I hope Mattias doesn't feel bad

I was so happy when Willie Mitchell was given the role as the shutdown man. I felt like it took the pressure off Ohlund and freed him to be more of a play reader and puck shooter. It never occurred to me that he might feel displaced. But the team is doing well, he's putting pucks in the net and his numbers are looking better. He shouldn't feel bad, right?

Anyway, what got me thinking was this article by Jason Botchford in the Province, a snippet of which is below:

For most of the early season, Mitchell said he struggled mentally to find "his niche" with the team. He was a big free-agent acquisition brought in from the Wild, with who he was always matched against the opponent's best forwards.

It's the role Mattias Ohlund has shouldered in Vancouver for years.

"That's what I was doing in Minnesota, but I didn't have the same role when I came here," Mitchell said.

He said he felt lost. He felt like he wasn't earning his $3.5-million-US salary because he was simply playing a regular shift every night and not being matched against top lines.

Mitchell took it upon himself to meet with assistant coach Rick Bowness before the Canucks' Boxing Day game in Calgary.

"Playing against the top lines gets me in the game, allows me to do what I was brought here to do," Mitchell said. "If I don't play against the top lines I find that I'm OK out there, but I don't get the same feel for the game as when I'm line-matching. That's when I feel I'm doing my job."

The meeting presented Bowness and the Canucks coaching staff with an interesting dilemma while opening the door for some new possibilities at the same time.

"That's why we signed Willie, but what we talked about is that Mattias had that role all these years and you can't just take [Ohlund] out of that role because he's a wonderful player himself," Bowness said. "But we weren't scoring goals and I thought if we free [Ohlund] up that might help us more offensively. So I took him away from that role of playing against the top lines -- you know Jarome [Iginla] and all those guys -- and I gave it all to Willie."

The results were immediate. Mitchell was paired with Kevin Bieksa and the duo shut down the Flames' top line in the first game with the new defensive alignment. The win sparked the Canucks seven-game win streak.

"Things went really well after the meeting," Mitchell said. "We won seven games in a row and Kevin and I did pretty well against the top lines. Obviously, things were going well."

The move has paid dividends offensively. Ohlund has nine points in the nine games since Mitchell and Bowness sat down together.