the 4th star

As a Vancouver Canucks fan, I am officially spending the remainder of this Canada Day celebrating the blue and yellow Scandinavian country thanks to this bit of hockey news. People will say that the Sedin Bros. aren’t worth the fuss and all that, but this is a deal that had to be done. You cannot simply just sign a bunch of guys and hope to build a team that way. You need to build from within — which means keeping the guys you have under contract. Signing the Sedins is basically locking up a No. 1 line for your team — and the numbers the twins have put up over the years show that:

Playing side by side for the Canucks, the duo has amassed 288 goals, 634 assists, and 922 points in 1,288 games combined. The 2008-2009 season was arguably their best year yet, with Daniel leading the Canucks in goal scoring with 31 - the second highest output of his career - while Henrik had a career-high 22 goals. Both finished with 82 points on the season.

A $6.1 million cap hit for each Sedin is very reasonable. A lot of credit has to go out to Canucks GM Mike Gillis. Talk is that Roberto Luongo is close to being extended, too. If that happens, the timeline is locked in: Five years to win a Stanley Cup. I wonder if Marian Gaborik is next for Gillis, perhaps at a lower number/longer term deal? The oft-injured winger did just buy a house in VanCity. A lot of chatter out there about Brian Burke and his plan to rebuild the Maple Leafs. His week is getting worse and worse, it seems. PD speculates that the Sedin deal may have been done yesterday, thus Montreal’s reach for Scott Gomez. No stretch there, as I’m still trying to figure out how trading the only grit on your team (Higgins) for a small non-physical centre will help you against the Boston Bruins.

UPDATE: Still with our Sweden Day theme, defenceman Mattias Ohlund went the other way and grabbed as much dough as he could before retiring. Mentoring a stud like Victor Hedman should be a pretty easy gig.