from Ed Willes of the Vancouver Province,

This season’s Canucks don’t exactly register as an offensive juggernaut but, before Sunday’s games, they ranked second in the Western Conference with 69 goals.

How has this happened? The Canucks lineup is thinner than a super model. The power play is inconsistent. There isn’t a legitimate scoring threat on the back end. But there are the Sedins and their work through the first two months of this season is as impressive as anything they’ve done in their 15 seasons as Canucks.

Think about it. The Canucks have turned over almost half their lineup from last season. On most nights, they’re playing 20-year-old Bo Horvat as their second-line centre, 19-year-old Jared McCann as their third-line centre, 19-year-old Jake Virtanen on the wing and rookie defenceman Ben Hutton. Aside from the twins and linemate Jannik Hansen, there are two other Canucks forwards in double digits in scoring, Radim Vrbata, who’s also minus-11, and Alex Burrows.

Yet, they manage to cling to respectability largely because the Sedins have packed this team on their backs. This, we remind you, was supposed to be the season when their age started to show; when they’d start their slide toward irrelevancy, and this remains the best part of this story.

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