After a horrible effort in Chicago the other night, the Canucks had to regroup, and try and win in a rink that hasn’t been that good to them in recent times.  Nashville.  The Preds aren’t really that good, but they always seem to wind up frustrating the Canucks.

Not to mention the fact that if the Canucks were able to win the game, it would be the quickest that they’ve gotten to 40 wins in their history.  And on  top of that, they can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with regards to the road trip from hell.  Just two more and they can get ready to play on some friendly ice again.

The game started off well enough, with Alex Burrows getting into a fight with Dan Hamhuis just three minutes in.  Not there was ever really a chance that this one was going to turn into something similar to the Hawks game the other night.  Alex Edler shook of a hard shot into the boards to take a pass from Pavol Demitra and pick up his third of the year. 

The the Canucks did something that they’ve done far too often lately.  Given up the lead and had to come back.  And did they ever.  The Canucks lead the league in coming from behind when trailing after two periods, and they didn’t disappoint again.  After a breakaway goal of his own the other night, Kyle Wellwood threw a pass up to Jannik Hansen for his own breakaway goal when Pekka Rinne thought he’d covered the puck, and not given up the rebound.

The Sedins finally seemed to get going again as well, with Henrik picking up an empty net goal to seal the deal in the final minute.

So not only did the Canucks come from behind yet again, as I mentioned above, they got to 40 wins in only 65 games, making 50 wins a distinct possibility.  Not many people thought that was going to happen at the start of the year, eh?  Especially considering the slow start, and even slower start on the road.

But now it’s Colorado for a chance to open up the division lead, in what could very much turn into a preview of the first round of the playoffs. 

Who would have thought that the Canucks would walk over both the Blue Jackets and the Red Wings after the Olympic break?  But then, who would have ever thought that during the first week of March the Detroit Red Wings would be struggling to hold on to the 8th and final playoff spot in the West.  Which is not to say that the period of decline has started quite yet, but it WILL happen eventually.  No time like the present.

Ryan Kesler with a pair, and a great breakaway effort by Kyle Wellwood and the Canucks made it look easy.  Although, thinking that Detroit is an easy two points is not the best way to look at it. 

And the Canucks are seeming to have a bit of a delayed reaction to the layoff, as they’re currently down 6-2 to the Chicago Black Hawks, in a game that started out with two fights in the first minute, and is showing signs that there will be more before the night is through.

Roberto Luongo has been pulled for the sixth time this season, and Andrew Raycroft seems to be holding things down pretty well, although the sixth goal did get by him.

Not to say that the team would pack it in after the second period (the third has generally been their best period this year anyway), but if they were looking ahead to the next game, it might be a little understandable.  Just so long as it’s not a habit that they get in to.

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.

Considering that the Canucks have had almost another week off again, it wouldn’t have been that much of a surprise if they had come out in their rematch against the Avs and laid an egg.

And that’s almost what happened – finding themselves down by a pair before the game was nine minutes old.  After that, though, they woke up and decided that they were going to try and make a game of it.  Five unanswered goals?  Awesome.

As seems to be the Canucks’ way, when those who are expected to score fail to do so, there always seem to be those who step up and fill in the gaps.  With Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows, and Kyle Wellwood not doing much, it was Christian Ehrhoff who stepped up with the first multi-goal game of his career, scoring a couple and picking up an assist as well.  Steve Bernier, and Mikael Samuelsson chipped in as well.  And of course, Henrik Sedin hasn’t slowed down at all.

Unfortunately I only got to see the third period, but the way they were flying for the final 20 minutes, a complete game like that and the score would have been 8 – 2 again.  They need to remember, though, that playing less than 60 minutes with any regularity ain’t going to get it done.  The Avs might be on top of the division right now, but they’re 1-5 in their last 6, so you know that the teams that are supposed to be above them are going to quickly start closing that gap.

Sunday night’s game against the Hawks should be interesting, as it’s the first time the two have faced off since Willie Mitchell’s  hit on Jonathan Toews, which knocked him out of action for six games.  I still say it wasn’t a dirty hit, too.  A win over the Hawks would go a long way to boosting the confidence as well.  More than a pair of wins over an over-achieving team like the Avs. 

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.

Could this have been scripted any better?   Alain Vigneault picks two players who are returning to play their former team for the first time to have the chance to win the game in the shootout.  Kyle Wellwood missed, but he wasn’t who the fans really came to see.  Mats Sundin skated in on Vesa Toskala and put a high backhander behind him to win the game, making the Canucks 7 – 1 in the month of February, and extending Roberto Luongo’s personal unbeaten streak to eight games.

