Twenty Great Games is a PITB feature that will run through the month of December, examining the 20 greatest single-game Canuck performances of the last 15 years. Today: Andrew Cassels creates more by shooting.
November 8, 2000 - ANAHEIM
On the morning of November 8, 2000, Andrew Cassels was profiled by Vancouver Sun columnist Gary Mason, who praised the centre's curious predilection for the pass.
Even as a kid he preferred giving to receiving. Making the pass, to scoring the goal.
''I just always got more satisfaction setting up the play,'' says Andrew Cassels, thinking back to his minor hockey days in Bramalea, Ont. ''I was always just as excited as the guy who scored the goal.''
Did you have Andrew Cassels on your hockey team growing up? Or anyone like him. I didn't. I was lucky if I even touched the puck most games. But honestly, don't most kids want to be the ones raising their arms in glory? The one getting mobbed after he scores.
''That wasn't me,'' Cassels says.
That night, in a 7-2 road win over the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Cassels went out and registered the only hat trick of his 1000-game NHL career.
There were plenty of hat tricks to sift through as I put together the list for this feature. You could make a case to include any one of them, hat tricks being the rare and special moment that they are. But Cassels stands out due to the poetic irony. "Pssst, pass it on: Canucks' Andrew Cassels has never liked the spotlight," read the article's headline. And the subhead: "Even today, he's happy in the shadows while others bask in the bright lights." Even today, eh? Actually, "today" turned out to be pretty much the only day this wasn't the case. That's too good.
Mason could be forgiven for thinking his profile of the quiet, workmanlike veteran would survive at least a day. Consider: Cassels was the Canucks' first-line centre at the turn of the millennium. How many people remember that? Before Brendan Morrison inherited the job, it was Cassels who centred Markus Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi. It was Cassels who took draws for the first-unit powerplay and penalty-kill. As the first-line pivot, Cassels was the lynchpin of the Canucks' attack. But he shied away from the spotlight at every turn, and was as easily forgotten then as he is now.
'Honestly, I prefer it that way,'' Cassels told Mason. ''I've just never been the kind of guy who needed that kind of attention.''
But one night at the Pond, he got it, whether he felt it necessary or not.
And he had only himself to blame. Prior to puck drop, Cassels had purposed to shoot the more -- not because of what Mason wrote, mind you. It probably had more to do with what they were saying over at The Province, as Terry Bell pointed out that the Canucks, who were winless in their last two with just two wins in their last seven, were on the verge of their sixth consecutive terrible November. The Canucks were 24-31-10 over the past five.
''We've read about that,'' Cassels told Bell. "It's not like we've lost five games in a row but obviously we're aware of the way we're playing and we have to play better. [...] We don't want to fall into the win-one, lose-one pattern.''
In the same article, head coach Marc Crawford singled Cassels out. ''Andrew is aware that he has to keep people off guard,'' he said. ''He has to shoot the puck a bit more. ... I think he's been trying to.''
Cassels echoed the sentiment. ''I have to shoot more, I can't score if I don't shoot. Teams know that I'm more of a passer than a shooter. I have to try to create more by shooting.''
I love how awkward that quote reads. I have to try to create more by shooting. This is a professional hockey player we're talking about here, and he sounds downright allergic to a major facet of the game. You can almost hear Cassels throwing up in his mouth a little bit at the thought of having to shoot the puck himself. But, ever the team player, Cassels charged himself with putting more pucks on net, as opposed to the sticks of his teammates. And in the second period, he broke through, scoring more goals in 16 minutes (three) than he had all season up to that point (two goals, 14 games).
Todd Bertuzzi helped. The big power forward was known for his soft hands and playmaking ability -- a reputation that grew out of nights like this one, as Bertuzzi set Cassels up for goals two and three of the hat trick during his team's four-goal outburst in the second period.
But Cassels was the star that night. It was weird for him. He couldn't even place his last hat trick. "I really don't remember," he told Ben Kuzma, laughing. "It was probably in junior."
Heck, he could barely place any other memorable games. Asked where he keeps the pucks from nights like this, the unassuming Cassels responded, ''I only have one other. ''It was my first goal and it's on a plaque. I'll make sure to keep this one up in my office so my kid doesn't take it out for street hockey."
