Playing himself out of Vancouver?

After the gigantically hyped (and rightly so) return of Mats Sundin to the center of the universe Saturday, few people remember the much less publicized (and rightly so) returns of Burrows, Bernier, and Luongo to Montreal. There's a story in The Province which focuses on Burrows' return to his home town. Quotes are taken from that article.

"I've marked that game since the schedule came out," Burrows said. "It's going to be special. I have a lot of friends and family who will be there for me. My friends, my family and people who I have known throughout my career will be there. It's going to be a lot of fun."

It's great that Burrows is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Newspapers are writing about him, tv stations are commenting about him (I swear Pierre McGuire has a man crush on him), and so on. My fear is that Burrows might be playing himself out of Vancouver. As Gary Vaulk said on Sportsnet a couple weeks ago, if Burrows continues his current play, the Canucks aren't going to be able afford him next season. Add on to the fact that the Sedins are likely to get their 200% pay raise, the likeliness of Burrows returning isn't all that high.

All this positive media Burr is getting is turning our secret weapon into a bonafied NHL star, which would be great if we still had him for a few more years on a $525,000 contract. If this guy has any brains in his head, he'll sign a multiyear contract worth around $3.5 to 4 million a season while he's still the talk of the NHL, and the Canucks just can't afford that.

"It feels pretty good," Burrows said. "It's going to be special. There's a lot of people who didn't think I would ever make it to the NHL and now I'm playing with two of the best players in the world on my line. And we're a good team. It all feels really, really good."

Soak it in Alex, it's probably not going to last.

Here's the pre-game report with Kristin Reid from the Bell Centre, focusing on Burrow's, Luongo's and Bernier's return to Montreal. Taken from canucks.com