Vancouver Canucks

While there was some uncertainty about whether Daniel Sedin would return to the Canucks' lineup Friday against Colorado or Sunday against Chicago, there is absolutely no doubt where he will play when he does make it back from a broken left foot: on the top line, alongside identical twin brother Henrik.

Forget any talk that Daniel, who has been out since being hit in the foot by a teammate's slap shot back on Oct. 7, might be eased into the lineup or used to try to spark another line after Henrik recorded 18 points -- including 10 goals -- in 18 games without him. The Sedins have been playing together for most of their lives, including nine mostly healthy seasons in the NHL, and there's no question in coach Alain Vigneault's mind that they're better in combination.

"They're still good players when they're not with one another. Hank has proved that," Vignault said. "But, obviously, I believe they're better together."

So does Henrik, even if the pass-first center is coming off his first hat trick in 667 games. Despite maintaining his point-a-game pace of recent seasons, Henrik's offense has come in bursts, including four goals in seven periods since Ryan Kesler and Mason Raymond were moved up to play on his wings.

"He has had some moments where he's looked really good, doing more with the puck -- and he's had some other moments that he looked like he was looking for his brother," Vigneault said of Henrik. "So I think he'll be real happy to have (Daniel) back, just like we will."

Henrik agreed there were times he looked for Daniel, who was unable to play in Friday's 5-2 win over Colorado but plans to play Sunday against Chicago.

"There's times on the power play and even 5-on-5 when I just know where he's going to be, and I can play more on instinct than I can now," he said. "(Ex-coach Mark Crawford) split us up at times, and Alain, too. So it has happened before, but I still think we're better together than we are apart."

All of which is why any talk of keeping Henrik with Kesler and Raymond after combining for 11 points in their first seven periods together (going into the Colorado game) is moot. Instead, Henrik and Daniel will play together, most likely with Alex Burrows, who excelled on their line the second half of last season but had just two goals -- one into an empty net -- since Daniel broke his foot. That leaves Kesler and Raymond, the team's hottest two players, to drop down to a second unit alongside Mikael Samuelsson that will be counted on to balance out the scoring.

"If you play us on the same line and you've got (Ryan Kesler) going on the second line, I don't think (scoring balance) is a problem," Henrik said.

CANUCKS 5, AVALANCHE 2: The rust showed early, but the rest paid off late.

After sitting idle for six days since their 8-2 romp in Colorado last Saturday, the Canucks fell behind 2-0 early after the Avalanche converted its first two power plays in the first nine minutes of the game. But defenseman Christian Ehrhoff pulled Vancouver within one on a Canucks power play early in the second period, then pinched in from the point to tie it with his first career two-goal game just 5:12 into the third. That sparked a four-goal third period rally for the Canucks, who almost scored on the next shift when Alex Burrows hit the post and Ryan Kesler tipped the rebound onto, but not quite over, the goal line.

The close calls didn't matter, though, as the rested Canucks kept coming at a Colorado team that had played twice since their last meeting and was wrapping up a tough three-games-in-four-nights road trip. Less than four minutes after Ehrhoff's second goal, Burrows made a brilliant spin move pass at the side of the net that left goalie Craig Anderson swimming and Henrik Sedin, who had already hit a post and had another sure goal denied by the leg of a Colorado defenseman, with an empty net to put the Canucks ahead for good. Steve Bernier added another goal on a pretty slap pass from Ehrhoff as the first penalty of a brief 5-on-3 advantage ended with 8:21 left, and Mikael Samuelsson scored on a skipping point shot less than 2 minutes later.

"They didn't have enough left in the tank and we put it through them in the third," said Ehrhoff, who hit the post trying to get his hat trick goal.

Roberto Luongo made 22 saves as the Canucks opened a five-game homestand the way they ended a five-game road trip last Saturday in Colorado.

"We knew they were going to come out strong, they were not going to be happy with the result they had last game against us," said Luongo. "They scored two on the power play but we stuck with our game plan and chipped away."

• D Willie Mitchell was among the Canucks players that elected not to get a shot for the swine flu, but the rest of the team's vaccination against the H1N1 virus on Sunday and Monday created a stir after the Chief Health Officer for the province of British Columbia accused them of jumping the queue. A similar move by the Calgary Flames two weeks earlier resulted in two health officials being fired. "They were out of sequence," Dr. Perry Kendall said. "I would have thought they would have waited because there has been a lot of publicity about sports teams getting ahead of people with higher risks and there has been a lot of public comment which has been very unfavorable to the sports teams. So I would be surprised that they would have done that."

  Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis seems just as surprised at the criticism, especially after deciding not to try and get the vaccine at the same time as the Flames, and making a similar decision not to try and secure the shots through private health care options in the U.S. during a five-game road trip after learning there were similar shortages in the States. Gillis told the Vancouver Sun the team did not act to get the shots until after Canada's chief health officer announced on Friday that doses of the H1N1 vaccine were approved for general use and no longer limited to specific, at-risk groups.

  "I feel strongly we waited and we didn't jump ahead of anybody," Gillis said. "We consciously did it to the best of our ability to fall into line with what's available to the general public. If we had chosen to really pursue it early on, we probably could have had an opportunity and we chose not to."

  Kendall, however, pointed out the federal statements weren't executed at the provincial level until later this week, with doses of the vaccine in B.C. limited to healthy individuals between the ages of five and 18 and those over the age of 65 with health conditions when the Canucks got the shots.

  As for Mitchell, his decision not to get vaccinated had nothing to do with eligibility. "It's my personal belief that your body's immune system needs to sometimes fight off disease and that's just my personal choice," he said. "I don't have kids. Other people's situations are much different than mine."

• GM Mike Gillis broke the news this week that Peter Forsberg's NHL comeback had been put on hold for this season may say something about the team's chances of landing the former MVP, which may be an indication of their chances of signing him, in part because of Gillis' long-time relationship with Forsberg's agent, Don Baizley, and also because Vancouver will host the 2010 Olympics in February. But in telling the world Forsberg was going to play in his native Swedish this season, Gillis was full of praise for the 36-year-old, perhaps opening the door for another attempt to sign him next season.

  "It's more of a day to day thing with his foot as opposed to a situation where he's confident he can play," Gillis said of Forsberg, who has battled chronic foot an ankle problems for years but believes he may finally solved the problem after multiple surgeries. "I think it's a tribute to him that he didn't want to put himself in a position where he was taking a roster spot and not being an everyday player in the NHL."

• LW Daniel Sedin hoped to return from a broken foot suffered on Oct. 7 during the Canucks' recently completed five-game road trip after he traveled all the way to Dallas to rejoin the team on Nov. 7. But after experiencing pain during a tough team skate in his first practice back that weekend, Sedin was instead sent back to Vancouver for further testing, staying off the ice early this week before returning to practice on Wednesday. He took part in the game-day skate Friday, but couldn't play against the Avalanche, delaying his return until Sunday's game against Chicago. Despite the dual delays, the Canucks insist he did not re-injure himself or suffer any setbacks in his recovery during that ill-advised hard-skating practice in Dallas.

  "He didn't get hurt again," insisted General Manager Mike Gillis. "When you have a broken bone like that, it's more pain tolerance. And in the event you can't tolerate the pain, then you take a step backwards and let that bone heal a little bit further. It's all part of a daily evaluation and when you get to a stage where the bone has healed enough, you begin to skate, and if it remains sore, you pull him back. So it isn't a reinjury."

  Sedin, who led the team in goals the last three seasons, was expected to miss four-to-six weeks, but will have been out six and a half by Sunday. Despite being back on the ice after just four weeks, off the ice Sedin was only able to trade in his walking boot for a sneaker in the last couple of days.

  "It was a pretty tough bone to heal," Sedin said. "You want to come back as early as you can. But at the same time, they told me not to push it. … Once I pushed it, it was a little bit painful and I had to take a few days off before re-evaluating it. It's always disappointing. You want to come back as quick as you can because you want to help the team, but the doctors and trainers kept telling me, if it's painful, you can't force this thing."

Quote To Note:

"We haven't had our team at all this year at any one time. We do believe that we've got a good group here but until we see most of the guys back, it's tough to evaluate exactly where we are."

—Canucks coach Alain Vigneault refuses to grade his team after losing 109 man games to injury while going 11-10 through the first quarter of the season prior to Friday's 5-2 win over Colorado.

Goaltenders:

Roberto Luongo, Andrew Raycroft.

Defensemen:

Willie Mitchell, Alexander Edler, Christian Ehrhoff, Sami Salo, Kevin Bieksa, Mathieu Schneider.

First Line:

Mason Raymond, Henrik Sedin, Ryan Kesler.

Second Line:

Alex Burrows, Kyle Wellwood, Mikael Samuelsson.

Third Line:

Matt Pettinger, Rick Rypien, Steve Bernier

Fourth Line:

Tanner Glass, Ryan Johnson, Jannik Hansen.

