Winter Hawks' Hansen signs with Canucks

Danish forward scored 24 goals for Portland last season

LocalNewsDaily.com, Jul 24, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Jannik Hansen, a forward from Denmark who played for the Portland Winter Hawks last season, signed today with the NHL's Vancouver Canucks.

Hansen, 20, came to the Western Hockey League in 2005-06 and scored 24 goals and 40 assists for 64 points, with 67 penalty minutes, in 53 games with the Hawks. The first player from Denmark to play in the WHL since the league started in 1966-67, he finished second in team scoring and 19th overall in scoring in the WHL. He also finished second on the Winter Hawks in scoring in 12 post-season games, collecting seven goals and six assists for 13 points, with 16 penalty minutes.

Hansen was Vancouver’s ninth round choice, 287th overall, in the 2004 NHL entry draft. The Hawks are not expecting to get Hansen back for another season since he is a 20-year-old signed player. Hansen will attempt to crack the Canucks’ NHL lineup this year at their training camp, but he is most likely headed for some seasoning with the Canucks’ top minor league affiliate, the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League, a team that plays in Winnipeg.

Portland still has three Europeans on its 2006-07 roster. Stanislav Balan, 20, also a rookie with the Hawks last season, is considering playing professional hockey in his home country of the Czech Republic. But another season in the WHL with the Hawks is still a possible scenario that may be influenced by the Nashville Predators, who drafted Balan in the seventh round of the 2004 NHL draft. The Hawks also drafted 18-year-old Swedish winger Viktor Sjodin, Nashville’s seventh round pick in the 2006 NHL draft, and 19-year-old German defenseman Stefan Langwieder, in last month’s CHL import draft. The Hawks are allowed to keep only two European players once the season starts.

The WHL Western Conference scheduling meetings are set for later this week, and the Hawks expect to announce their 2006-07 schedule in early August. The team is still finalizing arrangements for its training camp, scheduled to begin the last week of August.

The Hawks will start their 31st season in Portland this fall. Since the franchise moved to Portland from Edmonton in 1976-77, 105 Winter Hawks have been drafted by NHL teams. A total of 94 ex-Winter Hawks have played in the NHL, including 22 who played on NHL rosters during the 2005-06 season and nine who were a part of the recently completed Stanley Cup playoffs.

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