End of Game

Mike the Yankee predicted that this game would have a few "guaranteed" moments.  One of which was that a Sedin would take a bad penalty in the 3rd period.  Turned out to not be a Sedin, but rather the guy who’s name rhymes with theirs.  Mats Sundin’s penalty killed the Canucks after they battled back to tie the game at 4 with just about four minutes to go.

Twenty one seconds later, the Blues put the nail in the coffin, and the Canucks were done.  Final score 6 – 4.  And this was the "easy" game this weekend.

Maybe it’d be a good idea to bench LaBarbera for a game or two, and let Curtis Sanford play.  It’s not like it could get worse.

Nobody on the Canucks played like they gave a damn about this game, and things like that need to change.  Because even when Roberto Luongo does come back, it won’t mean a thing if the Canucks continue to play like they did tonight.

Okay, brush it off and focus on the Sharks tomorrow night.  Because it’ll be an ugly weekend in Vancouver if the Canucks play two games in a row like that.

2nd Intermission

If there’s one thing that the Canucks have a habit of doing that will frustrate the hell out of you, it’s trying to sit on a lead against a team that they should have no problem beating. 

And once again, it’s coming back to bite them.

Two goals in a 59-second span has them trailing the Blues in a game where they don’t appear to be playing with any enthusiasm at all, and it’s even being reflected in the crowd at GM Place, which sounds more quiet than I can remember at any time in recent memory.  It’s not really fair to put the blame for thise whole thing on Jason LaBarbera, though.  Through 40 minutes, the whole team has done pretty much nothing.

If the Canucks are thinking ahead to the Saturday night game against the Sharks, then Alain Vigneault needs to smack some people around and remind them that they’re playing *tonight* as well, and that’s what they need to be paying attention to over the last twenty minutes. 

And that stat about the Canucks having a 17-5 record when they score the first goal doesn’t matter much anymore, because when they’re down after two periods, their record is nowhere near that good.

This period will go a long way to show what the Canucks are made of.

1st Intermission

Despite the fact that the Canucks were outplayed in the first period, they escaped with the lead, thanks to a late goal by Willie Mitchell, after Lawrence Nycholat gave the puck away in a brutal pass up the middle in his own end.  Jannik Hansen opened the scoring after being called back up from Manitoba.

As Sportsnet has pointed out, the Canucks are 17-5-4 when they score the first goal of the game, so they odds are certainly in their favour.  However, they’ll have to stay focused on the game, and not dwell on the fact that they’re opponent is one of the league’s bottom dwellers.  That kind of thinking resulted in losses to both the New York Islanders and the Atlanta Thrashers.

It’d be nice to see Mats Sundin get his first points as a Canuck tonight, but more importantly, it’d be good to see them get the two points that they need to chase down the Calgary Flames, who are idle until next Tuesday.  Wins tonight and against the Sharks would still leave them a point back, but a 1 point deficit is much easier to deal with than a 5-point one.

On the night where I participated in my first live blog at the Canucks Fanzone, about the best thing that I can say about the game was that I got to hang out with some cool people online.  Thanks to the Anton Sledgehammer Creative Agency for putting the thing together.  Can’t make it for tonight’s, but I’ll definitely be back.

Short of Daniel Sedin’s 15th goal of the season to open the scoring, there wasn’t a whole lot to write in a positive light about.  The Canucks didn’t play badly, but they just didn’t seem to have any luck going their way.  Just getting the one goal on Christobel Huet wasn’t going to be enough to put the game away.

The game did have its moments, though.  Like Curtis Sanford getting his bell run in a collision with one of the Hawks and Shane O’Brien, who didn’t have a stellar night, in my opinion.  He provided a perfect screen in front of Sanford on the first Hawks goal. 

The power play was ineffective as well, seeming refusing to shoot the puck on net, and preferring to have the puck jump into the net on its own. 

It was a game that it would have greatly benefited the Canucks to win, as well.  The Wild lost to the St. Louis Blues, and Calgary was only a single point up them, so they could have jumped over the Flames into sole possession of the Northwest lead. 

Hopefully things will go better against the Ducks tonight.  And if you get a chance, stop by the FanZone live blog stand in the concourse at GM Place which will be staffed by Rebecca and DaveO of the Crazy Canucks podcast (Dave also hosts the Canucks Outsider podcast). 

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.

It’s not something that the Canucks have been particularly good at over the last year or so – coming from behind.

Their record when they score the first goal of a game far exceeds their record when they don’t.  But last night they came back from a one goal defecit not once, but twice, after falling behind both 1 – 0 and 2 – 1 to the Wild in their building.  And with Curtis Sanford in goal, giving Luongo a well-deserved night off before the Cancuks have an early 2pm game in Pittsburgh on Saturday.

Pavol Demitra picked up a goal and an assist, while both Kyle Wellwood and Henrik Sedin had two assists each, including Daniel’s game winner with a little under 10 minutes remaining in the game.

The win puts the Canucks three points up on the Wild and the Flames for the Northwest Division lead, although they have played 3 more games than Minnesota.

The Pittsburgh game should be interesting, as it’s a rare chance to see the Canucks take on Sidney Crosby in his home rink.  Although the 11am start time here in the west leaves a little to be desired, at least it’s not a pay-per-view game.

