade a couple of his players to tone down their verbal taunting of the opposition.
Vigneault didn't even need to ask who one of the culprits was. One of them just had to be Ryan Kesler, who on the
ice is as fast with his mouth as he is on his skates.
“I am a different person on the
ice than I am off,” Kesler said Wednesday before leaving for Minnesota, where the Canucks begin a five-game road trip tonight.
“I’m pretty intense. That’s the way I have always approached it. Coming into the league I knew I had to play that way and it just kind of stuck."
Off the
ice, Kesler is more like the guy who stars in that B.C. Hydro Power Smart commercial and mumbles just two words ("Uh, no") in the 30-spot. On the
ice, he’s part pitbull, a chatterbox who does everything he can to get under the skin of opposing players.
"Like I said, I’m a different player on the
ice and for me it’s fun to play like that," Kesler said with a wry smile.
Quite frankly, the Canucks don’t want Kesler to change a thing.
More than anyone, Kesler has been the glue that has held the Canucks together and allowed the team to scratch and claw its way to two games above .500 despite missing so many injured players.
“Right now, without a doubt he is our most efficient player at both ends of the rink and that is why he is playing the most,” Vigneault said of Kesler, who had three assists in Vancouver’s 4-1 win over the Rangers on Tuesday night.
Vigneault’s philosophy as a coach is quite simple. Those who play the best get the most minutes. It’s not surprising then to see Kesler averaging better than 19 minutes a night. He’s second only to Henrik Sedin among Canuck forwards.
“When I got here my first year, Markus [Naslund] and Brendan [Morrison] had been the go-to guys and the [Sedin] twins beat them out,” Vigneault said.
“The twins played more and right now it’s the same for Ryan. He has been playing real well. Every player that I seem to put him with, those guys seem to go.
“I have always felt that the elite players, they make the players around them so much better and you can see Ryan right now what he’s doing, whoever he’s playing with, those guys are playing real, real well.”
Mikael Samuelsson leads the Canucks with eight goals this season and many of those have come playing alongside Kesler. He played against Kesler as a member of the Detroit Red Wings and knew he was a good player. Only now as a teammate, is Samuelsson beginning to realize how good.
“He really skates hard, he wins battles and that makes it easy to play with him,” Samuelsson said. “He really goes out there every shift and battles for the puck and he skates like the wind.”
On Tuesday night, Kesler’s best play just may have been the cross-ice pass he delivered to fourth-liner Rick Rypien to set up the game-winning goal.
“It’s my job to make the players around me better and almost force them to become better players,” Kesler said. “Playing with Mase [Mason Raymond] and Sammy [Samuelsson], they are making me push myself even harder to make myself a better player.”
Kesler heads into tonight’s game with 16 points in 16 games. His offensive game seems to be catching up with his defensive skills, which garnered him a Selke nomination last season.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Kesler said of his game.
“I think there is still more there, though. Like always. The team is winning, that’s what I’m happy about. We won two very good games, had two very good performances from the goaltender on out and we have to stay with that and have to keep going.”
The only disappointing thing about Kesler’s fast start from a Canuck perspective involves the bottom line. Now in the final year of a three-year deal that pays him $1.75 million a season, Kesler’s stock is most definitely on the rise.
It may cost the Canucks more than they had ever imagined to lock him up long term.
bziemer@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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