One of the benefits of being on Bloguin now is that I'm now closely linked with other excellent team blogs. As a result, I will actually be able to do game previews once a while, in the form of a collaborative article or a quick question and answer session.

Today I e-sat down with friend of the blog Simon from Dan Cloutier for Vezina. I promised him I would not ask about former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson.

1. Obviously, as the name of your blog is Dan Cloutier for Vezina, one could conclude that you either are Dan Cloutier, or you have an unhealthy affinity for him. What kind of negative impact do you think Dan Cloutier's presence at training camp has had on the inconsistent goaltending of Chris Osgood (6-3-2, 2.77, .902) and Jimmy Howard (2-2-1, 2.97, .893)?

I am unfortunately not the most underappreciated goaltender in Canucks history who won 30 games for three straight seasons.  And that was before the dreaded shootouts came into the play.  Sadly, Wings' goaltenders can’t hide behind an excuse like having Cloutier in their training camp as a reason for their poor starts.  Chris Osgood has been a terrible regular season goalie for a while now, but now it seems to be showing a lot more since the Wings are being depleted by injuries.  Of course there is a pretty good chance he’ll pick up his game when the playoffs start

2. I noticed that Vancouver lost to St. Louis 6-1 on Tuesday night. How much of this loss can be attributed to former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson, and how bad has Sammy been overall?

Samuelsson was pretty much invisible on Tuesday night except for the few opportunities that he took to wrist shots from the blue line with no traffic in front of the net.  I’m sure Wings fans are all familiar with his pointless shots on goal from well out.  Most of the blame should probably go to the Canucks so called "top line" of Alex Burrows, Henrik Sedin and Steve Bernier.  Burrows and Sedin were -3 while Sedin scored the only goal to manage to stay -2.

Overall, Samuelsson has been O.K I guess.  It’s hard to argue too much with his stats (8-6-14) but he does so many things over the course of the game that just make me want to kill him.  He’s got to be one of the most uncoachable guys in the league.  He goes for random skates with the puck, takes too many pointless shots that kill momentum, and is a defensive liability.  The Canucks started him on the point on the power play which was a huge mistake.  Too often he would have his shots block or just fumble the puck away to the opponent and watching him try to play defence after that was ugly.  Thankfully that experiment is over for the time being.

3. Who are some of Vancouver's unsung heroes, and how has former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson's presence in the locker room hindered their play?

There are quite a few Canucks who are deserving of the unsung hero title.  Since the team has been hit hard with injuries that are quite a few guys who are playing out of their normal roles and have helped the Canucks through a pretty difficult stretch.  Until the St. Louis game Andrew Raycroft had been playing great.  He was doing pretty much all you can expect from your backup goalie.  Rick Rypien and Tanner Glass have been good energy type players who don’t make a lot of mistakes on the ice but won’t necessarily make any highlight real plays.  Rypien did score the winner against the Rangers though.  Of course there is Ryan Johnson as well.  He’s such an important part of the penalty kill and a fearless shot blocker.  I’m sure Wings fans are familiar with him from all the times they played against him when he was a member of the Blues.

4. Vancouver, like Detroit, is a team much better than their record indicates off to a relatively slow start because of injuries. What injuries have hurt the Canucks the most? Who has stepped up while others are down, and who do you think needs to step up more? What kind of role has this opened up for former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson, and what would you give to go back in time and stop him from signing in Vancouver?

The loss of Daniel Sedin has definitely hurt the most.  Any time you lose your leading scorer it’s going to hurt.  Pavol Demitra hasn’t even got going yet but you still miss his skill on the second line, although I fear what a line with both Demitra and Samuelsson on it would look like.  Losing Michael Grabner was disappointing since he was really starting to get going for the first time in his brief NHL career.  The Luongo injury didn’t hurt as much as expected since Raycroft and Schneider really played solid in his absence.

As for stepping up, when Daniel went down with broken foot, Ryan Kesler really stepped up as being the best player on the team.  No one on the team seems to be able to single handedly dominate a shift like he can.  Mason Raymond has been pretty good most of the time as well and is now taking on bigger responsibilities such as playing on the second line and getting a regular shift both on the power play and penalty kill.  Christian Ehrhoff has also quietly gone about his business and is up to 12 points on the season and a +7.

Samuelsson has been counted on to score more goals with all the injuries and realistically he’s done that much.  Playing with Raymond and Kesler has been good for him since both of those players like to carry the puck through the neutral zone so there is less opportunity for Samuelsson to do so.  He’s actually picked up a few goals in front of the net which is nice.  When he was playing with Henrik Sedin and Burrows who are more cycle type players it gave Sammy too many opportunities to screw up.

I‘d give a lot if the Canucks could go back in time and find someone who could provide the same offense with less defensive liability for the same price.  I’m sure there were a lot of those types of players available too.  Oh well.

5. Looking outside of the NHL, your province has great meaning to Red Wings fans, as it managed to produce Steve Yzerman. Canada will be under Red Wings command as Yzerman, Mike Babcock, and Ken Holland are playing a big role in selecting Team Canada. What are your expectations for the team's selection? What Canucks do you expect will be playing in front of the home crowd come February? Lastly, are you concerned that long injuries to Olympic locks such as Johan Franzen open up a spot for former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson, and do you expect Sweden has any hope of medaling with him in the line-up?

I don’t know if I’d say I have any expectations as to the selection of Team Canada.  We obviously have a lot of talented players in the country and I’m confident that whatever Yzerman ultimately decides will be the best roster that the team can come up with.  I’m not going to debate the merits of whether someone like Joe Thornton should or should not be on the team because I think with all the skill here we can’t really go wrong.  Obviously after the tournament is over we’ll say so and so should have been on the team instead of someone else.  Especially if we don’t win the gold.

There are quite a few Canucks who are either locks to make an Olympic roster or will get serious consideration.  Obviously, Luongo is going to be a part of Canada, the Sedins for Sweden, Kesler for USA, Christian Ehrhoff for Germany, and Sami Salo for Finland.  Alex Edler will be in contention for Sweden, as will Samuelsson obviously.  Demitra would be a lock for Slovakia but with his injury it’s not totally clear when he’s going to return.

If the Detroit Red Wings can win the Cup with Samuelsson in the line-up then Sweden can win the gold medal with Samuelsson on the team.  Even if he makes it he’d play in a reduced role so I’d say yes they’d have a chance to medal with Mikael there.

BONUS: Do you agree that former Red Wing Mikael Samuelsson looks like a housecat?

Yes, absolutely.

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Thanks, Simon!

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