"Among the people who think Pavol Demitra is playing great hockey are his linemates, Ryan Kesler and Mikael Samuelsson — though, frankly, their noses seemed to be growing rapidly as they testified in his defence Friday — and, of course, the folks at the SNIB.

That would be the Slovakian National Institute for the Blind.

The fans? The media? What do we know?

"We won the game, why be negative?" bristled Kesler, who was getting a bit of a rough ride from the radio crowd on Friday morning (though players never listen to the radio) for having been mostly invisible in the Vancouver Canucks' 3-2 overtime victory over the Los Angeles Kings the night before.

No one seemed to be pointing out that, for a one-armed man, he actually did OK.

The problem is, he and his good arm, Samuelsson, are having to do a lot of compensating for the phantom limb on the other side of the ice, who — unless Alain Vigneault has a whole different set of demands for Pavol Demitra than those he puts on every other forward on the roster — must be making the head coach crazy."