So, what could be better than a Saturday night victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs?  A win over the Oilers as a chaser?  Yep, that would make for a pretty damn good weekend. 

The Canucks played better in the first half of both games, trying hard not to allow a tying goal in the Leafs game, before Mason Raymond managed to finally put the game out of reach after Alex Burrows had hit the post on a shot at an empty net (the *second* time they hit the post after the Leafs pulled Joey McDonald).

It felt like the Canucks were trying to sit on their 2-1 lead, but it became pretty clear that that wasn’t in fact the goal.  They were hanging on for dear life after more failed attempts to get the puck out of their own end than I could count.  Rather weak attempts.  This would have been one of those times that it would have been fine to ice the puck, and then have Alain Vigneault call a time-out to give those stuck on the ice a break.  Yeah, the puck still would have been in the Canucks’ end, but it might have been enough to break the momentum.

Failing that, and I know they’re paranoid about putting the puck over the glass and taking a penalty, but here’s a tip.  Don’t aim for the glass.  Try and scoop the puck up and hit the damn scoreboard.  It’ll get the puck out of the zone, and no chance of taking a penalty because the puck caught the top of the glass.

All in all, a good win, though, with Ryan Kesler also picking up a goal on a great wrist-shot from the point.

And then the Oilers came to town.  Roberto Luongo picked up his first shutout of the season, and 21st as a Canuck to move him past Kirk McLean as the all-time leader in shutouts as a Canuck. 

It wasn’t the typical extremely physical contest when the Oil come to town, but still entertaining.  Michael Grabner bagged his second goal, and Henrik Sedin  managed to tip in a shot from the point and ice the game. 

Neither of the games was particularly thrilling, in my opinion, other than the fact that the Canucks picked up four points.  They were just…wins.  Even with the whole thing in the media about Brian Burke and Mike Gillis, it seems to have been more of a creation of the MSM.  Kind of like when two teams have a brawl filled game and play each other again four or five days later.  The followup game has none of the issues of the first game.  But the MSM makes it sound like WWIII is going to happen.

Meh.

One more home game against the Wings on Tuesday, and then it’s off on a road trip for a bit.  Things appear to have turned the corner, particularly with Luongo, who gives the impression that he’s finally hit his stride after his traditional slow start.

Which is a good thing, because they’ve got some work to do catching the Flames and Avs (!) before the tough work starts after the new year.

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.

I’m not in much of a position to comment on the Friday game against the Flames, as when I finally got a chance to turn the game on, there was only about 9 minutes left in the third period, and the score was 5-1 for Calgary.  Okay.  Let’s just turn that off now and hope for a better result against the Wild.

When I got around to checking the score I found that they’d at least made a bit of an effort and popped in a couple more goals to make it at least a little more interesting.  It also happened to be the second time that Roberto Luongo has been pulled this season.  Can’t remember the last time that happened in the first month of the season.

So I was looking forward more to the game against Minnesota.  Especially considering that they’re missing a whole lot of their better players, and consequently are winless on the road this year.  Nice to see that trend continuing. 

If it hadn’t been for Nick Backstrom, the score last night would have been a lot higher than 2-1.  The Canucks completely dominated the last two periods of the game, particularly Mikael Samuelsson, who buried the puck behind Backstrom after picking up the rebound on his backhand, and transferring it to his forehand.  While normally this leads to a goaltender making a miraculous save because has time to get somewhat back into position, it didn’t happen last night.  Mason Raymond is playing the best hockey of his career lately.  Things are going to start going his way.  And Ryan Kesler’s shot got behind Backstrom from just an impossible angle.  Sometimes those lucky bounces sure go the right way.

Michael Grabner didn’t look all that bad, and neither did Andre Bolduc, despite his taking a penalty at a very bad time.  And I wouldn’t say that Henrik Sedin looks lost at all without his brother.  Although I do think he shouldn’t have tried to walk around Backstrom late in the game when he had that chance.  Just shoot the damn puck.

It’s nice to see that they’re not going to be just sitting around for the next week waiting for the Leafs next Saturday, either.  Games on both Monday and Wednesday should keep them sharp to face Toronto, who have a week off to contemplate that they’re 0-6-1.  Wonder how long it’ll be before they start calling for Ron Wilson’s head? 

Thoughts from around the Canuck Nation:

Okay, so it’s just Nucks Misconduct with any reactions to the game.  But jeez, when Zandberg is posting at 3am, you know that the guy’s got some good stuff to read.  Go check out the post here.

And because it’s more entertaining, here’s some posts from Leafs blogs:

• Leafs Winless In More Places Than One – (budblog)
• Leafs Lose Again – Gone Until November – (budblog)
• The Pit of Ultimate Darkness – (Pension Plan Puppets – We’ll Win A Game Eventually)
• The Bright Side: Six Good Things About Six Awful Losses – (Down Goes Brown)
• Toronto Maple Leafs: Ugly Numbers – (Bittler Leaf Fan Page)

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.

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