"He was so crafty, skated so well and was so smooth," said Canucks defenceman Keith Ballard, who got his WCE baptism in 2005-06, as an NHL rookie in Phoenix. "He could beat you so many different ways. He had a good shot and could skate, but always had his head up and found the open guy.
"If you took a bit of a risk and tried to step up on him to make a play, he would just put the puck by you. And he was so good on the power play on the half wall coming up and rolling up high. I was nervous being out there against those [WCE] guys, they were really something."
"He started out in Vancouver by hanging out with Donald Brashear and was going nowhere until Naslund befriended him and worked on helping the guy jettison the bad influences in his life. "
