"It seems like all the pain, the frustration and the seemingly endless rehabilitation work was worth it for defenceman Sami Salo.

At the not so tender age of 36, Salo is having the time of his hockey life. It's hard to imagine when you think how his season began.

Ten months after rupturing his Achilles tendon and fearing his hockey career might be over, Salo delivered two huge goals for the Vancouver Canucks in Sunday's 4-2 win over the San Jose Sharks.

"For sure it's been a long journey this year, having a tough off-season," Salo said. "But we worked really hard to get to this point. Now it's really exciting. First time in my long career that I have a chance to play in the Western Conference finals. Playing against a great team, couldn't be any better."

Well, it could get even better with one more win that would put the Canucks into the Stanley Cup final.

"It's really exciting," Salo said. "All the years that I've been here, we've had great teams. Just seems this year that the team is really united together. Everybody is pulling together as a team."

Salo was forced to log longer minutes Sunday (he played 23:33) and was bumped up to the first-unit power play in the absence of injured defenceman Christian Ehrhoff.

He played a pivotal role in a remarkable and somewhat bizarre stretch that saw Vancouver score three 5-on-3 power-play goals in a span of 1:55 midway through the second period.

First, he set up Ryan Kesler's goal at the 9:16 mark. Then Salo scored two of his own just 16 seconds apart. Both came on one-timers after passes from Henrik Sedin."