Injuries now overshadowing Edler’s Canucks career Alex Edler will miss the next four to six weeks with a knee sprain suffered in the first period of Thursday’s 4-2 loss to Winnipeg. It's just the latest setback in a career filled with injuries that's becoming all too common for the Canucks' defenceman.

VANCOUVER – For all the good he did in his 10-years in a Vancouver Canucks uniform – and he did plenty – Sami Salo will always be remembered as the guy who couldn’t stay healthy. The big slap shot and the quick wit – none of that matters. For almost every hockey fan in Vancouver, the unflappable Finn will always be the guy who suffered from a never-ending list of injuries.

With Saturday’s news that Alex Edler will miss the next four to six weeks with a knee sprain suffered in the first period of Thursday’s 4-2 loss to Winnipeg, he, too, is starting down a similar path to Salo’s.

This latest setback means Edler will play another truncated season after appearing in 68 games a year ago and just 52 games the year before that. Trace his career back even further and you’ll find seasons of 74 games, 63 and even in the lockout shortened season of 2012-13, the 31-year-old defenseman missed three games dressing for 45 of the 48 contests on the schedule.

Only once in 12 seasons in Canuck colours has Edler managed to stay healthy enough to appear in every game. That was the 2011-12 season when he produced career-highs with 11 goals and 49 points. Since then, he has been suffered a variety of injuries and ailments that have kept him from appearing in games: a bad back, a broken foot, a broken finger and now a knee injury. A decade-plus of being a workhorse on the Canucks blueline is taking its toll on Edler. And while injuries are fickle and unpredictable – and in so many cases unpreventable – they keep happening to Edler and at an alarming rate.

The latest setback comes with Edler just 24 points shy of eclipsing Mattias Ohlund’s franchise mark for points by a defenseman. It was a milestone very much within reach at some point this season, but now considering Edler is likely to miss anywhere from 12 to 20 games, it seems doubtful he will amass the points necessary to move past his fellow Swede. And next season is the final season of his current six-year $30 million contract. Is it conceivable Edler – whose name has seemingly always been in the centre of trade speculation – could be moved before catches Ohlund? Having seen a long list of fellow veteran teammates jettisoned by the Canucks in recent years – Roberto Luongo, Kevin Bieksa, Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen – in an effort to get younger to speed the organizational rebuild, the possibility at the very least exists that Edler may not get the chance to become the highest scoring blueliner the organization has ever known.

That would be unfortunate because Edler is very much in the conversation of the best defenseman the Canucks have ever had. Nearing 700 National Hockey League games (plus another 65 in the playoffs including the 2011 run to the Stanley Cup Final), the 2004 third round draft pick is one of the best examples of the Canucks drafting and developing a mid-round selection. At his best, he’s mobile and physical and chips in offensively on the power play and even strength. Unfortunately, there are too many nights where his willingness to engage and questionable decisions with the puck draw the wrath of fans.

But none of that really matters right now. Because good or bad, Edler won’t be around likely until the end of November. After Saturday’s home game against Calgary, the Canucks head out on the road for five games and play 15 of the next 22 on the road. November looks to be the toughest month on the schedule and now the team will have to face it without arguably its top defender. It was already going to be a steep hill to climb and now the task got considerably steeper.

The Canucks have no choice but to forge on without Edler. The silver lining – if there is such a thing in these cases – is they’re used to this by now. Unfortunately, it’s happened too often over the past few seasons and it’s now quickly becoming a central theme to the discussion of Edler’s career.