Mats Sundin's comeback road won't be smooth, plus more notes

Mats Sundin, the not-so-accidental rental player, made his season debut with Vancouver on Wednesday night. He played about 15 minutes, had no goals or assists and looked, for the most part, like a guy who hadn't played a game since last March.

In other words, he looked like a Derek Jeter baseball glove: rust-colored and not very effective.

In fairness to Sundin, and with apologies to Jeter, that was to be expected. Sundin, the former Maple Leaf whose decision as to where and even if he would play was on a par with elephant gestation, looked a lot like Dumbo learning to fly. He was on the ice with mid-season-form players from both the Canucks and the Oilers, but he was hardly playing at their level.

"You miss your hands, your timing," Sundin said after spending an evening creating off-target passes, making unforced mistakes and losing half of his faceoffs. He skated short shifts that half the time appeared to be devoted to calculating how to get off the ice without costing his teammates a goal.

"You just want to make sure you don't get caught out there..." he said afterward.

Funny, I would have expected more from a guy making an estimated $5 million for half a season's work.

Still, first-game survival is not the issue for the soon-to-be 38-year-old. It's expected that he won't be the No.1 center on his new team and he's certainly not going to be captain and leader. What the Canucks management and players are hoping for is a close resemblance to the player who was once good for somewhere close to a point a game, capable of a clutch goal now and then, and able to anchor a second line that will take some of the scoring pressure off their other Swedish marvels, the Sedin twins.

The view from here is that's asking a lot.

I'm always wary of players who come back after a long battle with retirement contemplation. Even the ones who come back with every intention of being their old hockey selves struggle against players who have reached peak form. That might not bother the Canucks through the regular season, but if Sundin isn't close to what he used to be come playoff time, this will be a fiscal and public relations disaster.

History says that's more likely than not.