Music: {allcanada} Only move Kevin Bieksa has made is up Canucks' defensive depth chart

VANCOUVER - It appears reports of Kevin Bieksa's (notes) demise have been greatly exaggerated.

You remember Bieksa? The guy who was certain to be traded this summer after the Canucks acquired Dan Hamhuis (notes) and Keith Ballard (notes). The guy who some said had fallen to No. 6 on the defensive depth chart, which is no place for a player with a hefty $3.75-million salary.

Well, not only is Bieksa still a Vancouver Canuck, he will start the season on the team's top pairing with Hamhuis.

About the only person who doesn't seem surprised by these events is Bieksa himself.

"This is the way I kind of figured things would go," he said Thursday after the team's practice at UBC. "Obviously, there are talks and rumours every season, something you kind of get used to. I've said it before, you don't really pay a lot of attention to it. I'm not giving you a line, that's the way it is. I came to camp, really didn't care what was being talked about and here I am today getting ready to play the opening game."

Bieksa swears that this past summer was just like all the others, that he didn't pay attention to the trade rumours swirling around him. He insists he never really thought he'd be dealt, even though some close to him did and Bieksa himself had this to say this past summer on TSN's Off The Record: "I'm not an idiot. I can put two and two together. Anything could happen right now."

On Thursday, he invoked the taken "out of context" defence.

"I was kind of being badgered by my buddy there, (host) Michael Landsberg, and we like to have a little bit of fun and go back and forth and joke around," Bieksa said. "He asked me for about two minutes about trade rumours and I gave him my standard answers and he said, 'you know, can you at least acknowledge the fact' and I said 'yeah, I'm not an idiot… It wasn't like I was really concerned about it."

But Bieksa is happy to still be a Canuck and delighted to be paired with Hamhuis, the Smithers native who was Vancouver's big free-agent signing this summer.

The two players are still in that getting-to-know you stage, talking both on and off the ice as they try to learn each other's tendencies.

"If you want to speed up the process you have to talk," Bieksa said. "Practising with him all week has really helped because we are doing three-on-two drills and we go back to the bench and you talk about what we want to accomplish and what passes we want to take away and pressure them into."

"Things have been going well," Hamhuis said. "Kevin is easy to play with, he moves the puck well, plays physical and that makes it easier for me. But it's not going to be instant. It's going to take a little while for us to get used to each other's tendencies—when to go, when not to, when to hold back. We are just going to have to concentrate a lot on talking to each other on the ice and also when we come back to the bench maybe break down a play that we were a little unsure about so we can do it better the next time."

Hamhuis will learn, if he hasn't already, that Bieksa likes to make the occasional foray into the offensive zone. Sometimes more than occasional.

"Obviously, I am not going to go up to him and say, 'hey, I am going to give you a few two-on-ones every game, be aware," Bieksa said to laughter from reporters. "The goal is not to do that."

What is a goal this season is to better pick his spots for moves into the offensive zone.

"I wouldn't really say that I am a reckless pincher," Bieksa said. "There is a system that we have and there are times when we are given the green light when we have a third guy (forward) high.

"Obviously, I'd like to read situations perfectly this year, I'd like to pinch at the right time and not pinch when our forward isn't high. I wouldn't say I am going to change my game, but I'd like to get better at it."

Hamhuis also likes to get involved offensively and knows he and Bieksa can't both be thinking offence at the same time.

"In that way we are probably a little bit similar, we both like to jump up and be a part of it," he said. "But we have to be defensively responsible first, so if I see him going up I will have to stay back and cover up and if he sees me going up he'll do the same for me. We'll just have to be aware out there and make sure we're both not doing the same thing."

Bieksa does have the better offensive resume. He has played 202 fewer NHL games than Hamhuis, but has almost as many points—125 versus 129. Hamhuis has never scored more than seven goals in a season, while Bieksa has had 11- and 12-goal seasons. He only got three in 55 games last season, but then scored three times in 12 playoff games.

Coach Alain Vigneault, who will also use Bieksa and Hamhuis together on the second power-play unit, is convinced they can be an effective duo this season.

"I think they are going to complement one another real well," Vigneault said. "As we have gotten to know Dan Hamhuis more here at training camp, we see that he understands the game real well, has got great reading skills on the ice and can really skate well with the puck and find the open man. Both guys are real good with the puck. We'll start out this way and hope we have a really good D pair."