Willie Mitchell Winning Converts in Vancouver

Over at Puck Daddy this weekend, Greg Wyshynski repeated one of the absolute truisms of today's NHL: we all love Calgary's Jarome Iginla because he's a superstar who not only puts the puck in the net, he's also not afraid to stand up for himself and drop the gloves when the time comes.

Such was the case on Saturday night against the Canucks when the Calgary captain tussled with Cancuks defenseman Willie Mitchell:
But there's another side to this story. Because while Iginla might have won that battle, it was Mitchell -- who was assigned to shadow Iginla -- and the Canucks who won the war. Here's Ben Kuzma of The Province (British Columbia) on how Mitchell is winning over his teammates:

While the television highlight clip and an image in many papers captured Iginla landing a late left hand, Mitchell was ahead on the scorecard. He also won the intimidation game because Iginla was held pointless and finished a minus-1 on the night. Mitchell was plus-3.

Needless to say, Mitchell also won the admiration of his teammates for taking on Iginla.

"That's awesome," said Ryan Kesler. "They battle game in and game out and see a lot of each other and it was good for them to go toe-to-toe." [...]

"I knew he was a tough guy to play against and a very good defenceman, but what he did [Saturday] was huge," said centre Ryan Johnson. "It resonates through the rest of the year."

I'm not going to pretend that Mitchell is some sort of superstar. Then again, in a league with a salary cap, there's something to be said for players who know their role and excel in embracing a style reminiscent of Neil Sheehy.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.