The Vancouver Canucks came to terms with the newly acquired Mike Duco after trading for his restricted free agent rights earlier this week. Duco will have a chance to make the team out of game, but may end up back in the AHL where he spent the majority of his time last season. At least that’s better than the man he was traded for—Sergei Shirokov has already bounced to the KHL for the next three seasons.
All in all it’s a small time trade of AHL players between teams that have a history of trading with one another. So why are we bring up Duco’s signing when there are hundreds of other signings throughout the offseason? It’s because Duco already has a bit of history with the Vancouver Canucks; it’s a rather public history that he’d rather not existed. Last season during the Stanley Cup playoffs, Duco took to Twitter to chirp the Sedin twins for diving and Roberto Luongo for his inconsistent play. That’s fine for average fans, but it’s gray area for professional athletes. When said player is traded to the organization that he was chirping—then it can get a little awkward.
Here’s a refresher:“sick of watching the sedins dive and lay on the ice,” Duco tweeted on June 6.
“HA...solid night Luongo,” he wrote after Roberto Luongo’s Game 6 debacle, in which he surrendered three goals on eight shots to the Boston Bruins before being pulled from the game.”
Those were All-Stars and Olympians that he was directing his comments towards. He can now add the term “teammates” to the list of adjectives to describe the trio of Canucks. For his part, the newly acquired Duco has already attempted to make amends with the Canucks and their fans:
The situation is one that may become much more common with the spread of social media amongst players around the league. Fans want more access and honesty from players—but when circumstances change the honesty could lead to some uncomfortable conversations with future teammates. The hilarious guys over at Kurtenblog are looking at the entire situation with a healthy dose of realty:
Chalk up the entire situation to a learning experience. Moving forward, the 24-year-old gritty forward is going to try to put his best foot forward and make the big club in Vancouver this fall. He’s already made a name for himself in the AHL by racking up 147, 111, and 126 penalty minutes over the last three seasons. In only 12 career NHL games, the young pest has accumulated 60 PIMs. Is there any question about the type of player he’ll be for the Canucks?
It’s one thing to irritate opponents—but it’s another to annoy teammates. It sounds like he’s on the right track to repairing the burned bridges with members of the Canucks; now all he’ll have to do is prove that he can play with them on the ice.