by Sports Xchange

"First of all, he needs to find out if he can still play," Gillis, who dispatched Dave Gagner, Thomas Gradin and Inge Hammarstrom to asses Forsberg's play, told the Vancouver Sun. "If he can, we're definitely interested. I've known his agent, Don Baizley, for a long time and I think we'd be on his short list if Peter decides he wants to play. We'll see how he does physically and if he feels like he can compete again, we'll certainly be involved. It's about our ownership and our commitment to be involved in bringing the best players we can any time they become available. We're committed to that concept."

Former Canucks GM Dave Nonis flew over to Sweden to try and personally convince Forsberg to play for the Canucks two seasons ago, but the 2003 Hart Trophy winner as NHL MVP returned instead to his old team, the Colorado Avalanche, scoring 14 points in nine games, and has said in the past it would be hard to play for one of their rivals like Vancouver. But most of Forsberg's old Colorado teammates are long gone, and Vancouver hosts the Olympics in February, which is one reason Forsberg reportedly wants to resume playing after the chronic injuries forced him to miss Sweden's gold medal in 2006. The Canucks are also loaded with fellow Swedes, including identical twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin, who are from the same small hometown of Ornskoldsvik, located six hours north of Stockholm.

Forsberg has played just six games the last two seasons with their hometown team, MoDo, in the Swedish Elite League, but was one of the best players in the NHL at the start of the decade and can still be a force with 885 points in 706 career games. As for the salary cap concerns, the Canucks started the season pressed up against it, but reports indicated their injury problems have left them with $2-million in space, and as Gillis mentioned, ownership is willing to park NHL salaries in the minor leagues -- defenseman Brad Lukowich is making $1.8-million down there right now -- to free up space for another elite player.

"We'd be open to talk about any of the parameters. Peter knows what it takes to win and any opportunity we have to add a player of that caliber, we're going to look at it," said Gillis, who lured fellow Swede Mats Sundin last season. "There are a number of issues that we hope would be influential in him making a decision. There's the Olympic experience, the fact we have a competitive team, and other Swedish members on our team will be playing in the Olympics."

--LW Steve Bernier missed a second-straight game Friday in Dallas with the flu, but the biggest issue isn't Bernier's temporary absence but the potential of a flu bug running through a Canucks team already missing five other forwards and star goaltender Roberto Luongo due to injury. With that in mind, Vancouver kept Bernier isolated in his own hotel room and off the team's charter flight from Minnesota to Dallas after Thursday's win over the Wild, forcing the power forward to catch a public flight before again being seconded to his own room. As for fears he may have H1N1, team doctors didn't think that was the case, but the Canucks are also being careful not to upset the public by jumping the queue to get vaccinated, something that landed Calgary in hot water with the press and public -- and cost two health care workers their jobs -- after players and family members got their shots ahead of high-risk public members late last week.

There was some thought about trying to get the vaccine during their five-game, 11-day road trip through the United States, where the health care system is private, but they ran into the same shortage south of the border that has the public panicking back in Canada, and have now abandoned those plans.

"We checked into it, but it's the same situation as back in Canada," Gillis said. "There's a shortage here and it's on a high-priority-need basis. We thought in the event there was extra vaccine or if we had an opportunity to do it in the U.S. we would and we did check it out."

Instead the Canucks will wait until they returns home on Nov. 14 to get the shots, assuming there is still vaccine available and that is still the official date they are eligible as Gillis has made it clear they won't jump and queues to get it earlier. "Absolutely not," he said. "We've looked at it from the outset and taken all the precautions we can and have had one guy get the flu. In my opinion, doing anything different would be inappropriate."

QUOTE TO NOTE: "That's a shot he takes every day in practice and at 10 a.m., you don't want that high glove. I give him grief every day, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that (Saturday). It's going to be higher and harder now that he has a little confidence. Listen to him back there. He's Wayne Gretzky." -- G Andrew Raycroft on the high, glove-side slap shot that tough guy Darcy Hordichuk used to score his first goal Thursday in Minnesota.