I can’t think of anything that would have been better than to be following a live blog of the Leafs – Canucks game last night.  From the Leafs perspective.  It would have almost been insufferable, listening to people going on about how the Leafs scored in the first minute of the game, and chased Roberto Luongo after the first period, to be replaced by Leafs cast-off Andrew Raycroft.  And it was kind of funny to listen to Craig Simpson trying to figure out just what the big deal was about the Sedins and Alex Burrows.  Jim Hughson was rather quiet on that subject.  Did a good job of letting Simpson paint himself into a corner.

By the end of the game, Simpson was trying to figure out what the hell happened.  The Sedin-Burrows line took the Leafs apart, scoring all five goals in what was one of the most satisfying victories in a long time.  Simpson had no idea why the Leafs didn’t just “contain the Sedins” and then Burrows would be neutralized.  Hughie flat out asked him, “Don’t you think other teams would have thought of that?  It doesn’t work.”

It was great to see Andrew Raycroft enjoying himself out on the ice towards the end, celebrating with those wearing Canucks jerseys, and giving it to the Leafs fans.  I didn’t realize that the Leafs were still paying his salary, too.  Cool to think that they were paying the goalie that came back into town and beat them on Hockey Day in Canada.

Turns out after the game that Brian Burke pulled off a seven player deal with the Calgary Flames, that included Dion Phaneuff leaving a team that might still make the playoffs for a team that definitely won’t.  I’m sure he’s thrilled.

There couldn’t have been a much better start for the road-trip from hell.  After all, the only thing more satisfying than beating the Oilers, is beating the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Next up, Montreal.

Other Thoughts:

• It’s Just Not Being Good Enough – Pension Plan Puppets
• Hockey Day In Canada Was Not Fun in Toronto – Frozen Leafs
• Canucks Erase 3-0 Leafs Lead and Embarrass Them 5-3 – Nucks Misconduct
• Sunday Morning Coffee: The Comeback – Nucks Misconduct

Any time your power play is effective 80% of the time, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re going to wind up with two points for the win.  Which is exactly what happened last night.  The fact that it happened against the Oilers made it even better.

While having a four goal lead after the first 12 minutes of the game is great, it’s not always the best position for the Canucks to be in.  Once they have a lead like that, they can have a tendency to try and sit on the lead, which is a dangerous tactic to try, regardless of whether you’re playing San Jose or Toronto (okay, maybe not so dangerous against the Leafs).

After Gilbert Brule gave the Oilers some vague hope of at least scoring, Tanner Glass restored the four goal lead, and that appeared to be the end of the Oilers.

Then the second period started.  And in a span of just a minute and four seconds, the Oilers were within two, and I’m sure the tension was starting to creep back into GM Place.  They couldn’t really blow a four goal lead, could they? 

Thankfully, that didn’t happen, with Alex Edler and Mikael Samuelsson contributing to the effort to put the Oilers away, for the Canucks’ fourth win in five games. 

It was a night when a number of players got the scoring monkey off their backs.  Daniel Sedin finally got his first of the year, Edler got his first dating back to last year, and Alex Burrows seems to have benefited from Daniel’s return, scoring his second goal in as many games.

A lot was made about the fact that the Oilers were a tired, injured team, and while that might be the case, I don’t remember hearing the Canucks using the injuries as an excuse when they had a lot of regulars out of action.  They just sucked it up and kept playing.  Did pretty well, too, if I recall.

The game against the Sharks tonight should be really interesting, as San Jose had an emotional win over the Oilers themselves a couple of nights ago.  The Sharks are looking like the scary team that they were at the start of last season, although maybe not quite as completely dominating, but you still can’t dispute their record.  If the Canucks want to show what they’re capable of doing, tonight’s the night.

So let me get this straight.  Willie Mitchell throws a perfectly legal hit on Johnathan Toews, and gets a penalty for it.  The Canucks have a 2 on 0 breakaway blown dead because Dustin Byfuglien jumps Mitchell.  Beautiful.

Apparently goaltenders don’t need to stop breakaways anymore.  Someone just needs to jump someone behind the play, and things get blown dead.  No more breakaway.

This whole thing lately about a fight breaking out over a clean but hard hit is just pissing me off. It’s a physical game, for God’s sake.  People get hurt.  Just because someone gets hurt from a hit DOESN’T mean it was a dirty hit.

Did the Pens get jumped when Roberto Luongo got hurt last year?  Was there a fight after Daniel Sedin or Sami Salo got hurt earlier this year?  (Okay, bad example on Salo).

Regardless, the Canucks played as close to a complete game as they have in awhile, coming back to beat the Blackhawks for their first road win of the year.  Killing off 5 on 3’s, Michael Grabner getting his first NHL goal, and Mikael Samuelsson chipping in the game winner.

Alain Vigneault has been a little too light on the Canucks (at least in the media) by saying that the Canucks have been out-chancing their opponents two or three to one lately.  Uh, coach?  How many points do you get for outshooting the other team 40 – 20 if you lose 3-1?  That’s right.  NONE.  You need to get chances, but if you don’t finish more of them, you might as well have not had them.

