VANCOUVER – Everyone on the Vancouver Canucks survived something last season, but Derek Forbort endured more than most.

“Life gets tough sometimes,” the 33-year-old defenceman said Tuesday. “You’ve just got to kind of keep going.”

Three games into the one-year contract he signed with the Canucks last summer, the defenceman left the team a year ago to be with his dying father and family back home in Duluth, Minn. Keith Forbort, a school teacher whose backyard rinks were neighborhood hubs when Derek was growing up, passed away from colon cancer on Oct. 16 at the age of 62.

One game after returning to the Canucks, Forbort collided with teammate Nils Hoglander during a practice in Anaheim on Nov. 4 and tore the medial collateral ligament in his knee.

By the time Forbort recovered and retur

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