"He knows there was supposed to be some sort of epiphany — a eureka moment that made a drowning man want to swim again — but Todd Fedoruk doesn't remember one.

He cannot tell you the day he realized he had to stop abusing drugs and alcohol, but he can tell you the day he was most grateful that he did: May 13, 2011. Derek Boogaard, Fedoruk's friend and former teammate, was found dead in a Minneapolis apartment after a lethal overdose of alcohol and painkillers.

"Oh, yeah, very easily that could have been me," Fedoruk said Monday on the third day of his tryout with the Vancouver Canucks. "You almost ask yourself: 'Why wasn't that me?' I was filled with this shaking gratitude to be alive, and I felt I had to do something about it. 'Grateful' is too small a word to describe how I felt. Someone died from the same affliction I had. You have to take advantage of the gift you've been given to be sober. I was just happy to be alive.""