Hopefully the trend continues tonight with a Leafs team that’s had a week off, but is still looking for its first win.  Best thing that they could do?  Jump out to a quick two goal lead to take the pressure off, and then keep driving.  Hell, run up the score.

Because, of course, there’s nothing better than beating the Leafs on national TV.  Until the playoffs start, of course.  Not that the Leafs will be playing in the post season anyway.

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.

Hey, Calgary.  You hear that?  It’s the Vancouver Canucks.  They now sit just one point back for the Northwest division lead.  Yeah, both teams have seven games left, but you get to play the San Jose Sharks tonight.  The Canucks get the Wild, Avs, and Oilers.  Rest assured that the Canuck Nation will be watching.   Seeing a double digit lead dissolve like that it is painful if it happens to  your team.  Believe me, Canucks fans know all about it.  But it sure is nice to see it happen to someone else.

Everyone’s been talking about how the Canucks are likely to meet the Blackhawks in the first round of the playoffs.  Not if this keeps up.  If the Canucks pass the Flames for the division lead, it’ll be Columbus (for now, anyway).  Not that it’ll be as easy last night even if the Canucks do meet the Hawks in the first round, though.  But then it won’t be a fight-filled affair, either.  The playoffs haven’t been like that for about 20 years now.

Who would have thought that the team that “has no scoring” could theoretically have three 30 goal scorers in the same season?  It probably won’t happen (Ryan Kesler would have to score six in the remaining 7 games), but Alex Burrows could get there (just 4 more needed), and Daniel Sedin’s already there after last night’s performance.

The way that the standings shape up right now, only the Canucks and the Flames are going to make it out of the Northwest Division.  The only reason that this is unfortunate is that it makes the Canucks travel a lot more in the playoffs.  But that’s a post for later today.

There’s just one more game on this road trip that at times looked like it could have gone very, very wrong.  But the Canucks kept finding ways to bounce back from what were admittedly pretty poor performances to stay in the chase for the Northwest lead.  I guess we’ll see what happens tonight with the Flames (go Sharks) and tomorrow against the Wild.

Thankfully the Canucks were finally able to shake off the fact that they hadn’t beaten the San Jose Sharks this year (although their last game was close).  It didn’t matter that the Sharks were without a number of regulars in the long run.  The Canucks picked up another couple of points, although they can’t seem to get any closer to the currently struggling Flames.

It was good to see Mats Sundin finally get another goal, his first in about 11 games, and Roberto Luongo played the way he’ll need to in the playoffs.

All you can hope is that they don’t start taking their next four games – 2 against the Kings, and singles against the Ducks and Avalanche – lightly.  In the past the Canucks have had a tendency to not play as well against some of their weaker opponents, and this would be the time to start stepping on the gas, and working towards catching the Flames.  Not sitting back and figuring that a split of the next four games would be good enough.

Of course, there’s never any indication that this WILL happen, it just seems to turn out that way sometimes.

How long are Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler going to keep playing as well as they have?  Who knows.  But they’ve definitely been major parts of what’s been happening lately here in Canuck-land.  And as pointed out on Nucks Misconduct, they’re getting wins even though both the power play and the PK currently suck, Luongo is only 10th in the league in goals against and save percentage, and the only one on the team with more than 20 goals is Daniel Sedin (although Burrows is knocking on that door).

I think these next four games will be a better indicator of what’s to come rather than just a single game against the Sharks.

Thoughts from behind the bench:

• Who Said That? – Crashing the Goalie
• Yeah, yeah, the Canucks beat the Sharks…. – Nucks Misconduct
• Canucks / Sharks – The Humming Giraffe

For the longest time, without Roberto Luongo, the Canucks gave the impression that they were going to be able to weather the loss of their star goaltender.  Sure, they lost more than they won, but they didn’t really slip much in the standings.  Until Luongo came back.  Since then, the Canucks are barely holding on to a playoff spot, and have slipped to third in their division.

But if the game against San Jose the other night is any indication, things might not be that bad.  In a game that they should have won, the Canucks obviously haven’t learned to keep the Sedins off the ice late in the game, or in overtime.  This seems to be the time that they take bad penalties, and in this case, it cost them, with Daniel Sedin sitting in the box after a lazy penalty in the San Jose end of the rink.

There’s been speculation as to whether the All-Star break came at a good time for the Canucks, or a bad time.  I’d say it was a good time, as it gives everyone (except Luongo) time away from the game to think about what they have to accomplish over their remaining 34 games.  Some in the media have said that it’s going to take 21 or 22 wins to even make the playoffs.  Considering what they did two years ago, and what they did at the start of the season, it’s possible.  It’s not easy, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s possible.

I have a feeling that there will be personnel changes before the trading deadline, but it’s hard to say who might be available.  The Canucks don’t have anything that the Lightning would want to get LeCavelier, or the price would be way too high.

Once they get back from this break, and start realizing what they have to do get into the playoffs, I think that they’ll be able to get it done.

They don’t need to win 22 of 34 to get in.  They just have to win their next game.  And keep repeating that each morning.

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). 

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.