Alex Edler was the greatest Vancouver Canucks defenceman of all time.
Last October Edler signed a one-day contract with the club to officially retire from the NHL with the team he spent his first 15 seasons. He left Vancouver at age-35 after signing a free agent contract with Los Angeles in the summer of 2021. He spent his final two professional seasons with the Kings.
This October Quinn Hughes passed Edler as the all-time leading scorer among franchise defenceman.
How soon we forget. A fan now would have to be at least in his late 20’s to remember when Edler broke in with the Canucks in 2006 after being a 3rd-round draft pick of the club two years earlier.
“I’m very proud of all that I’ve accomplished,” he said last October 11th before being introduced to the crowd during Vancouver’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers. “I had so many good leaders around me, so that made it easier for me and to learn what we need to do to play in this league for a while. There are actually so many good memories from this organization.”
It’s fascinating to consider the entire scope of Edler’s 15-year career in Vancouver. He finished fourth all-time in franchise games played with 925.
Whether viewing it from a local fan perspective or from a league-wide perspective his career was remarkable for this Vancouver market. Until Hughes came along and jumped to the top of the list, Edler had been by far the franchise’s leading scorer among defencemen with 99 goals and 409 points. His countryman Mattias Öhlund was second at 93 and 325.
On the flipside, the other reason the rest of the NHL would have seen him pop up on the news wires would have involved injuries. He played a full 82-game schedule just once. It’s not unusual for a D-man to miss at least a couple of games a season, but during a decade-and-a-half in Vancouver Edler missed 150 games. He finally eclipsed the 1,000 game mark with the Kings and finished with 1,030.
Physical durability factored in, but so did workload. Edler is a big man, and was a shut-down defenseman who’s job was to move other big bodies away from the front of the net. He paid the price repeatedly in the burly Western Conference.
Also, as time marches on, the odds of suffering trauma appears to catch up to players. Steve Yzerman suffered a dangerous facial injury from a shot late in his career. Zdeno Chara was injured similarly in 2019 as a 42-year-old. Most of Edler’s calamities early on were of the lower body variety, but his luck ran out avoiding acute trauma that same year.
In one instance he was stretchered off with a concussion and facial injuries after he spun down head-first after getting his stick caught in Flyer Jacub Voracek‘s skate. The following August — yep August, it was the delayed Covid playoff season — he was sliced in the side of the head by the skate of the Blues Jordan Kyrou in Game-5 of the conference quarterfinal. He returned to the line-up and played almost 25-minutes in Game-6.
Maybe part of it was odds, longevity, but also lessened mobility and dexterity factored into this equation, making older players more vulnerable. Six times he was placed on injured reserve, once on long-term injured reserve with Vancouver, all after February of 2016. This coincided with the regression in Edler’s game, as many would argue, and as the analytics would suggest.
This is man who was battered while logging big minutes. Time on ice remains the simplest indicator of a defenceman’s value to a coach and team. When a defenceman is scouted, the first two questions are “how’s his skating” and “can he make the first pass”. When he’s established, first simply look at the TOI. Edler proponents could also point to the fact that he spent a career effectively battling on the penalty kill.
When the club made the playoffs just twice during his final eight years in Vancouver, naturally critics placed part of the blame on Edler. But you’re only as good as your depth. When you were a player of Edler’s ability, a bona bide NHL defenceman, it ultimately comes down to the personnel put around you and where you fall on the depth chart. If you become too expensive for your place on that depth chart, then it’s time to move along. Hindsight is 20/20 on when the Vancouver Canucks could have pulled this plug.
Keep in mind, the club has made the playoffs once in four years since he departed.
Ultimately, it was an impressive tenure. A stalwart in the Vancouver Canucks run to the Cup Final in 2011 and the proverbial class act, Edler said this to the radio hosts on am650 last October.
“I have so many good memories from those years,” Edler said. “It’s been a long time and I’ve been so fortunate to play an important role with the Canucks. It’s been a great home for me. There’s so many players, coaches, and staff that meant so much to me.”
Edler was the last man standing from the 2011 run. Good on ya. We say again a year later: Hej då.
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