Article content continued

“I’ve got to tip my hat to my wife because she trained and practised for it for over a year,” said Sbisa. “She used to do the the Grind and the Chief and mentioned it (Kilimanjaro) as a Bucket List thing. To be honest, I didn’t think we would actually do it. But standing up there and basically on the roof of Africa, it’s a really special feeling — especially when you go down.

“You feel like you can do anything in the world. And quite a few times already this season, when things don’t go your way, you kind of reach back and use it as motivation.”

The final leg was a seven-hour climb to the peak and then three hours down to one of the camps.

“You’re just exhausted,” added Sbisa. “You take an hour nap and then six more hours down to the next camp. And you can’t spend too much time at a high altitude. That was a challenge.”

It’s early and Sbisa has played just two games, but he has looked quicker, stronger, tougher and more calm. He set the physical tone early against the Flames with a thunderous and well-time sideboards bodycheck on Michael Frolik. It didn’t put him out of position or in danger of giving up an odd-man rush. Sbisa also blocked shots and the only adventure came Sunday when he pushed the envelope. Attempting to rush the puck out of his own zone, he got caught up in traffic at the blue-line and the Hurricanes managed a shot on net.

A third pairing with Philip Larsen has drawn attention because of what the Canucks saw and didn’t see during the pre-season. Larsen was often outplayed by Troy Stecher, but a commitment to make the experienced Larsen quarterback of the first power-play unit was already set. And with Sbisa at the World Cup, curiousity needle didn’t move much when Nikita Tryamkin showed little consistency or a physical presence. He remains an intriguing project as the seventh defenceman, which only makes the spotlight focus more on Sbisa. He also skated with Chris Tanev in the second half Sunday.