The Canucks Need Players Who Have Something to Prove

Maybe the Vancouver Canucks don't need another player who has already been told he's good enough. Maybe they need a few players who are still angry about being told they aren't. Trey Fix-Wolansky certainly fits that description. He's 5-foot-7, 27 years old, a former seventh-round pick and has spent much of his professional career trying to convince somebody that he belongs in the NHL. At some point, you have to wonder what happens when a player like that finally gets tired of waiting for permission.

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Are Fix-Wolansky and Gallagher cut from the same cloth?

There is a little Brendan Gallagher in the idea. Gallagher was never going to win a height contest, either, but he built an NHL career on playing as though somebody had personally offended him by suggesting he was too small. He got into the hard areas, competed for pucks, got under opponents' skin and found ways to score.

Fix-Wolansky has some of that same stubbornness. Brendan Gaunce, who played with him in Cleveland, talks about the chip on his shoulder and the “we won't take no for an answer” mentality. That's the sort of thing coaches sometimes call intangibles, which is hockey language for “we know it's there, but we're not sure how to put it on a spreadsheet.”

Could Fix-Wolansky become a Canucks’ project?

And maybe this is where Fix-Wolansky becomes a personal project for the Canucks. Not because he is guaranteed to become an NHL regular. He isn't. But Vancouver has the luxury this season of finding out. He scored 31 goals in the AHL last year; he's already scored an NHL goal, and he brings energy every time he gets on the ice. If he can turn that into a useful fourth-line or 13th-forward role, the Canucks have found something without giving up much to get it.

More importantly, they may have found the kind of player a rebuilding team should want around its younger players. Somebody who knows what it feels like to be overlooked. Somebody who isn't satisfied just being invited to camp. Somebody who is still trying to prove something. There may be a lot of value in that kind of player when everyone else is simply trying to find their place.

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