"It was his 88th National Hockey League game, but for Byron Bitz it felt a lot like the first.

When Bitz played for the Vancouver Canucks in Saturday's 3-2 shootout win over the Colorado Avalanche, it was his first NHL game in nearly two years.

He has been through four separate groin and abdominal surgeries -- the most recent during training camp -- and as recently as this past fall wondered if he had a future in hockey.

"There were a lot of times where I thought I would never play another game, let alone a NHL game," Bitz said. "So it's definitely a victory for not just me but the medical staff with the Canucks, the training staff that saw me through some tough times and didn't write me off. They kept looking for solutions and ended up finding a combination of treatments that got me playing again.""