As he looks back now after all these years, there were a couple of things Radim Vrbata didn’t appreciate when he broke into the National Hockey League as a 20-year-old rookie with the Colorado Avalanche.
The Stanley Cup wasn’t nearly as available for the taking each spring as the star-laden 2001-02 Avalanche made it seem. And his first NHL coach, blunt and demanding Bob Hartley, actually knew what he was talking about.
It took a while for Vrbata to realize these truths.
Soon to be 34, the Vancouver Canucks’ winger is still trying to make it to his first Stanley Cup Final.