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.

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.

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.

Brian at Canucks Corner posted that not getting Mats Sundin wouldn’t be the end of the world for the Canucks, and I think that he’s both right and wrong.

At this point in time, the Canucks aren’t suffering as badly in the scoring department as the whole world full of “experts” just knew they would.  That’s not to say that they couldn’t use more scoring, but if they continued at their current pace, even without Sundin, things wouldn’t be that bad.

And despite what Darcy Hordichuk said about the chemistry being just fine without bringing in a newcomer, the chemistry of a team changes regularly, as it did when Roberto Luongo went out, and Cory Schneider came in.  And it changes again after the trading deadline if a team makes a deal.  If Sundin came to Vancouver, the team would adjust, and so would Sundin.

But bringing Sundin in would definitely benefit the Canucks in other ways.  If the Canucks go deep into the playoffs this year, they’re going to run across teams like San Jose or Detroit.  And while the Canucks have seemed to have the Wings number so far, the playoffs, as everyone knows, is a completely different animal.

Despite coming from a team that’s regularly playing golf in late April, the biggest benefit that the Canucks could get from Sundin is in the playoffs, if for no other reason that he’s only going to play half a season, and won’t be as tired as everyone else if the Canucks do go deep.

So Sundin would no doubt be a great addition to the Canucks.

Just maybe not for all of the reasons that people think.

The  Canucks that struggled through a four game losing streak disappeared on Friday night.  Problem was, they came back on Sunday night.

The Canucks were able to get Cory Schneider his first NHL victory with a 2-1 win over the Wild, in a game where they looked like the streak had been forgotten.

But then they ran up against the Colorado Avalanche, and they looked like they could be starting another skid.  Let’s hope not.  The losing streak against Colorado has now been stretched to eight games after a poor overall showing, but Schneider let in a couple of soft ones as the Canucks surrendered a third period lead resulting in a shootout loss.  Reports are now surfacing that Roberto Luongo may be back as early as Saturday to play against the Edmonton Oilers.

The Canucks follow the NHL’s brilliant scheduling process again which sees them go from Miny to Colorado, and all the way back across the continent to play in Tennessee.  At least they get four days off before they head to Edmonton.

Seriously, though, who thought that that was a good travel plan?  They couldn’t have gone to Nashville on their last eastern road swing?

Look, I know that most of the teams in the league are in the eastern time zone, but there needs to be even more done to the parity of the scheduling format in the NHL.  Yes, things, are better, but then you still get teams like the Canucks playing a couple in New York, before heading west to play the Wild before going east again to play the Penguins.  And, oh, heading home the next night to play Detroit.

How often do you think the Leafs will play in couple in California before flying to Atlanta or Nashville, before heading to Vancouver or Edmonton the next night?  Did I hear someone say, “Never”?  Why, you’d be exactly right.

Something still needs to be done, but I wouldn’t anticipate any changes for at least a few years.  It’d be great to see them get rid of the East vs West playoff scheme as well, but that’s for another post.

The amazing thing is that the Canucks didn’t fall to second in the Northwest Division until they’d lost four in a row.  Sure the Flames and Wild reeled them in a bit, but they seemed to hit mini-skids at the same time, always remaining a point or two back.

But no longer.  After four losses in a row, the Canucks find themselves below the Wild in the division, with first place on the line again as they face the Wild tonight.

The Canucks went into the third period tied with the Wings (a good sign), but a bad three minute span put them down by three goals, and in a place like Detroit, that’s a hard mountain to have to climb. Although they did make a game of it, potting a couple more of their own to make it close.  It’s the first time this year that they’ve scored more than four goals and lost the game.

Curtis Sanford didn’t have a particularly good night, being pulled in favour of Cory Schneider, who’s seeing a lot more ice time than he probably figured he would when he got called up from Manitoba.

The Canucks only gave up one power play goal, to a Detroit team that has a frightening 31% power play efficiency, and even kicked in a PP goal of their own, courtesy of Kyle Wellwood.

Being a PPV, I can only comment on the game in as much as I saw from the highlights on Sportsnet, so I’m going to wrap this up.  It’s the Wild tonight, and I wouldn’t be that surprised to see Schneider get the start again.

From behind the bench:

• Vancouver vs Detroit – A Graphical Post-Game Analysis (Canucks & Beyond)
• Canucks Lack Consistent Effort As Losing Skid Hits 4 Straight – Waiting for Stanley

Okay, something’s gotta be done here.  I was *kidding* when I said that they would have problems with the Blue Jackets last night, okay?  And damned if they didn’t go and give another one away, just like the Islanders game.

