Canucks get hip to Mo's groove (1)

LOS ANGELES -- They are handing out the Oscars here on Sunday and we have a late nomination.

Brendan Morrison is up in a new category -- best comeback performance by a centre whose season looked like it was going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Okay, the name of the category needs some tightening up, but you get the picture. Morrison, after an awful start, has been better lately. Much better.

The Canucks, 19-3-3 since Christmas, will be gunning for their seventh straight win on Sunday in Dallas and Morrison's play is one of the reasons the team is on such a long roll.

Just like his team, Morrison has been a different player since the Christmas break. Earlier this season, his offensive contributions were, at best, sporadic, and he was taking too many careless penalties.

But something's changed. Lately, he has looked more like the old Brendan Morrison, the one with the great wheels and a nose for the net.

His goal in Thursday night's 3-2 win over the Los Angles Kings was Morrison's 17th of the season. Suddenly he is on pace for 23 or 24 goals. He had 19 last season and scored a career-high 25 in 2002-03.

Morrison, who has eight points in his last six games, can't put his finger on exactly what has changed.

"I just feel like I have been skating better from Christmas on really," he said Friday before the team left Los Angeles for Texas. "I'm also trying to shoot a little bit more and I'm settling in with some linemates [Trevor Linden and Matt Cooke] and that has also helped. I think Cookie is playing much better, too. He is starting to score a bit. All of those things add up."

Only when pressed does Morrison acknowledge what could in fact be the main reason for his improved play. He spent last summer recovering from off-season hip surgery and only lately has begun feeling anywhere close to 100 per cent.

"I felt good enough to play," he said.

"That was not an issue. But I will say I have been feeling better as time goes by. I'd say I'm about 85 per cent. I think another summer of strengthening my hip will push me back to 100 per cent. It's as good as it is going to be right now."

Morrison, whose game relies so heavily on his skating, seems to have found that extra step. For this, coach Alain Vigneault is thankful.

"He's moving his feet better and he is going to the tougher areas," Vigneault said Friday. "I don't know what he would say to this, but I do think that injury was probably more severe than he might have let on. It probably took him a while to feel comfortable with his stride and the power that he has there and now you can sense that he's feeling a lot more comfortable. He must have close to a point a game here since Christmas or close to it. He's always on the score sheet, so for us it's really, really positive."

Positive is not a word Morrison would use to describe the first half of the season. The team was struggling and Morrison often blamed himself for those struggles.

"It was tough and biggest reason why it was tough was because we were losing a lot of tight games and you come home after games and think if I was on tonight or if I scored I could have made a difference," Morrison said. "That was the tough part. You can kind of get by in those situations when the team is winning. But when you're losing tight games and feel like you can be a difference-maker and you're not, that's when it becomes frustrating."