page_title: Kevin Bieksa
section_title: Vancouver Canucks
hierarchical_section_title: Kevin Bieksa / Playing career / Vancouver Canucks
caption_attribution_description: English: Vancouver Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa warming up on March 15, 2009, prior to a game against the Colorado Avalanche.
context_page_description: Kevin Francesco Bieksa is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who is currently an unrestricted free agent. He most recently played for the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League. After a three-year career in the Ontario Junior Hockey League with the Burlington Cougars, Bieksa was awarded a scholarship to Bowling Green State University. He was a one-time All-CCHA honourable mention during his four-year tenure with the Falcons of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. He graduated from the university with a bachelor's degree in finance, and was a two-time CCHA All-Academic honourable mention in 2003 and 2004.
  Bieksa represented his country in the 2014 World Hockey Championships in Minsk, Belarus. He was selected as team captain and named 1 of 3 top players for Canada in the tournament. Bieksa represented Canada for the second time in his career at the 2018 Spengler Cup.
  Selected 151st overall by the Canucks in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft he joined their minor league affiliate, the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League, upon graduating.
context_section_description: With 16 points through 20 games with the Moose, Bieksa was called up by the Canucks and played his first NHL game on December 19, 2005, against the Los Angeles Kings. He was called for a roughing penalty ten seconds into his first shift and played 10 minutes and 45 seconds total in a 4–3 shootout loss to the Kings. The following month, he notched his first NHL point, an assist to Markus Näslund, in a 3–2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks on January 5, 2006. He remained with the Canucks until near the end of the season, as he was reassigned to the Moose on April 8 to make room for the return of Ed Jovanovski from injury. Bieksa finished the season with six assists in 39 games for the Canucks, averaging 16 minutes of ice-time per game. On August 17, 2006, he was re-signed by the Canucks to a two-year, one-way, $1.05 million contract.
  Early in the 2006–07 season, he scored his first NHL goal on October 13, 2006, against Vesa Toskala in a loss to the San Jose Sharks. Bieksa rapidly developed into one of the Canucks' top blueliners and finished the season leading all team defencemen with 30 assists, 42 points and 134 penalty minutes, while also tallying a career-high 12 goals. Paired with stay-at-home defenceman Willie Mitchell, he was also regularly given a shutdown role against opposing teams' top forwards. At the end of his first full NHL season, he was awarded the Canucks' Babe Pratt Trophy as best defenceman and Fred J. Hume Award as the unsung hero. In Bieksa's first NHL playoff game he had just over 55 mins of ice time in a quadruple Overtime victory against the Dallas Stars. Later in the series Bieksa suffered three stomach oblique muscle tears in Game 6 sidelining him for five games, before the Canucks were eliminated by the Anaheim Ducks in the second round.
  The Canucks acknowledged Bieksa's break-out season, signing him to a three-year, $11.25 million contract extension, on July 9, 2007. The first year of the deal, in 2008–09, saw Bieksa make $4.25 million, while the remaining two years were set at $3.5 million. He had one more season left on his original contract at $550,000.
  A relative unknown in his first couple of seasons in the NHL, his last name, which is pronounced phonetically (Bee-ek-sa), was frequently mispronounced by sports newscasters and hockey broadcasters such as Bob Cole and Harry Neale of Hockey Night in Canada. It has even been misspelled on scoreboards.
  A month into the 2007–08 season, Bieksa suffered a severe calf laceration in a game against the Nashville Predators on November 1, 2007. After battling with forward Vernon Fiddler against the boards, Fiddler's skate slashed Bieksa across the back of his right calf. Bieksa was helped to the bench, leaving a trail of blood behind him on the ice. He ended up missing more than half the season with 47 games. Before returning to the line-up, he was assigned to the Moose for a one-game conditioning stint. Bieksa managed 12 points in 34 games.
  He continued rehabilitating his calf in the off-season, after the Canucks failed to qualify for the playoffs, admitting that his leg had not fully recovered upon his early return. However, injury troubles continued early in 2008–09. On November 4, he was re-injured after blocking a puck off his skate against the Nashville Predators. Bieksa played through the injury for several games before learning that he had suffered a bone fracture in his left foot. He returned to the line-up after missing seven games. Despite missing ten games in total, Bieksa established an impressive career-high 32 assists along with 11 goals for 43 points, first among team defencemen.
  Without a no-trade clause in his contract with the Canucks and seen as an emerging offensive defencemen throughout the NHL, Bieksa was routinely the subject of trade rumours. In the 2009 off-season, one such trade rumour was central in a feud between general managers Mike Gillis of Vancouver and Brian Burke of the Toronto Maple Leafs. On a Leafs TV documentary on the 2009 NHL Entry Draft that aired in September 2009, a segment involves Burke speculating that t
caption: Bieksa during a pre-game skate in 2009
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