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Former Province hockey writer Jim Jamieson told me more than once that he believed that if Ohlund hadn’t suffered this devastating eye injury, he’d have one day been a candidate for the Norris Trophy.

The previous season, 1998-99, was his second in the NHL and he was at the very worst the team’s second-best defenceman: his 5.3 point sharestrailed only Adrian Aucoin’s 7.1 on the Canucks’ defence. His rookie season, 1997-98, saw him impress observers around the league and he finished second in Calder Trophy voting for rookie of the year.

He was a serious player who everyone knew about. He was only going to get better; you could see a future where he might get votes as the league’s best defenceman.

But the deflected puck caused serious damage to his eye and instead we were forever left to wonder how good he really might have been. He was damn good in spite of his impeded eye sight; how much better might he have been if his eye had been in better health?

His best season statistically is 2003-04. He played 25 minutes per game and was a force for the Canucks on the blue line, one which also stocked the likes of Sami Salo, Marek Malik and Ed Jovanovski.

We ranked him number 11 in our 101 Greatest Canucks series in 2014.

Jamieson’s thoughts from that series:

To understand how good Ohlund was, you need to know that he was the Canucks’ best defenceman from the moment he stepped on the ice at training camp in 1997 as a 21-year-old rookie. Ohlund could do it all. He was mobile, physical, could make a long pass, play on both special teams and go up against the opposition’s top line. A serious eye injury suffered when hit by a puck in a preseason game in 1999 certainly kept Ohlund from reaching his full potential in the NHL, though he remained a very good player.