It’s been about ten days since Daniel Sedin was sidelined with a concussion. The bad news is that concussions are extremely unpredictable, and while Mike Gillis has hinted that Daniel should be ready to play in time for the postseason, it’s nigh impossible to set a “recovery timeline” for a player dealing with concussion symptoms. The good news, however, is that the Canucks have rallied, winning four in a row while playing a suffocating, defensive style of hockey.
You could eat a thousand KFC double-downs in one sitting, and your arteries would still be significantly less clogged up than the Canucks have left the neutral-zone for their opponents over the past four games. Players and teams adjust, and the Canucks have dealt with the loss of their best goal scorer by playing more conservatively. It may not be the most entertaining brand of hockey (personally, I love hard-fought, tightly contested defensive games), but it has certainly been effective.
Speaking of adjustments, with Daniel on the shelf for the immediate future, I figured I’d look into how his brother has performed without him going back three seasons. An immediate qualifier: we’ll be dealing with a pretty miniscule sample size here (24 games), so much of this analysis is shrouded in relative uncertainty. Nonetheless, the topic of “how Henrik’s game changes without Daniel in the lineup” is fascinating to me, and pertinent to the club at the moment, so let’s proceed.
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