Canucks say Filip Hronek's the blue-line leader they need

Filip Hronek has forever been a mystery to outside observers.

Whether with the Vancouver Canucks or Detroit Red Wings, his outward persona, the one he shows the media and the public, is a controlled one.

Hronek rarely does interviews, and that’s a choice. He’s hardly the first player to decide whether he is just not going to offer much in conversation, whether on record or off.

What personality we have seen has been in on-ice videos: “You have holidays in two days,” he chirped at the Calgary Flames near the end of the 2023-24 regular season. The Canucks were bound for the playoffs. The Flames were not.

We know he likes dogs. And behind the scenes his teammates say he is quite the personality.

Still, in public, he is always quick to smile, or make other faces, but rarely does he offer up much insight.

And yet this season we have heard plenty about how much of a leader he has become for the Vancouver Canucks.

“He’s a good talker,” Tyler Myers said recently, grinning about his teammate, knowing very well how he’s a bit of an enigma outside the Canucks’ circle.

“He knows the game. He talks to the young guys a lot, points things out. He spends a lot of time with them.”

Rookie Tom Willander nodded after Saturday’s game against Boston about how positive Hronek has been in guiding him through his first months in the NHL.

“He talks a lot, and I can learn a lot just watching him,” Willander said.

Head coach Adam Foote has regularly praised Hronek’s professionalism. More than once he has noted how much more of a presence Hronek has made himself in the Canucks’ room since returning from a midseason injury last year. With the team in chaos, Hronek proved to be a rock.

And that steadiness has carried on this season, Foote said on Saturday.

“Fil was always a guy who would compete. He plays with emotion,” the coach explained. Then he noted the challenge of playing in back-to backs, like the Canucks did this past weekend against Boston and Seattle.

“He can bring that motion in and get it early in game and be engaged early,” Foote went on. “But then he’s not allowing the emotions to take over his game either, which is nice. I think he has understood that he’s been playing such a massive, huge role, and he takes care of himself. He’s matured that way.”

Foote obviously played the game at the highest level and knows well how important it is for young players to have mentors near them who are consistent — and high-level — in their efforts, in being able to deliver what their team needs, night in, night out.

For his part, Hronek told reporters on the weekend he doesn’t think he’s changed much.

“I’m trying to be same guy,” he said after the Boston game, a game where he scored a goal. Before Tuesday’s game in Buffalo, he was tied for the team lead with 25 points.

“If I can help them, and they ask me something, I always try to help them. They know they can come to me. I’m not trying to change much.”

SHERWOOD WATCH — A report from CHEK-TV’s Rick Dhaliwal on Tuesday suggested the Canucks and Kiefer Sherwood had talked contract late last week, but the sides remain far apart on a new deal. … Sources suggest Sherwood is still most likely to be traded. Postmedia reported on the weekend it was unlikely Sherwood would be re-signed by the Canucks, that a trade was almost certain.

pjohnston@postmedia.com