On Sami, Mo and Louie

"I was just talking to [Canucks assistant general manager] Steve Tambellini about Tommi Santala last week and Sami's name didn't come up once," said Bill Zito Jr., Salo's agent.

"We haven't talked about Sami's situation since back in October. The Canucks then made it clear it was something they wanted to address in the offseason to avoid having any kind of distractions. But they made it clear they have a lot of interest in re-signing him."

It's a record players are almost sheepish about acknowledging, but any time you pass Captain Canuck it's noteworthy.

Brendan Morrison, in five games barring injury or a trade -- we hope not to jinx him on either front -- will tie Trevor Linden's mark for consecutive games as a Canuck.

Game 482 will happen in Anaheim on Feb. 20 for the Canucks centre, who with 485 consecutive games-played overall (eight with New Jersey and the rest since he joined the Canucks seven years ago in a trade for Alex Mogilny) is two behind current NHL ironman Karlis Skrastins of Colorado.

This brings us around to the current season where you may have noticed the Canucks have a player, that would be Roberto Luongo, who merits consideration for the game's highest individual award. If you were going by the official definition, in fact -- "the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team" -- it's hard to conceive of a more suitable candidate.