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

I’m the first to admit that I get a little lax when it comes to covering the PPV games.  I don’t pay for them, and don’t feel that I can offer as much just by watching the highlights and commenting on what Sportsnet chooses to show.

But I have to admit to being a little pissed off hearing about the fact that people were actually booing when they heard that what was initially thought to be Kyle Wellwood’s first goal of the season had been taken away and given to Tanner Glass.  Look, I understand that people want Welly to get his first goal, but for God’s sake, don’t boo Glass because the on-ice officials made a mistake.  Does it really matter who scored the damn goal?  Wellwood wants to start scoring too, but do you think he’d whine about it?  No.  He wouldn’t.  At least he got his first goal later in the game, so now people can get over it.

The other thing I wanted to mention was the incredible goal line save Roberto Luongo made on Teddy Purcell, throwing his glove back to pull the puck off the line.  There’s no way that they could have called that a goal because there was no way to see the puck, seeing as how it was covered by the glove.  Was the puck across the line?  Possibly, but without proof, they couldn’t have called it a goal.  Only Luongo knows for sure.

From the reports I’ve heard, the first half of the first period would pretty much put you to sleep, but then the Canucks came out flying to leave the Kings in the dust in the third period.  But it was good to see that Henrik Sedin hasn’t slowed down since Daniel’s return, and that putting Alex Burrows back on a line with the twins has paid off with him opening the scoring.

The Oilers and Sharks should make this an interesting weekend indeed.  A couple of wins would get the Canucks right back into the playoff hunt.  We’ll see what happens.

The only other Canucks’ bloggers with a recap of the game were Sean and Mike at ‘Nucks Misconduct (and this is even with the Yankee Canuck partaking in the American Thanksgiving).  So here’s the link.

I couldn’t believe when I heard that that was Henrik Sedin’s first career hat trick.  I mean, I know the guy isn’t as prolific a scorer as his brother, but I certainly would have thought that he’d have gotten a hat trick by now. 

I don’t know which made me happier – the Canucks being up as quickly as they were, or the Leafs already being down by a pair with only four minutes gone in the first period in their game against the Flames.  Pity that a loss like that had to come at the hands of a Northwest division team.  But oh well.

The Canucks more than got the monkey of their recent three game skid off their backs with their performance last night.  Although they did manage to let the Avs make it a little interesting with their two goals before stepping on the gas again and leaving Colorado in the dust.  It was hardly what I’d call a complete game, but this was one of those nights where they didn’t really need to go hard for the full 60 minutes.  It would have been better if they *had*, but you can’t always have everything.

Mason Raymond played a hell of a game, though, particularly on Hank’s second goal, getting down the ice and sending the puck back out into the slot for Henrik to chip both the puck and himself over Craig Anderson.  Also great to see were Mathieu Schneider and Jannik Hansen picking up goals, along with Steve Bernier (with a pair!) and even Tanner Glass.

Now the Canucks have some time off (5 days again?!?) before they start a 5 game western home stand that could go a long way towards helping them make up some ground and get back to where they should be – at the top of the Northwest standings.  Sure, only two of those games are against NW teams (Avs again and Oilers), but it’s safe to say that they’ll probably wind up chasing either the Hawks or Sharks for playoff position as well.  And the Kings aren’t what they were last year.  No pushovers this time around.

Hopefully the layoff will give them a little more time to get the regulars back and ready to play.  Henrik, after all, is more than halfway past his season best mark of 22 goals in a season.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens when his brother gets back on the ice.

I wrote yesterday that a pissed off Roberto Luongo usually means that he’s destined to have an incredible game in his next outing.  Seems that I was a little wrong in this case.  While Luongo certainly played well, it was the rest of the Canucks that looked like they were pissed off about the outcome of the previous three games.  As they should have been.

But, damn, that was a good game last night.

Henrik Sedin scored twice, including a 2 on 0 break where he would normally have passed the puck.  This time he took the shot, and was well rewarded.  He should remember that good things happen when you shoot sometimes, too.

But it seemed like everyone was scoring last night.  Mason Raymond, Ryan Kesler, and Steve Bernier all got their first goals of the season, with Alex Burrows and Mikael Samuelsson rounding things out.

The best moment of the night for me, though, was watching 5’11” Rick Rypien squaring off with 6’7” Hal Gill.  And Rypien handled himself perfectly.  I really thought the crowd would respond more vocally than they did. 

Yeah, it’s only one game, but the Canucks showed what they were capable of last night.  Complete domination of another team.  And Jacques Martin is supposed to be a defensive specialist of a coach?  Uh, not from what I saw last night. 

So that’s the first win of the season and now the whining can stop (okay, okay, at least die down a bit).  But it’s time to get ready for the Stars on Sunday night.  It should be interesting to see what they do with three days off between home games.

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.

Back in 1982, when I was lucky enough to see all of the games at the Pacific Coliseum during the Canucks run to the Finals, one thing that was well known was that the Chicago Stadium was a hostile, scary place to play.  The loudest place in the NHL by far.  Evidently not much has changed.