Guys.  This was a team you should have been able to beat.  Handily.  Even without Luongo.  What is is it going to take to get the Canucks to stop taking stupid penalties?  This is ridiculous.  With no viable offense to speak of in the last three games, it wouldn’t matter if they had Luongo or not.  You can’t win if you can’t score.

Now, baed on what we’ve seen earlier in the season, the Canucks have proven that they can score, and occasionally in bunches.  But they’ve picked a very bad time to go dry.  If they were still putting the puck in the net four times a game, it wouldn’t matter so much if Roberto was in the net or not.  And now Curtis Sanford comes up with back spasms, making Cory Schneider the man.  As Mike the Yankee put it, “the AHL ain’t the NHL”.  We’ll have to see how long this problem continues before either Sanford or Luongo makes another appearance.

Next up is the Red Wings (jeez, they seem like a divisional team, don’t they?) and I’m going to go out on a limb and call this one for the Canucks.  The streak has to break sometime, after all.

Can you hear that sound?  Sounds a lot like people jumping off the bandwagon.  While there were undoubtedly those who immediately wrote the Canucks off for the balance of the year after Luongo’s injury, there were some who held on for the wins over the Wild and Red Wings.  But dropping two in a row to the Calgary Flames pushed a few more over the edge I’ll bet.

I didn’t get a chance to see last Thursday’s game (it was my wife’s birthday, after all) but I did catch the Saturday rematch, and it was the typical Canucks-Flames game, very wide-open and fast.  I thought Cory Schneider did pretty well, even if it wasn’t the desired result.

Whether it was stellar defence for the Flames, or just a bad night for the Canucks, the offence just couldn’t get anything going, there wasn’t really a whole lot of pressure around Kiprusoff.  Penalty trouble continued to plague the Canucks, as usual at pretty inoportune times.  I don’t know if there’s anything that Alain Vigneault can do about that short of fining players for taking stupid penalties.  Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.  Probably against the CBA.

For now, though, they have to focus on the balance of this long road trip, that lasts another six games, all of which are against Western Conference teams.  It wasn’t his fault, but this REALLY wasn’t the best time of year for Roberto Luongo to get injured.  Yes, Curtis Sanford is capable, but this is a long grind, and the Canucks have a tendency to get tired onlong trips.  And this one lasts two weeks.

First up are the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team which for some reason always seems to give the Canucks trouble.  But seeing as how they’re now just one point up on both Calgary and Minnesota, it’s time to focus on getting as many points as possible before coming back to GM Place.

It had all the potential to go horribly wrong.  The Canucks were playing at home after an eastern road swing.  Roberto Luongo injured himself on said road trip and no one knows how long he’s going to be out.  They were playing the Detroit Red Wings.  They gave up the first goal, and trailed late in the game.  Like I said – it could all go very, very wrong.

But not this time.  With Curtis Sanford making his third appearance in as many games, the Canucks rallied twice to beat the Wings in overtime again, with Sami Salo burying the puck behind Chris Osgood in an extra frame that the Canucks totally dominated.  The fact that they were on the powerplay helped as well.

Watching this game, I was amazed to learn that the Canucks had been substantially outshot in the game, because that’s not how it looked.  When the Canucks play the wings, it’s always a wide open, free-wheeling game, with no trapping in site.  It makes the game much more enjoyable to watch.  Kind of like a game against the Flames.

So Cory Schneider has been called up from the Moose to backup Sanford as long as Luongo is going to be out, and you have to think that he’s going to have to get some ice time eventually.  Maybe not against the Flames this Thursday, but he’ll get at least one start before he goes back to Manitoba.  Based on the way he’s been playing down there, they’d have to be nuts to not give him at least one shot.

The one thing that I hope the Canucks learn from last night’s game is that they can run with any team in the league – even the elite ones – if they just stay out of the penalty box.  Last time they played the Wings they took a lot of penalties, and it cost them.  This time?  Only three powerplays for Detroit, and the Canucks came out on top.

They also didn’t roll over and die when Detroit took the lead late in the game.  Just a minute and ten seconds later, Daniel Sedin scored his 400th point on a deflection that was an absolute thing of beauty.  That is *exactly* how a deflection should go in.

Next up is the Flames on Thursday, and the Canucks will be looking to increase their lead in the Northwest, as the Wild are failing to pick up any ground on them.