from Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province,

There were a couple of real eyebrow-raisers, not the least of which was the idea of having the Sedins kill penalties, because the other top players in the league kill them.

That’s true, but the other top players also participate in the shootouts, and starting there seems to make a lot more sense than having them kill penalties when this team has already finished first overall killing penalties in the league largely using players who are already on this roster.

The Sedins, of course, say they’d love to kill penalties, and perhaps they would, with Henrik saying he would even sacrifice a minute of five-on-five time to do it.

Wonderful thought, but it’s a study in stupidity. Consider they’re already going to be playing pre-season games, a full season (and these two rarely miss games) including a trip halfway around the world to play the Olympics on a team that already leads the league in travel. And then you expect them to take the dings that come with penalty-killing and still have something left for the playoffs at age 34. Good luck with that.

Couldn’t we at least start by getting them involved in shootouts and go from there?

If the attending players were listening — and they appeared to be — they got a bit of a shot across the bow when Tortorella talked right out of the chute about this team needing to “create” a team concept, the clear implication being that despite the success that has been enjoyed here, he felt that’s where improvement needed to be made to make that next step.

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