Good point mentioned below (although Jere Lehtinen is back in the lineup). Jamie Benn has been everything I pegged him to be this year. A lot readers wrote in (back in August) questioning my call of him making the team and getting 44 points, but he’s making me look good. When you make a prediction for a rookie, it’s difficult. Generally speaking, a rookie either plays the full year in the NHL, or he doesn’t play more than a handful of games. So those who predict 50 games or 60 games is really just taking a “cop-out” stance. To me, Benn either plays five or six games and gets one or two points, or he plays 80 games and clears 40. And that decision is based on a couple of exhibition games. If Benn had a bad day in September, perhaps he would be cut and make me look bad – maybe a breakup with his girlfriend, or food poisoning…whatever the intangibles are, the difference between him getting two points and 42 points can be placed on the head of a pin. But what I know for absolute certainty is that Benn won’t be playing 50 or 60 games, barring an injury. Same with Sergei Shirokov in Vancouver – I put him down for the full season because it’s all or nothing. It looked like it would be “nothing” for this season, until that Sedin injury. It could be “all” now, we’ll see…

Do not be surprised by this – James Wisniewski has a sprained right shoulder. He is listed as week to week. Wisniewski played 48 games last year, 68 the year before and 60 AHL/NHL before that. If you expected even 70 games this campaign, you were silly. Mikkelson has been recalled.

Steve Ott injured an oblique muscle taking a faceoff. He left after five shifts. The seriousness is unknown, but it seems as though he will miss at least the next two games. Ott is also a Band-Aid Boy.

Sean Avery made his season debut yesterday, playing 10:42 and earning an assist.

It turns out that Daniel Sedin’s foot is actually broken. He is sidelined until the end of November (mid-November at the earliest). This is one injury that’s a shocker – Sedin’s been gold for playing 80 games. The Canucks will either call up Shirokov (three points in two AHL games) or Grabner (three goals).