As was kind of expected, the Canucks sent both Michael Grabner and Cory Schneider down to the Manitoba Moose today, keeping both Sergei Shirokov and Cody Hodgson with the big club for now.  Lawrence Nycholat and Brad Lukowich were both placed on waivers.

It’s not that big of a surprise that Grabner’s going to be starting the season in Winnipeg.  No one was given more of a chance to shine than he was, with appearances in seven of the nine pre-season games.  The problem is, he only picked up one assist.  That ain’t going to keep you here.

Cody Hodgson is another matter.  While no one would claim that he had a stellar pre-season, he may have extended his NHL life for this year by another nine games before being sent back to Brampton.  Unless he sets the world on fire, don’t expect to see him here in November. 

Ed Willes wrote in this morning’s Province that this edition of the Canucks may be the best ever.  Even better than the 2003-04 team, which had extremely high expectations put on it before flaming out.  While that team may have had Todd Bertuzzi, Markus Naslund, and the Sedins, this one has Alex Burrows, Ryan Kesler, and the Sedins – just five years older.  And that much better.  And, oh, yeah.  This guy named Roberto Luongo. 

Is it unfair to place lofty expectations on the Canucks?  Possibly.  The two years that they made it to the Stanley Cup Finals they were hardly expected to do anything in the playoffs.  It almost seems like the more promise they show, the harder they crash.  And the more unlikely they seem to have success, the better they perform.  Who knows why.

Sergei Shirokov played his way on to this team as well.  Is he going to be another Pavel Bure?  Hell, no.  But is he going to help Canucks forget about some of the other Russians that have played here, like Artem Chubarov or Vladamir Krutov?  Hell, yeah.  He’s going to be an exciting player, no doubt.  Not a 50 goal guy, but still exciting, nonetheless.

It’s going to be a fun year, and it all starts in Calgary on Thursday night.  Predictions?

Update: Okay, so what do I know?  According to Canucks.com, Cody Hodgson has been assigned to the Brampton Batillion of the OHL.  This came down about 15 minutes ago.  So, when I posted, he technically was still here.  It just hadn’t been made public yet.  Probably better for Cody in the long run.

Got up this morning to check TSN’s website for the final score of the Canucks’ game that I missed last night to find that they’d lost 3-2 in overtime.  Then I made the mistake of reading the comments posted to the story.  These people need to get a life.

A loss in preseason and they’re saying that Vancouver has just proven that they’re going to completely meltdown, barely win any games, let alone make the playoffs, and that the city should cancel the parade.  Damn Leafs fans sure do get bitter, don’t they?  Sure, they’ve won 11 Stanley Cups.  In a SIX TEAM LEAGUE.

Look, people.  NO Canucks fan would be stupid enough to say that they’re going to go 82-0 and then 16-0 in the playoffs to win the Stanley Cup.  They’re GOING TO LOSE GAMES.  And Canucks fans also don’t *expect* to win the Cup at the start of every season (those are Habs fans – and with 23 cups, that’s fair).

The truth is, the two best Canadian teams last year (and it looks like this year as well) are the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames.  Deal with it.  Personally, I think that the Canucks will finish somewhere between 4th and 7th in the West this year.  Same thing I predicted last year.  The fact that Calgary had a train wreck at the end of the season that allowed the Canucks to pick up their second Northwest title in three years was an extra bonus.  But if the Canucks hadn’t also been winning games, it wouldn’t have mattered what Calgary did.

They also said that the Canucks weren’t playing well, but that they just got hot at the right time.  Uh…yes?  Isn’t that the whole point?  To get on a hot streak and win games at the end of the year?

Anyway, the rant is over.  The Canucks lost, and now everyone can just get over it and start thinking about the regular season again. 

Sure looked like the Canucks’ unbeaten streak in the preseason was going to end, didn’t it?  There were times in the last couple of years that the Canucks being down 2-0 would have meant that it was time to fold the tents and get ready for the next game.  Even if it was the first 10 minutes of the first period.

That sure didn’t happen last night.  Down two goals going into the third period has never been a good scenario for the Canucks.  Someone apparently forgot to tell them that, though.  Shortly after getting the tying goal, Tyler Glass kicked in with what looked like the game winner.  But, penalty trouble being what it is, a powerplay goal got the Sharks right back into the game, and overtime it was. 

Even a Canucks powerplay in the extra period couldn’t get it done, though, so it was a shootout for the second time in as many games.  I don’t know if shootouts are something they’ve been working on or not, but they’ve gotten a lot better at them than last year (3-7, I believe.)  This year they’re already 2-0 and don’t really show any signs of being worried about having to go into the shootout. But with Roberto Luongo in net, you should really only have to worry about putting the puck behind the opposing goaltender, and let him worry about stopping the pucks he needs to.

Noticeable play last night?  Yann Sauve.  And not in a good way.  He seemed to be struggling a whole lot for the entire game, and looks destined to start the season down in Manitoba again.  Other than that, it was a pretty gutsy comeback from a team that historically gives up when the hill to climb gets too steep.

