Sedin twins perfect for Canucks on road to Hall of Fame, Burke says

Brian Burke, now president of hockey operations for the Pittsburgh Penguins, was the Vancouver Canucks general manager who orchestrated the moves necessary for the team to select Daniel Sedin with the No. 2 pick and Henrik Sedin with the No. 3 pick in the 1999 NHL Draft. The selections by Burke, who was hired as the Canucks general manager on June 22, 1998, changed the trajectory of the Vancouver franchise forever. The GM in Vancouver until after the 2003-04 season, Burke continued to follow the Sedin twins through his time as an executive with the Anaheim Ducks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames and Penguins, always marveling at what they did on the ice and how they ingrained themselves in the community. Burke shares his thoughts on the Sedins, who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday, in a special testimonial for NHL.com.

We were in Hamar in Norway at the IIHF World Championship in 1999 about a month and a half before the NHL Draft. We were there to see
Henrik
and
Daniel Sedin
.
Myself and our scouts with the Vancouver Canucks had gone to scout the twins in Winnipeg, Manitoba, at the IIHF World Junior Championship months earlier and they weren't very good. I told my scouts we were trading the No. 3 pick in the draft.
But we went to Hamar to see them again and that's where it happened.
The very first shift of the very first game, they were the second line, you could see it and it was like, "Holy cow, we were messing everything up until then." You could see all this crazy stuff they would do. It was a real revelation for me.
I had just watched them play like five times in a week at the World Juniors, but then I saw them play one shift in one game and I was like, "I missed this this whole time." "Hank" made a couple of those area passes and "Danny" skated right onto the puck and I was hooked.

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The two people that deserve the most credit for the Canucks drafting the twins are Thomas Gradin and Marc Crawford.
Gradin, then the head of European scouting and now an amateur scout with the Canucks, believed in these kids from the start.
The start of the season before their draft, 1998-99, he came to see me and said, You've got to find a way to get the twins, both of them." I said to him, "Do you need to get a urine test? Nobody has ever picked first and second, or second and third, or third and fourth before. No one has ever gotten it. No one is ever going to have that kind of draft capital."
But Gradin believed in these kids before anyone else figured it out.
And then Crawford, who was the Canucks coach until the end of the 2005-06 season, made them into players when he was coaching them.
No one should ever talk about them without those two guys getting some credit.
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Danny got a cut in his lip in our first month in Vancouver with them; six stitches, and we were all so excited. We were all like, "Finally a scar, we'll be able to tell them apart." But, it healed up without any scar and we were so sour.
That first month, that first year, you had to get them side by side and stare at them and sometimes it would take you two or three minutes. Even now it takes a good 30 seconds.
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I was in Helsinki with the twins one time, and I thought I was talking to Hank, and I talked to him for half an hour. Then he went to put his skates on, and he came out on a golf cart. I had the wrong one. I didn't know until he put his sweater on, and I was like, "Oh my God."
I hadn't called him by name, it was more "How's the family?" So, I pulled it off without either one of us realizing I had the wrong twin.
I really think their personalities are matching and, yet, just when you get a chance to talk to the two of them, they'll finish each other's sentences.
But you could tell them apart on the ice.
Hank was more creative. He could play with anybody. He was a more cerebral player.
Danny was a better finisher. He played wing the whole time and he got hit a lot more than Henrik did. It took a lot of courage, especially in that era, to play the way he did. He wasn't afraid. Neither one of them was afraid, but Danny never ducked a hit, never tried to avoid a hit.
What made Hank special was his hockey IQ.
They would do crazy stuff off face-off plays, deflected slot pass on the power play and, of course, the cycle play was their trademark.
That was Hank, his creativity.
Danny knew how to get open better than Hank. But Hank was the guy who made things happen. Look at the number of assists that he had. He had 830 assists. Just think about that. He set up 830 goals. EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY GOALS. That's a staggering number.
What made Danny unique was his finishing and fearlessness. He took a pounding, and it never stopped him from trying to complete a play. He would go to the blue paint. He would go to the corners. But he was really skilled.
I remember watching him practice one time after I left when I was running the Toronto Maple Leafs; it reminds me of Sidney Crosby, watching him now. Danny stayed out on the ice on a gameday for a good 20 minutes working on this one move down on the right side of the net. He worked on it, worked on it, worked on it and he scored that night when we played them. I remember thinking, "Who does that?" Other than Crosby, who does that?
It takes a special mentality to be the guy that can read off of the other guy, get hit more than the other guy and it's OK because it's going to make us win games. There is an unselfishness and the fearlessness that comes with that. He had it.
A lot of the things the twins did, Danny would signal like he was going to do something, or Hank would signal like he was going to step up or something, Danny would read it and he'd bust open. But a lot of it was Hank initiating.
We never got into why Hank was more cerebral or why Danny was who he was because, you've got to understand, these guys don't talk about themselves. They're modest, humble kids.
I told Danny one time, and I was serious because he likes to fish a little bit, that my worst nightmare would be to go fishing with him because he wouldn't talk.
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Their story is so much bigger than just the totals at the end of a career that say Hockey Hall of Fame. You put all the hard work into it, the charitable stuff, they're unreal.
I remember I went into drop something off at Canuck Place Children's Hospice one day and we didn't have an appearance scheduled. There was nothing scheduled. There were no TV cameras there. It was a practice day, and it was like 8 a.m. I drop by and the twins were there visiting with a young person that was ill, I remember this vividly.
I pull up and there is only one car there, because they carpooled like good Swedish kids. It was a Volvo. They were careful with their money, and they did these stupid ads for Don Docksteader Volvo. It was like, "Hi, I'm Henrik, and I'm Daniel, and we shop at Don Docksteader Volvo." They were terrible, but these two carpooled in a Volvo at 8 a.m. and no one knows they're there. They just heard this kid wanted to see them. They're unbelievable.
Nobody can make this stuff up. The work and the character that has gone into their career is so much more than the plaques that will go into the Hall of Fame.
They were perfect teammates. They're perfect citizens. They're perfect people.