Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final is Friday night, and there's currently more being written about Ryan Kesler's sex appeal in Vancouver than about him being the playoff MVP. Which is what happens when you have one point in four games, with 31 penalty minutes and a minus-3.
The Sedins and Roberto Luongo are sweating under the spotlight after the Boston Bruins tied the series with two wins at home. Kesler's dodged much of the criticism; no one is questioning his place in the lineup or calling him a woman (oh, Mike Milbury, you cad).
Kesler's earned that pass, of course. He shut down Jonathan Toews in the first round. His 11 points on 14 Canucks goals against the Nashville Predators earned him a comparison to Mark Messier from Barry Trotz in Round 2. He scored the game-tying goal in Game 5 against the San Jose Sharks, and his lone assist in the championship round came on a brilliant play at the blue line to set up Raffi Torres' game-winner in Game 1.
He also does the little things when he's not scoring: Winning 48 of 81 faceoffs, playing over 22 minutes a night when he's not sitting in the sin bin.
But at this juncture, the Canucks can't win the Stanley Cup on the little things. They need goals against an increasingly impenetrable Tim Thomas. If the Sedins can't provide them, than Kesler's the next best option. So what happened to his offense, and can he get it back for Game 5?
The common perception in Boston was that Ryan Kesler is injured, limiting his once dominant game this series. Please recall that he pulled up lame in Game 5 against the San Jose Sharks, leaving the game momentarily but returning to score the game-tying goal.
In Game 2 of the Final, Kesler was rattled on this Johnny Boychuk hit:
The fact is that as the Bruins found their physicality in this series, Kesler became a primary target. He was hit five times (officially) in Game 3; he was hit eight times in Game 4. Consider that in the first two games, according to the official stats, Kesler was hit a total of four times.
They're running him, but Kesler said after Game 3 that it comes with the territory.
"I think they're trying to play me hard. It's the Stanley Cup Finals. It's a rough game. It's the game of hockey," he said.
The Game 3 debacle was also when Kesler dropped the gloves with Dennis Seidenberg in the third period. It wasn't a fight to spark the team — the Canucks were already down 4-0 at the time — but to send a message to Boston, according to Kesler.
"Why did I fight? I thought I need to stand up for myself. They're not going to push me around without me coming back physically," he said.
Which, of course, led to his getting hit eight times in Game 4.
When he's not bitching about Tim Thomas getting calls or trying to garner sympathy for Aaron Rome, Canucks coach Alain Vigneault is usually talking about the need for his best players to play better. He said it again on Thursday:
"They're elite players, and if we've gotten to where we are today it's because our top players have been, on most nights, the best players on the ice. We're no different than anybody else. Obviously we need those guys to play up to their standards, and they will.
"We faced adversity throughout the season in many shapes and forms. We are playing against a real strong opponent right now, we've got a lot of respect for how the Bruins play and what they bring to the ice surface.
"But we're also a very good team and we've proved it in the past and we're going to set out to prove it tomorrow night."
One of the critical failings for the Canucks, perhaps their most critical, is the power play. Kesler's seen time on that 1-for-20 unit; perhaps an offensive renascence begins there.
"We need to be better. All aspects of our game," said Kesler in Boston.
The Bruins thoroughly outplayed Vancouver in Boston, but the road is unkind in the Stanley Cup Final, as home teams are 15-2 in the last three seasons. It's almost inconceivable that the Bruins will play with the same vigor, and the Canucks with the same sense of defeatism, that they did in Games 3 and 4 now that the action is in Vancouver.
But it was also inconceivable that Ryan Kesler would be so invisible during the most critical series of the playoffs. He's bruised. He's battered. But he needs to be better if the Canucks are going to slow the Bruins' momentum, recapture it and hoist the Cup.
Other popular stories on Yahoo! Sports:
• Why the NHL made a Bruins player ditch his Red Sox hat
• NFL player uses spoken word poetry to express lockout frustration
• Jason Terry's NBA trophy tattoo was a premonition