Maybe it’s a sign of good things to come.

While listening to the Team this morning I heard Ray Ferraro talk about how it doesn’t really mean a whole lot if a team goes through the preseason undefeated.

Theoretically, no, it doesn’t mean anything.  But who do you think is more likely to get a better start to the season?  A team that goes 8-0, or 7-1, or the team that finishes the preseason at 2-6?

He then goes on to point out that teams knock themselves out to perform well in the preseason, and guys wind up getting hurt.  Uh, Ray, you don’t think it has ANYTHING to do with the fact that "training camp" is a weekend event and then the preseason games start?  It wasn’t that way when he started out in the league.  Sure, guys got hurt in the preseason, but you didn’t hear about 4 or 5 guys being out with pulled groins like you hear now with the Minnesota Wild.

And the reason there really is no "training camp" is that the NHLPA had it put into the CBA that you essentially couldn’t work the players that hard. Worried about injuries, I believe. What’s next? Going to have practices banned too?

You can forget the line about how the players keep themselves in better shape during the off-season doesn’t really apply, either. Or should we not mention the name Kyle Wellwood? I mean, he did such a good job getting ready for last season, right?

Look, when players jump into a preseason that is 10% of the length of the regular season crammed into three weeks, after only two days of conditioning and testing, what the hell do you think is going to happen? People are going to get hurt.

Maybe they should cut the number of preseason games, and extend the conditioning time by about a week, and just see how many more (or fewer) injuries are suffered during the preseason and in the first 10 games of the regular season.

Just a thought.

An interesting scenario – considering the way that Cody Hodgson has played in the preseason, what would be the best course of action for the Canucks to take? 

Sure, the guy’s had a tougher preseason than most, and hasn’t really stood out (like I thought he did last year) but he played in 120+ games last year and is still coming off of a back injury.  But unfortunately, the best situation to put him in (in my opinion, anyway), isn’t available to them.

Because of his age, Hodgson isn’t eligible to play for the Manitoba Moose on a full time basis.  The AHL’s minimum age for full-time players is 20.  Hodgson won’t be 20 until the Olympics are underway in February.  So they either have to send him back to Brampton, or keep him here.  Both scenarios have disadvantages.

Hodgson was unquestionably one of the best players in the CHL last year.  So what good would it do to send the guy back to Junior?  How much more can he learn by playing another year of Junior?  Maybe enough to keep him here full time NEXT season?  Who knows.

But if the Canucks were to keep him here, and if he’s not getting steady game time, what is he going to gain by sitting in the press box?  Sure, he’ll learn a lot by being around the team, but sitting up in a skybox, removed from teammates, night after night isn’t going to do anything for his game. 

It’s looking more and more like Hodgson will be sent back to play another year in Brampton.  Hopefully it won’t have a negative impact on his game, because when the kid is able to stick here, I think he’ll be a good, solid piece of the Canucks’ future. 

Right now, it just doesn’t look like this is his year.

Well, that’s not much of a way to win a hockey game.  Considering the fact that the Canucks had a 3-0 lead in the second period, after having held the Flames to only 2 shots in the first period, they shouldn’t have had to go to a shootout to decide it.

Especially considering that they gave up 4 unanswered goals to let the Flames take the lead, before getting *two* goals in the last 15 seconds to force overtime (with the first being waved off, it was up to Daniel Sedin to score with 0.2 seconds left to give the Canucks a chance to keep their unbeaten streak in the preseason alive.

So it kind of figures that it would be Daniel who scored the winner in the shootout, too, doesn’t it?  After the game Alain Vigneault said that Cory Schneider needed to be better, although from what I saw of the game, he didn’t look that bad – one of the Flames goals came about because one of his defensemen backed right into him.  Kind of hard to fault the guy on something like that.

But, when it comes right down to it, the Canucks are still unbeaten in the preseason, and hopefully will be able to ride a streak like this right into the regular season, and get the year started off right.

For the last few years, the mainstream press have been dumping all over the Canucks, claiming that they’ll have a real struggle getting out of the Western Conference basement, let alone making the playoffs.  It’s kind of funny, then that they have Northwest championship banners hanging from the rafters in two of the last three seasons (while missing the playoffs the year before last.  Let’s hope that’s not a pattern…)

The common claim is that the Canucks need to find someone who can score if they’re to do *anything* in the regular season.  And that’s absolutely correct.  But, if the Canucks don’t have anyone who can score, how come they scored 246 goals last year, or an average of 3 goals per game?  Since the lockout, they’ve scored, on average: 3.12 GPP (2005-06, 256 goals, missed playoffs), 2.71 GPP (2006-07, 222 goals, 1st NW), 2.60 GPP (2007-08, 213 goals, missed playoffs), and 3.0 GPP (2008-09, 246 goals, 1st NW). (Source: Wikipedia)

Do they need more scoring?  Sure, what team doesn’t?  But are they incapable of scoring?  Of course not.  But it seems like every year, they have someone step up and contribute in ways that they never have before.  Last year it was Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler.  Will they continue at the same pace as last year, or will someone else be the surprise of the year?