Despite the fact that the Canucks got smacked around in the first period, it was good to see that they were able to come from behind yet again to get the win.  But they need to get out of that habit.  Despite what they’ve done recently, they’re not a great come-from-behind kind of team.  And the statistics don’t lie.  The team that scores first has a better chance of picking up the two points.

Alex Burrows continued to show why he’s going to get a rather impressive raise next year, regardless of where he plays.  Sure hope that it’s for the Canucks.   He’s one that they definitely shouldn’t let get away.

One thing that I did before this game that I’ve never done before, was to solicit guest posts from bloggers who cover the Canucks’ opposition.  I contacted a Leafs blogger asking if he wanted to write a post offering his perspective of a Leafs fan seeing Sundin playing for the Canucks.  I didn’t get a response.  This blog was my second choice, too.  The first one in Google had no contact information, and no way to get in touch with the guy who maintains the site.  Oh well.  No links to Leafs blogs, I guess.

Now that this media circus is over, the Canucks can set their sights on sweeping the road-trip with a win over the Canadiens tomorrow night.  They certainly picked the right time to get hot, although it sure would be better if they could close ground on the Flames.  For the moment I think they should forget about the teams chasing them, because as long as the Canucks keep winning, it doesn’t matter what those teams do. 

Go Canucks.

This was one weird game.  The Canucks came out flying and carried the momentum through most of the first period, even though they did surrender the first goal to Jarome Iginla. 

But Ryan Kesler came through with a pair of goals to continue his streak, and amazingly, Kyle Wellwood took a penalty – his first in about three years, and almost tied the game late in the third, but the video was inconclusive.   But the story of the game for the Canucks really has to be the play of Roberto Luongo.  If not for him, this game would have been over by the end of the second period.  It was Luongo who kept them in the game.

If anything, it was great to see the PK working much better, including a long 5 on 3 in the third period, after Kevin Bieksa chipped the puck over the glass while the Canucks were already down a man.  Here’s the thing.  If you can get the puck high enough to clear the glass, then just dump it up the middle at that height and everything will be fine.  Bieksa redeemed himself late in the game, though with a blast from the point that made it through the crowd with Luongo sitting on the bench for the extra attacker.

I have to admit to being surprised that there wasn’t a lot more hard physical play in this game, with only Darcy Hordichuk getting into a quick scuffle, and even Alex Burrows shoving with Todd Bertuzzi.  Other than that, though, nothing.  As much as people were calling this a playoff game, it sure didn’t have the feeling of one.  Neither team really played like it was the post-season.

But I had a feeling that this game was going to go to overtime.  I was hoping that it wouldn’t get to the shootout, though.  Pretty ironic that it came down to Roberto and Luongo and Todd Bertuzzi, though.  Bert had Luongo beat on a spin-o-rama but hit the post to give the extra point to the Canucks, who jump into 5th place in the west, and now sit only 8 points back of the Flames for the Northwest lead.

Regardless, though, they now have to focus on the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night.  I had a feeling they were going to win 3 of 4 on this road trip.  Hopefully they go four for four instead.

Hmm…didn’t realize that I’d missed on posting after 3 games, but after the win over the Canadiens the other night, I felt that it was something I needed to post about. 

See, when I was a kid, any time the Canucks beat the Canadiens, it was a big deal.  Sure, the Canadiens haven’t been the powerhouse team that they once were for quite awhile now, but it’s still exciting to see the Canucks beat them.

And beat them they did.  I had to settle for listening to the game on the radio and then watching the highlights on TV due it being a PPV, but it was one of those games that you could tell the Canucks were dominating in just by listening to the play-by-play.

One of the most interesting sidenotes of the whole game is the fact that the Canucks didn’t take one penalty in the whole game.  Not one.  It’s only happened three times since 1970, and the last time was about 10 years ago in a game against the Rangers (who ALSO didn’t take any penalties).  Keep that up guys.  There’s nothing wrong with playing like Kyle Wellwood does every night.  The PK can’t give up any soft goals if they never get out on the ice.

And while only one of the remaining games on this road trip is against a Western team, if the Canucks could march across the country and beat Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal, it’d go a long way to setting up how the balance of this season is going to play out.  Especially considering that they can go from 5th to 8th or 9th place in the West on days that they don’t even play.

It starts tonight, and there’s no reason to think that it’s not going to be a hell of a good game against the Flames.

From behind the bench:

• Game 56: Ceux-ci Ne Sont Pas Vos Habitants de Grands-pères – Crashing the Goalie

• Canucks/Habs – The Humming Giraffe

• Canucks kill road-weary Canadiens – Nucks Misconduct

And if you’re going to be downtown tonight, join the Crazy Canucks podcast crew to watch the game.

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

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.