Linden Vey Article

[NHL'er]

Vey back in the middle again

Linden Vey escapes from New York Islanders captain John Tavares back in February on Long Island. Photograph by: Kathy Kmonicek , AP

After the dust had settled from the moves made by the Canucks at the opening of the free-agency window, one thing that became clear was that Linden Vey would get another shot at playing centre.

Vey was more or less handed the third-line centre job to start last season after he was acquired from the Los Angeles Kings by Canucks general manager Jim Benning over the summer of 2014.

It didn’t go well. Vey, 23, in his first NHL season, had trouble handling the physical matchups in the NHL and eventually found himself moved to the wing and sometimes the press box.

But with Brad Richardson and Shawn Matthias — who ended up playing in the middle ahead of Vey — gone through free agency, the Canucks are down to three regular centres on their roster: Henrik Sedin, Nick Bonino and Bo Horvat.

And, of course, Vey, who signed a one-year, one-way deal for $1 million in late June.

This doesn’t mean Vey will be getting another job on a platter, as Benning on Friday signed free agent centre Blair Jones to a two-way deal for minor-league insurance in case of injury on the NHL roster.

Regardless, Vey is determined to take advantage of the opportunity. No one was more disappointed with his rookie NHL season than he was after having success in the AHL with the Kings organization.

“It’s a big step playing against the best players in the world,” says Vey. “You’re not playing against guys who are 20 to 23. Now it’s guys who have been in the NHL for eight or nine years.

“It took a while to get my head around that and I struggled with my confidence. I got a good opportunity last year but I didn’t play the way I wanted and it kind of snowballed from there.”

Vey isn’t a big player, but his skill and scoring ability aren’t in question. He won a WHL scoring title with the Medicine Hat Tigers and scored well at the AHL level. But Vey had trouble repeating that at the NHL level, though he did manage 10 goals and 14 assists in 75 games. His points-per-60-minutes-played of 1.46 was the lowest among the Canucks’ regular forwards, as was his even-strength Corsi (47.97), a possession metric. He was also a liability in the faceoff circle, with a poor 42.8-per-cent winning percentage.

Vey feels be can be part of the solution at centre for the Canucks. He’s vowing to come back stronger and better after a full summer of training, which he hasn’t had in recent seasons as part of the Kings and their expanded playoff roster that went deep into the postseason.

“That’s the focus this summer,” he says. “For me, that last few years, I didn’t have a long summer to work out.

“This is a huge year for me.”

Benning gave up a second-rounder for Vey in the belief he was ready to make the transition to the NHL. An improved year from the Wakaw, Sask., native would validate that move.

“Linden Vey is a talented player, so not re-signing Shawn Matthias, we need to get goals from somewhere,” says Benning. “I know (Vey) is working real hard this summer to improve his skating, his first step, his strength, so he’s strong in the battles. He wants to come back and have a year that he’s going to be proud of, and will help us win.”

http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Jamieson+back+middle+again/11186968/story.html

He had a great start to the year last season but definitely disappointing how quickly it went downhill. However, 24 points for a rookie is not bad and he is only turning 24. I'll be rooting for him as a dark horse for us next year (now that Kassquatch is gone ) and have a feeling he'll come up big for us.

[Erik Karlsson]

I think he comes back a lot stronger and puts up 35-40 points this year.

[LeanBeef]

Looking forward to seeing him this year. Not as bad as people made him out to be.

I think he can at least reach Bonino's level in the future.

However, I do think that Willie gifted him with alot of minutes sometimes.

[Crabcakes]

It's hard to improve strength during the season when you're playing 3 times a week or so on average. So, summer training is crucial for Vey. NHL competition is bigger and tougher than he had seen before. Give him a chance to adapt his game.

[Dr. Crossbar]

Hungry, working hard, with something to prove. That's what we need from our young guys. Looking forward to seeing him have a good year.

[stonecoldstevebernier]

if Vey can work on his faceoffs and get himself into that 50% range, that'd be huge for the Canucks next year. Its especially important considering they don't have any other right-handed centres on the roster, they need him to be able to win draws on his strong side. That's a big part of the reason Henrik's numbers dipped so badly last year, he was forced to take a ton of key faceoffs on his weak side with Kesler's departure... he went from 52.3% to 45%, he's better than that.

[Western Red]

No choice but to be on his side now. That really weird glut of 2/3/4th line tweeners last year did some very strange things to my brain. I'm glad that we will actually be forced to infuse some youth like Virt next year.

Vey I'm not going to worry about until Oct.

We really have bigger fish to fry. Only 4 NHL D-men plus Weber.

[Zuongo]

Can't wait to see how he is this year. Alot of potential

[Bruce Boudreau]

Putting on another 10 pounds would be huge for him to be a "listed" 6 feet and 190 something to help win battles instead of the 180 pounds he played at last year.

[Canuck_in_AB]

I can understand WHY some people took a disliking for him (not strong enough, etc) but you have got to love the guy's ability to recognize what needs to be done to take himself to the next level. Even if someone else did the recognizing and briefed him on it, he's not backing down from the challenge.

Maybe Horvat could get in some time with him on faceoffs. How cool would THAT be for Bo, on the leadership front?

[Amish Rake Fighter]

He needs to play like he did against LA the last time they played, he didn't get on the scoreboard but it might have been his best game as a Canuck.

[YEGCanuck]

Well I hope he is as determined as it sounds to have a positive second season. The Canucks should (if not already) employ a face-off specialist to train our centres.

[DeNiro]

Strength is everything for him.

The skill is there, just need the will to go with it.

[Ossi Vaananen]

His corsi, points per 60, and face offs were among the worst for Canuck forwards. This validates a lot of poor opinions of him.

I hope he can turn it around, and I view 4C as up for grabs. Vey is the favourite as of right now, but I could see Grenier (takes draws), or Jones sliding in as better options for a 4 C. Even Cassels as another eighty could prove viable.

[Hairy Kneel]

Another project that could do well to develop in Utica...where Kass should have been.

[Hoosierdaddy]

Another project that could do well to develop in Utica...where Kass should have been.

Both would be claimed on re-entry

[Barry_Wilkins]

People here only seem to concentrate on his lack of strength, but a far more important area he has to work on is his skating. Especially his acceleration. Good to see Benning reference that in the article.

[Phil_314]

All the best to him, we could use a stronger version of him, physically speaking.

Then again, I wonder if he could add enough weight and speed to become a difference maker? There's not too many undersized guys without much speed like him who I know who's made it big as a center (I can really only think of Brandon Pirri in Florida, who's the same size and weight and who's put up decent numbers, but I think he's primarily a winger?).

[DinoTambo]

Hoping Vey's exit meeting went as so...

Vey: Hey Jim..(looks over and sees Horvat sitting in the other chair--shakes Jim's hand).

Benning: ''Gonna make this quick, Linden..(hands him a plane ticket)...that's a return flight from Wawka to Rodney, Ontario. We enrolled you in the Bo Horvat faceoff school...starts tomorrow, ends two days before training camp. Do everything Bo says.

Now get the hell out of here.''

[BanTSN]

Faceoffs are only one area where the franchise would like to see some improvement from him. He also needs to shoot the puck more often, and that will require getting into shooting areas more often. Hopefully he is strong enough to do so this coming season, because if he isn't, he should be Kassianed out of here because that's pretty much the age of giving up on a player entirely has been set at.