Where do others think the Canucks will finish?  Let’s take a look:

• Bleacher Report: 6th place.  They may rate the Canucks a little higher now, as this post was written back in the summer, before the signings of Daniel and Henrik Sedin and Roberto Luongo.
• The Hockey News: 3rd place.  They figure that the Canucks won the Northwest title while Luongo only played in 54 games, and that things will be that much easier if he can play even more.  Plus, they’re banking on the Sedins continuing to put up points, and Burrows and Kes continuing to produce, along with Mason Raymond.
• Associated Content: Top half of conference.  Okay, so that one’s a little wishy-washy, but what are you gonna do?  Citing the performance of Luongo and the twins, along with Cody Hodgson, they figure that it’ll be the Canucks and the Flames fighting for the NW title again.  Not a bad prediction.

And those were all of the predictions I was able to find so far.  Admittedly, making predictions when the pre-season isn’t even half over is pretty easy.  You could throw darts and make it sound good.  When I’m able to collect a few more predictions I’ll do a follow-up post, and add my own at that time.

It seems like it was just last year that the Canucks were 4-0 in the preseason.  Oh.  Wait.  It WAS just last year.

This year I’ve not really been paying attention to the mainstream media (also known as the ‘experts’ who picked the Canucks to finish 13th or 14th last year.  For what it’s worth, I predicted that they’d finish somewhere between 4th and 7th in the West).

So it’s nice to see that they’re again undefeated so far in the preseason.  Especially when they play three games in three nights.  And  Roberto Luongo hasn’t played in every win.  And they’ve beaten the Sharks again.  And the Oilers.  (That just feels good on principle alone).

Bobby wrote a post last year about supporting the Canucks – after all, they were 4 – 0 in the preseason.  Sure, the games aren’t for points, but building momentum going into the season is a good thing, right?  And would you really prefer that they be 0 – 4?  Yeah, I thought so.

The last line of Bobby’s post says it best:

The Vancouver Canucks are 4-0 in the preseason so far.

Enjoy it.

The Canucks, even though they didn’t play badly against the Islanders the other night, played a much more complete game last night, shutting out the Ducks.  Roberto Luongo  was in great form, and Cory Schneider did well to contribute to the shutout, even stopping a penalty shot late in the third period.

It was good to see that the scoring came from those who might not be considered the ‘usual’ scorers, either – Steve Bernier, Kevin Bieksa (although it sure looked like his shot from the point was re-directed), and Aaron Rome, who rather impressed Zandberg over at ‘Nucks Misconduct.

I didn’t get a chance to see the first period due to a family event, but what I saw of the last 40 minutes was a vast improvement over the opening game against the Isles.  The passing was better, there weren’t a lot of giveaways, or any of the things that you normally come to expect in a preseason game.  Of course, they did dress a more ‘NHL-ready’ lineup in the second game, but still…there were no Sedins, no Willie Mitchell, etc.

As gets mentioned every year, the Canucks are going to need someone to step up and put the puck in the net throughout the season, not just for the first fifteen or twenty games.  It’ll be interesting to see who tries to make a go of it, though.  My money’s on Sergei Shirokov, if he sticks.  Although I’m of the opinion that he’s no Pavel Bure, it sure would be nice to see that kind of excitement again, no?

The Canucks are still down in California to play the Sharks tonight before they face the Oilers tomorrow night.  Three games in as many nights shouldn’t be a problem this early in the year, but we’ll just have to see.

What can you say about last night’s game other than it was a preseason game, and it was good to see the Canucks back out on the ice.

It wasn’t a stellar effort, but the Canucks did seem to carry the play a little more than did the Islanders.  The passing definitely could have been better (both teams were guilty of poor passing at times), but, as mentioned above, it was only the first game of the preseason.

Sergei Shirokov played pretty well (2 goals will do that), as did both Cory Schneider and Rick Rypien, who chipped in with a couple of fights.  Ronald Petrovicky impressed me a little, too.  The guy just kept digging whenever he was on the ice, which seemed to be all the time.

Nobody was really guilty of any boneheaded plays, the kind that you want the guys to get out of their system before the games start counting.

And Terrace did a great job of hosting the whole thing, with about 10% of the town’s entire population showing up for the game.  Those that weren’t able to get into the game were treated to appearances by Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa at an outdoor event.

All in all it was a good night for the Canucks who have to get ready to head down to Anaheim to face the Ducks on Thursday.  I wouldn’t really expect to see anything resembling the actual regular season lineup until probably game 6 or so.  By that time everything will be flushed out, with the odd players on the bubble being given final chances to either make the team, get sent to Manitoba, or be released.