SOS! SOS! Start Our Swede!! Oh Mr. Sundin, when will we see your enormous Nordic self out on the ice? The wait is killing me.

Okay. It could be the post-holidays malaise talking – too much shortbread, not enough exercise. I don’t want to overreact here. It’s not as if the team hasn’t been doing quite admirably with a third of the payroll on the sidelines and a lowly Kings’ castoff between the pipes. The last thing I want is for mega-million Mats to take four mighty strides before his groin muscle twangs like a broken guitar string. I really want him to be totally ready to play. But we are dropping points to the League’s bottom feeders, and much of the hockey witnessed in the last few weeks has be so aggravatingly average, all hacking, whacking ugliness, soft goals, and stupid penalties that I want to scream.

The Sedins may be among the top thirty scoring leaders, but they are hardly doing it on heart-stopping, dazzling goals. We are superstar-deprived here in Canucksville. Man, I’d like to see the sexy back.

Now, this might be because I have been thrilling to the sweet agony that is Canada’s team at the World Juniors. Or, more likely, it might be because I have been reading Kerry Banks’ biography of Pavel Bure (which, to my delight, I discovered I am quoted in). The Russian Rocket may have been an obstreperous controversy-magnet off the ice. In fact, I had conveniently forgotten many of the rumours and reports that swirled around him over the years. But the joy, the pure delight that Pavel could generate on the ice, well, that I haven’t forgotten at all. I think there is too much blood under the bridge for us to ever retire his number. Perhaps someday the past will be far enough past that Pavel could just show up at GM Place one night, we could see a montage of his greatest goals on the Jumbotron and maybe give him the proper, grateful standing ovation he deserves. Mike Gillis was his agent once – it might not be impossible.

Meanwhile, as we await the Swedish, we still appear to be struggling with the finish, during regulation and the shootout. Even with Roberto backing them up, the Canucks have trouble with the shootout. Some kind of pall hangs over the team. After all, Markus has scored some shootout beauties this season with the Rangers – certainly not the case when he was here. Is Kyle Wellwood giving tutorials? He alone seems to have figured it out.

More waiting awaits us this week, but I am surely looking forward to the day that the captain is back in the net, Mats has gelled with his linemates, Sami has filled his injury quotient for the year and the fans can finally see what this team is REALLY made of.