Based on the way that they’re playing, I’m standing by my prediction that the Canucks will go 3 – 1 on the road-trip which means they should pick up the two points tomorrow.

Similar to the Philadelphia game last year, it’s good to get one like this out of the way early in the season.  Very early.  There wasn’t a whole lot to talk about that was positive about yesterday’s PPV game against the Capitals.

Other than that fact that Curtis Sanford played pretty well, and according to John Shorthouse, was the only Canuck who hadn’t played in the regular season, so he wasn’t as tired as the others.  Excuse me?  You shouldn’t be tired after the third game of the season.  Fatigue should not be a factor.

It wasn’t that hard to hear the legions jumping off the bandwagon saying, "I knew they sucked."  As if these people actually expected the Canucks to go 82 – 0 during the regular season.  It’s not going to happen, folks.  They’re going to lose games.  Including some that they should win.  Against teams that they should always beat. 

After all, the Red Wings lost to the Leafs on opening night, and theoretically they should never lose to the Leafs.  But it happens.  Teams have off nights, and the Canucks are going to lose games.  But for people (I’m looking at you, McRae) to talk about how the second line has done nothing to contribute so far is absolutely ludicrous.  Who scored the winning goal the other night?  Pavol Demitra. 

Now’s not the time to start panicking about the fact that the Canucks lost a game.  It’s going to happen. 

But don’t start saying that the Canucks are tired three games in.  Because if they are, they’ve got big problems, considering that they’ve only got three games at GM Place in the month of October.  But I don’t think that’s the case.  We’ll just have to see how they do against Detroit on Thursday, and Buffalo on Friday.

From behind the bench:

• Capitals kill the Canucks 5 – 1 – Waiting for Stanley
• A Gentlemanly Evening In The Swamp – Yankee Canuck Liveblog

So the Canucks are 2-0 in the pre-season.  It doesn’t matter.  One thing that happens a lot around Vancouver is that the Canucks have a great pre-season, and then stumble out of the gate.  If they were 0-2 right now, people would either be calling for the heads of Viggy and Mike Gillis, or saying, “It doesn’t matter, they’ll start out right in the regular season.”  But they’re undefeated, but it still doesn’t matter, because they still have as many points as every other team in the Northwest Division.  Zero.

Don’t get me wrong.  It certainly feels better that they’re 2-0, and it can help fuel the optimism, but they’re still games that don’t count.

Okay, soapbox off.  The game was a little more boring than the shootout win the night before, and the crowd certainly didn’t seem like they were in to it that much, but there were some positive signs.  Roberto Luongo played well, as did Curtis Sanford.  Darcy Hordichuk’s goal looked great, especially when they showed on the replay that he’d basically jumped over the boards, got into position, and put the puck past Roloson.  Total time seemed like about 10 seconds from bench to celebration.

Michael Grabner’s goal was good to see as well.  I’m still hoping that he gets a shot here before Hodgson does.  No offense to Hodgson, but a little more time developing wouldn’t be a bad thing.  Sure, he probably *could* play here, but why rush it?  Jannik Hansen deserves a shot at starting the season with the big club, too, as he continues to impress me.

Now that everyone’s had a chance to be showcased, I’d have to say that I’m feeling pretty good about the upcoming season.  Yeah, there’s still things that need to be addressed, like where the goals are going to come from, but I don’t get the feeling that it’s going to be one of those really long seasons where they get about 25 wins, and have a number of 6 and 7 game losing streaks.

Because they’re 2-0 in the preseason.

But it still doesn’t matter.

Thoughts from behind the bench:

• Well Hey There New Guys! – Humming Giraffe
• First Impressions – Canucks Hockey Blog (more of a summary of the players rather than the game itself)
• Thoughts on Canucks Winning AGAIN Against the Oilers – Waiting for Stanley

Was it really only about three weeks ago that people were wondering if Alain Vigneault had already “lost” the room?  The Canucks were a long way back and trade speculation was on the rise.  Who would be the first to go?

Quite the difference three weeks makes, eh?

This morning the Canucks woke up to find themselves tied for first place in the Northwest Division, and only one point behind the Sharks for second place in the Western Conference.  Considering the fact that they did the same thing last year (although waiting till Christmas to turn it around), it shouldn’t really be that much of a surprise to anyone who follows the team.  They have a tendency to start slow, and then after getting kicked around for awhile, decide to do something about it.

And last night they definitely “did something about it”.  They walked into Minnesota and played a great game, capped off by three goals from Markus Naslund, and another by Ryan Kesler.  Considering that the Canucks didn’t get into Minneapolis until about 4:30am after flying in from Edmonton, it wouldn’t have been too hard to believe that they were just going to float for this game.  They did anything but.

They showed that Derek Boogaard could shoot off his mouth all he wanted about going after Naslund and the Sedins.  They shut him up pretty quickly, scoring twice in the span of about 30 seconds to silence the crowd.  Boogaard had a total of about three minutes of ice time.  Ah well.

Curtis Sanford played well also, picking up his second win of the season in as many starts.  Next up, St. Louis.

From the bench:

• J.J. at the Canucks Hockey Blog
• The Yankee Canuck liveblogged the game.  Always entertaining.  Always.

And the pressbox:

• Naslund, Canucks catch up with Wild (TSN)