The Hawks rolled Bobby Hull out last night to try and get the crowed roiled up, and it sure seemed to work at first.  But the Canucks refused to be intimidated by the whole thing, and within the first eight minutes or so, it was as quite as a baseball game between a couple of teams who are 25 games out.  Just what the Canucks needed.

Jumping out to a 3-0 lead helped even more, with Mason Raymond, Steve Bernier, and Henrik Sedin scoring for the Canucks.  This time, though, they didn’t let the Hawks back into the game, playing their best technical game of this series.  Now they’ve got their split at least, and if they’re able to do the same thing on Thursday, they could close the whole thing out on Saturday night here at the Garage. 

Think it was loud downtown when they swept the Blues?  Get ready for even louder.

If they can just keep their focus for Thursday night, and not try and play above their heads, coming home with a 3-1 series lead shouldn’t be an issue.  Bringing back a bit more of the physicality wouldn’t hurt, either.  Take the crowd out of the game, and a big part of it’s already won.

Scary way to win a playoff game, eh?  The Canucks didn’t start out flat, but they sure almost finished that way, handing the game back to the Blackhawks in the third period.  Thankfully they were able to capitalize on Brian Campbell’s mistake late in the third, and convert a four on one breakout into a Sami Salo goal, and a 1-0 lead in the series.

I don’t think that anyone was under the impression that these were going to be one-goal games, and in that way, they didn’t disappoint.  But it would have been wrong to think that the Canucks were going to have as easy a time in the second round as they appeared to against St. Louis.

But a 3-0 lead thanks to goals from Pavol Demitra, Henrik Sedin, and Ryan Kesler did a lot to keep people believing about what this team could accomplish this year.  If they sweep the home series, it’d be hard not to think that the Hawks would consider themselves up against the ropes a little.  Sure they could come back from a pair down, but that would mean having to win at least one game back here in Vancouver, and that might be a tall order right now.

Did the 9-day layoff contribute to what happened in the third period?  Who knows.  But it doesn’t really matter now, anyways.  The Canucks found a way to work around the situation, and still come out with the win in a game that sure looked like it was headed to overtime.  And that’s a crapshoot that it would be best to avoid if at all possible.

Game 2 on Saturday night will hopefully be just as entertaining as the first one, but even if it’s not, the end result is the most important thing anyway.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an ugly win, so long as it’s a win.

Three in a row!  Can you feel the bandwagon getting crowded again?

It sure didn’t seem like it was going to be the Canucks’ night as they started this road trip against the Blues.  Down 2-0 after the first period probably made people think, "Here we go again".  And considering that the Canucks gave up those two goals in the last two minutes of the first period, it might not have been a bad assessment.

But someone forgot to mention that to Mats Sundin.

The big Swede had an excellent game, picking up two goals, and coming close to bagging the hat trick as the Canucks refused to die in this game, coming back each time to tie the game until Janik Hansen scored the game winning goal with a little over four minutes to go.  But they couldn’t make it easy on themselves.  Oh no.

Henrik Sedin missed two chances to seal the deal but shot it high over the empty net on the first attempt, and after picking up his own rebound, STILL wasn’t able to bury it in the back of the net.  Had that come back to bite them, it almost would have been worse than if one of the Sedins had taken their customary late-third-period penalty. 

Thankfully that didn’t happen, though, as Pavol Demitra was able to guarantee the win with an empty-net goal with just nine seconds left.

With the win the Canucks jumped over the Minnesota Wild to move back into second place in the Northwest, still eight points behind the Calgary Flames. 

This was more like the Canucks of a couple of years ago – the team that seemed to find impossible ways to win hockey games.  But they really don’t need to make it this hard on themselves.  There’s really nothing wrong with jumping out to a lead, guys. 

I mean, it worked against the Blackhawks, right? 

Next up is Phoenix, and this is a game that the Canucks can’t afford to take lightly.  The Coyotes might be chasing them now, but at the end of the season, those two points might mean the difference between playing hockey, and playing golf.

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.

When the Sabres scored on their first shot of the game, it had the potential to turn into a long night.  And when it suddenly turned into a 3-0 lead before the end of the first period, it was pretty much a given.  Obviously it wasn’t the best performance of the year, but the Canucks weren’t up for it like they obviously were for the Detroit game the night before.

All they can really do is forget about it and focus on Chicago for tomorrow night.  Being outshot 31 – 25 isn’t really going to win you a lot of games either, especially if you only get 8 shots in the final period.

Maybe shaking the lines up a bit will help, as it did with Steve Bernier, Mason Raymond and Henrik Sedin being in on the second Canucks goal.  The third line chipped in yet again with Kesler putting one in as well.

All they can do is try and forget about this one.  There’s too much time left in the season to dwell on the odd bad game in October.

Next up is Chicago tomorrow night.