"The professional sports world is full of examples of athletes signing huge contracts and then not living up to them.

Sami Salo is the opposite. He took a significant pay cut this past summer and is playing as well as ever.

The Canucks defenceman is off to one of his best starts in this, his 13th NHL season and ninth in Vancouver.

Through the team's first seven games, Salo has two goals, five points and is a team-best plus-6. His 24 shots — many of them his patented cannon from the point — are second only to winger Alex Burrows on the Canucks.

Salo is playing like's he's 27, not 37.

On Saturday, in a rare afternoon start against the Minnesota Wild (1 p.m., Sportsnet, Team 1040), Salo will play his 700th NHL game. Please, no wise cracks suggesting this could have been game No. 1,000 if only he had stayed healthy.

"It has been a long time since I played my first NHL game so it's good recognition of my hard work and a lot of miles behind me," Salo said of Saturday's mini-milestone. "It's nothing more than that, it's just another number. But the time has really gone by quickly."

It almost seems like yesterday when Salo was acquired from the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Peter Schaefer. It was in fact Sept. 21, 2002 and Salo didn't quite know what to expect on the West Coast or how long he'd be here. Now he wonders if he'll ever to be able to leave.

His three children, Julia, 14, Oliver, 8, and five-year-old daughter Pepe, have literally grown up here. They are three of the big reasons why when Salo's contract expired last season, he was determined to remain a Canuck."