Dan Cloutier for Vezina

Nolan Baumgartner during the 2009 Pre-Season

With the recall of Nolan Baumgartner for the injured Sami Salo, the Canucks defence is looking pretty thin for Saturday night’s tilt with the Chicago Blackhawks.  The Hawks are perhaps the last team in the league that you want to have a depleted defence against.  There is a pretty good chance that the speedy and skilled forwards are going to dominate the Canucks defence for most of the night.  To put in perspective just how bad the starting 6 will be on Saturday, Shane O’Brien who has been in and out of the press box this year will be number three on the depth chart.  Aaron Rome, Brad Lukowich and Baumgartner are all players that have spent most of the season watching or in the minors.  So, lets look at what the Canucks have to work with and how they might try and slow down Chicago.

Without Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa healthy to play in the shutdown role, Alex Edler and Christian Ehrhoff will likely draw the assignment.  Ehrhoff will get a chance to prove his doubts wrong, who say that his plus-minus is a result of not playing against the other teams’ top line.  Ehrhoff and Edler logged 32 minutes in the shootout loss to Calgary two weeks ago.  Both defenseman will potentially see close to thirty minutes of ice time with so few reliable defensemen.  Baumgartner will likely play more than the six shifts that Evan Oberg did in that game in order to take some of the pressure off the top pairing.

O’Brien and Rome round out the top 4 as scary as that is.  With the secondary scoring that Chicago has, these guys are in for a tough assignment.  The best thing that O’Brien can do is to keep it simple yet still play his game.  That means don’t run around trying to be physical and take penalties but still be physical when the opportunity comes to him.  Rome will be advised to much of the same.  Handle the puck as little as possible and get the puck out of the zone.

Baumgartner with the Canucks during the 09 Pre-season.

Lukowich and Baumgartner are at the bottom of the depth chart for this game.  Lukowich has been a bit hit-and-miss during his call-up so far.  I find that he is too frequently being caught standing still when the puck is within reach.  There was one opportunity against the Stars where the puck was on the side boards and he just watched it rather than going after it and trying to make a play.  On the plus side, he’s been quite physical when the opportunity has been there and like O’Brien will need to pick his sports to do so on Saturday.  I haven’t seen Baumgartner play in a long time but for the record he has 1 goal and 6 assists with a -7 rating in 30 games for the Moose this season.  He last played for the Canucks in 2006 and in the NHL in 2007 with the Dallas Stars.

It probably goes without saying that Roberto Luongo is probably going to have to turn in one of his best performances of the season if the Canucks are going to win.  Guys like Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows will have to be spectacular on the defensive side of the puck.  Ryan Johnson being back in the fold should help with the penalty kill which is still stuck in the middle of the pack.  Because of that, not taking a lot of penalties will also be key.