In 17 years or whatever they played I never stayed up once to watch the Sedins play. I'm willing to bet not many people outside of Vancouver did either. They were not worth the price of admission. Stars yes most years, definitely not superstars outside of one or two when their team was loaded with supporting talent.
there was this perception around the league that the sedins were boring and unspectacular. this was reinforced early on by the fact that they weren't scoring much, so they weren't on the evening highlight shows much, plus them being hugely overshadowed by bertuzzi and naslund at their peaks, and the fact that the games were on super late in most major markets.
but man if you'd watched their games regularly, even in the early years, you'd see a moment or two every game where they would completely leave you speechless. and then one of them would get knocked over like a bowling pin or a perfect pass out of the cycle would bauble off trent klatt or old trevor linden's stick. and no one other than the people who watched that game would have ever seen it.
i even kind of get it. i remember one of the cbc announcers saying during the 2003 series against minnesota, you can see the sedins will be good players but they don't skate like gaborik and they can't shoot like gaborik shoots so they won't be superstars like gaborik will be. back then the flashes of brilliance were few and far between.
but they came out of the lockout with totally different bodies and actually started scoring as much as the big boys.
i mean, even then, you still had people wanting to trade them for olli jokinen, or saying gillis shouldn't re-sign them the year they were UFAs and sign gaborik and cammalleri instead. but i think those are people who don't really watch hockey, or only see highlights. gaborik skates really fast and has a laser wrist shot. cammalleri scores clutch goals in the playoffs. the sedins... well the sedins went toe to toe with kane and toews and daniel dragged the canucks back into the game after a first period defence/luongo implosion and even regained the lead in the third before a second luongo implosion that gave kane his hat trick. but if you didn't watch it who was going to tell you that the sedins were awesome?
i remember one time in the break before the 2011 finals, greg wyshynski was on bill simmons' podcast and simmons was like, hey how about those sedins? who can tell them apart? you cover hockey for a living, do you even know which one is the one who passes and which one is the one who shoots?
and wyshynski says, they take turns.
and bill simmons, a guy who only pays attention to hockey when the bruins are in the finals, is like, uh, i only know what the people say but i don't think that's right man.
but it goes to show you how even arguably the most widely read hockey writer in the US at the time had never watched the sedins play. and they had just won THE LAST TWO art ross trophies.
meanwhile, i remember this conversation crystal clear: it's the 2010 playoffs and i'm in new york for work and i'm staying in my buddy's apartment in brooklyn watching a laggy stream of the canucks vs blackhawks. we grew up together in vancouver, he was my center for five straight years of minor hockey, starting in 1993. and i say to him, sheepishly, you know, i can't believe i'm saying this but i might actually enjoy watching the sedins play as much as i enjoyed bure.
and he goes, i bet 12 year old us would have beaten the crap out of you for saying that.
because, you know, bure was the most electrifying thing we'd ever seen and we never thought we'd see anything that exciting ever again.
the last game i saw live henrik and daniel created a scoring chance out of nothing to feed jannik hansen for an easy tap in. in a routine oilers breakout, henrik creates an offensive zone turnover below the hash marks by bumping the oilers winger, then bracing himself to establish position and nudging the puck maybe two feet along the boards to what a second earlier was open ice. daniel is already there waiting for it and one touches it backwards through his own legs as the defenceman staples him to the boards. henrik of course picks it up and curls to the corner with a dman on him and the other crouching down to cut off the pass to the slot. the normal play there would be to carry the puck around the net and let the play develop. but at the edge of the trapezoid henrik saucers it literally over the defender right onto hansen's stick, who taps it into the open net.
i was lucky enough to be eleven rows up from ice level, in the same zone just below the other hash mark. just about the best possible seat in the house to see that play. in person, you could really see how incredibly miniscule and precise those openings they created and exploited were, but you also knew the moment henrik innocently interrupted that breakout that something could be developing. with the sedins, if they tic, you expect a tac. and if they tac, then it's only a matter of time before you see a toe. if you didn't think sedinery is worth the price of admission, dude i'm telling you you missed out.