Rob The Hockey Guy

With four days to go until the next Canucks game (weird schedule this year, isn’t it?), I thought it’d be nice to shine the light on a still very underrated Canuck: Rick Rypien. I think this guy was a little bit forgotten about because of the injury/personal troubles he’s had the last few seasons. He hasn’t played an AHL game in two years, but has only played in 51 NHL games since. In that time, he has shown a great ability to fight, hit, and add-in the odd goal. While his fighting ability has gotten some notice of late, his offensive abilities haven’t had near the focus. Not only does he score goals, he scores highlight reel goals. Not bad for a guy playing with guys with stone hands (sorry Ryan Johnson and Darcy Hordichuk, but it’s true). If he was placed on the third line full-time and stayed healthy, he could score 15 goals. I think most people forget that Alex Burrows was initially called up from the Moose in 2005-06 after Rick Rypien.

With that said, here’s a few of few highlights of one of the “middleweight champion of the NHL”, as Tommy Larscheid likes to call him, Rick Rypien!