VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Pretty soon the only place Henrik Sedin will still be looking up to Markus Naslund is in the rafters of Rogers Arena, where his fellow Swede’s retired No. 19 Vancouver Canucks jersey hangs.
Sedin is one point behind Naslund’s franchise record of 756 heading into Tuesday’s game against the Minnesota Wild, and will soon pass the player who preceded him -- first on the outdoor rinks of their hometown and later as captain of the Canucks. But along with Trevor Linden and Stan Smyl, the other players whose names hang from the Rogers Arena rafters but already sit below him on the scoring list, Sedin will continue to look up to Naslund in other ways.
“It’s a great honor,” Sedin said. “Markus is a guy from our hometown, and Trevor, what he meant for us our first couple of years, and a guy like Stan [now a Canucks senior adviser] is around the team on a weekly basis, so it's very nice to be up there with those guys.”
Even if listening to recent praise in the media from all three players makes the spotlight-shy Sedin twins somewhat uncomfortable.
“It's nice to hear those things from those players,” Henrik said, “We have been saying the same thing about those guys for a lot of years.”
Daniel Sedin is 27 points behind his twin brother and figures to soon be second on the franchise’s scoring list. So he knows what it means to Henrik to be up there with Naslund.
“The guy he is going to pass meant so much to us,” Daniel said.
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