Player Notes:

• D Christian Ehrhoff had his first career two-goal game in Friday's 5-2 win over Colorado, and matched his career high with three points after adding a pretty slap-pass assist on Steve Bernier's power play goal late in the third period. That gives Ehrhoff five goals and 15 points in his first 22 games with the Canucks after being acquired from San Jose in a summer salary dump by the Sharks, exceeding even the most optimistic projections from the Canucks. Even more impressive, Ehrhoff is a team-best plus-11 after questions about his defensive play followed a minus-12 rating in his last season in San Jose.

• C Henrik Sedin scored again in Friday's 5-2 win over Colorado and now has five goals his last four games, including his first career hat trick, and 12 goals in the first 22 games, on pace to smash his previous career high of 22 goals. But Henrik, who has reached the 12-goal mark three months faster than any previous season, insists it's not because he's been shooting more since twin brother Daniel broke his foot back on Oct. 7.

  "I'm not shooting more, I'm taking shots from scoring areas, I'm getting in better position to score," he said.

  The bigger question, then, is whether Henrik keeps looking for those areas with Daniel expected to return Sunday against Chicago. Or does he go back to playing more on the perimeter, looking instead for Daniel, something he was accused of doing to a fault at times in the past.

• G Roberto Luongo doesn't seem to be suffering from time off the way he has in the past. Luongo returned recently from a hairline rib fracture that kept him out for two weeks without developing any rust in his game, a problem for the Canucks captain early each season and after previous extended absences, splitting his first two games back last week while playing well, then turning in another solid 22 save performance in Friday's 5-2 win over Colorado despite being off again for six days because of an odd quirk in the schedule. "It doesn't matter either way," he said of the break. "It's good to get some work in because I only had a couple of practices before I got back into a game. I was able to put in some good work this week and stayed after practice to work on a few things."

• LW Matt Pettinger appears to be the odd-man out with the impending return of Daniel Sedin after missing six weeks with a broken foot as the Canucks placed the veteran on waivers before he played Friday against Colorado. Pettinger has played well since being signed to a two-way contract out of the AHL when the injuries up front began mounting in late October, recording a goal and an assist in seven games while also killing penalties and forechecking effectively. But the Canucks are already carrying two extra defenseman in Shane O'Brien and Aaron Rome, who can also play forward, and seem more intent on keeping tough guy Darcy Hordichuk around despite being a healthy scratch for a third straight game in the 5-2 win over Colorado, meaning Pettinger will be sent down.

• LW Mason Raymond extended his point streak to three games and now has a goal and four assists in that stretch after using his speed to set up Christian Ehrhoff's tying goal early in the third period of Friday's 5-2 win over Colorado. Raymond has five goals and 10 points in his last 10 games, and looks nothing like the slumping sophomore who went 26 games without scoring while suffering through a confidence crisis last season. "In the last three weeks he's been one of our better players as far as generating offence and finishing," said head coach Alain Vigneault.

• RW Jannik Hansen continues to impress since returning three games ago after missing six weeks when he broke three fingers in a fight in the final exhibition game. Hansen was promoted to the top line with C Henrik Sedin and Alex Burrows Friday and responded with a nice pass to spring Burrows down the right side, where he made a nice spin move to set up Sedin for the go-ahead goal with 8:21 left to play. It gave Hansen three points in three games since returning.

• RW Steve Bernier only had one goal in nine games and had been dropped from the first to the fourth line, but he was bumped up to the third unit in Colorado last Saturday and responded with a pair of third period goals. The big winger added another power play goal in the third period of Friday's 5-2 win over the Avalanche, giving him seven this season, and putting him on pace for a respectable 26 goals in a season that has seen his opportunities sometimes limited. Now that he's on the second power play unit, he has to use his size to create opportunities for himself and for others. "He has to have that physical presence and disturb the goaltender and hopefully the last game is the start of something positive for him," said head coach Alain Vigneault.

• LW Mikael Samuelsson broke out of a slump that had seen him pick up just one assist in five games—and that was in an 8-2 romp—by recording a goal and two assists during the third period of Friday's 5-2 win over Colorado. Despite the fact his goal, a soft, skipping point shot, probably shouldn't have gone in, Samuelsson now has nine goals and 18 points through the first 22 games of the season after averaging 40 points in four seasons in Detroit.

Medical Watch:

• C/RW Pavol Demitra, whose skills as a top-6 forward are missed, had a second shoulder surgery on the shoulder that required an operation to repair two rotator cuff tears this summer. Demitra will be out until at least January, if not longer, but is expected back this season.

• LW Michael Grabner will be out four to six weeks after breaking his ankle during the warm up soccer game under the stands before a Nov. 1 game.

• C Alex Bolduc is out indefinitely after his left shoulder popped out of its socket on a faceoff in an Oct. 28 game in Los Angeles.