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 had every intention of posting an update after each and every Canadian game.  But, things sometimes take priority.  So, I’m making up for it today.

No one really thought that the qualification game against the Germans was really going to be that much of a challenge, and thankfully things went pretty much the way that everyone expected them to.  I felt kind of bad that Christian Ehrhoff’s Olympics were going to be over, but given the choice, better him than Canada.

Next up was the matchup that most people figured was going to be the gold-medal game.  The Russians.  Ovie vs. Sid.  Raw heart vs. awesome talent.  Oh yeah, and Roberto Luongo was announced as the goaltender for the duration.  This was gonna be a hell of a game.

Except it wasn’t, really.  No one expected the Russians to crumble the way that they did.  I mean, 7-3?  Seriously?  The big, bad Russians – the pool winners – bowed out easily.  Best thing to come out of the game, though, was the fact that the Canadians played like they gave a damn, something missing earlier in the tournament.  Maybe it was personal pride, maybe they were all starting to believe they could win this, thing, or maybe Mike Babcock chewed them all out. Who knows, and, for that matter, who cares?  On to the next round, and a matchup with Sweden.

Uh, wait.  What happened to the Swedes?  They lost to Slovakia?!?  WTF?  Okay, then, instead of the Sedins, we get Pavol Demitra. It was good to see Canada start out quick, working to get the first goal of the game (first team to score has won 26 of 28 games) and it was good to see the lead quickly grow to 3-0.

The first goal that the Slovaks got was just a bit of a misplay on Luongo’s part.  One got snuck in.  The second goal could hardly be blamed on Lu, though, as the defense was not doing a whole lot to stop the shot from getting through.  But it sure would have been heartbreaking if it had been Demo that managed to bury the third one behind Luongo so late in the game.  Thankfully, though, the bounce went the Canadians way, and it was time to get ready for the rematch against the Americans.

Sean over ‘Nucks Misconduct wrote a great post this morning (For Underdogs, You Sure Yap A Lot) which takes some info from the Province about how Patrick Kane gives the impression that he wants to face Luongo because he knows how to beat him.  Good for him.  And if he can’t beat Luongo, make sure he doesn’t take a cab after the game, eh?    Sean goes on to mention that both bloggers and paid journalists seem to be trying to stir up the fact that Canada has a goaltending controversy.  Really?  Luongo’s record in this tournament?  4-0.  Martin Broduer? 1-1.  Where’s the controversy, folks?

It’s simple.  Roberto Luongo is a big part of the reason that Canada is in the gold medal game, and there’s no reason to believe that anyone other than him should be between the pipes tomorrow afternoon.

Go Canada Go.

I had to take the day to think about what I was going to write in this post.  Part of me had wanted to write the whole thing about 10 seconds after the game ended.  A real foaming-at-the-mouth kind of post.  It might have been fun to write one like that.  Not productive, but a hell of a lot of fun.

Now I’ve calmed down (okay, not really) and am able to look at things a tad more objectively.  Forty-one seconds into the game?!?!  Really??

To Martin Brodeur: you, sir, are not Marty Turco.  Stay in your damn crease.  Or better still, stay on the bench and hand out water bottles.

To Chris Pronger: you’re a defenseman.  Get your ass back in your own end of the rink, stop running around like you’re playing Bantam again.  On second thought, this applies to ALL of the Canadian defensemen.  Time after time after time last night, I saw Brodeur flopping around in his crease with an American player standing right in front of him.  And NO red jerseys clearing the front of the net.  Even Mike Babcock had a look on his face behind the bench that said it all: “WTF are you *doing*?!?”  When there are two or three back-to-back home run passes for breakaways in the span of about 30 seconds, your whole defensive corps has gone to hell.  And Cory Perry should not have to be the one preventing Ryan Kesler from scoring an empty net goal.  Where were the defensemen???

Which is not to take away from the monster effort that Ryan Miller put in.  The guy faced 45 shots and turned 42 of them away.  Of course, there were always a number of white jerseys standing around to clear any rebounds (or Canadians) out of the way.

Now that Canada has to go on a four game tear to win the gold medal, you’d really have to think that this is now Roberto Luongo’s team to lead.  After three games, the team has one convincing win, one shaky win, and a loss.  Various reports have said that Luongo will get the start on Tuesday against the Germans, and you have to think that if Canada plays the way they did against Norway, that Babcock will have to stick with Luongo. 

J.J. has done the work over at the Canucks Hockey Blog, providing the details on the records of the three goaltenders since being named to Team Canada.  Luongo?  12-5-1.  Brodeur?  10-11-2.  What made anyone think that Brodeur was going to suddenly turn in to this magical goaltender again, facing different lineups than he ever has before?

How much has the public’s faith in Brodeur fallen?  Nucks Misconduct is running a poll on who should start the game against the Germans.  Ken Dryden has more votes than Martin Brodeur at the moment.  Hell, he’d probably STILL play better, too.

Funniest thing for me was watching CNN reporting on the result this morning, and hearing that the “…Canadians, a team full of superstars, was beaten by a team from the US, who’s players are all unknowns outside of the hockey world”.  Uh, what?  This was not the 1980 US Olympic team (the Miracle on Ice happened 30 years ago today) here.  These are not a bunch of college kids that came in and knocked off the NHL millionaires.  All of these US players are NHL caliber stars as well.  They’re just playing like the ‘80 team.

Tuesday should be very interesting indeed. 

Go Canada Go.

I’m a couple of games behind on Canada’s performance in the Olympic hockey tournament.  But with the game against the Americans looming tonight, I figured that now was as good a time as any to post my thoughts.

The first period of the Norway game left me shaking my head.  Not because there was no score. That wasn’t what I was concerned about.  What worried me was WHY the game was scoreless.  The Canadians were playing the game like it was a damn All-Star game.  No one wanted to shoot the puck, and it was all about passing it around until it was a foot from the goal line and scoring on a tap-in. 

Thankfully Mike Babcock gave the impression that he did a little screaming during that first intermission, and the Canadian players woke up and realized that they actually needed to put the puck in the net if they wanted to win this thing.  Then it turned into the Dany Heatly and Jarome Iginla show, with Iggy picking up a hat trick in what really wasn’t much of a challenge, first period notwithstanding.  Roberto Luongo was pretty damn good, too, even if he only had to make 15 saves.  It didn’t matter much what he did, though.  It was already decided that Martin Brodeur would get the start against the Swiss.

And we all know what happened against the Swiss.  Brodeur let in two goals, although the tying goal could probably all be blamed on Chris Pronger’s inability to check his pride and go after someone who roughed him up a bit, forgetting about the puck, which resulted in the second goal.

And it all came down to Sidney Crosby scoring in a shootout to get Canada the two points (rather than the three that they should have gotten for the regulation time win) putting them in a must win situation against the Americans tonight if they want to win the group and get a bye into the quarter-finals.

But if they think that the first period of tonight’s game will be scoreless, the Canadians may find themselves in some deep trouble.  The Americans will cut them absolutely no slack, and would love nothing better to knock Canada off on their home ice. 

I know that people have been saying that Brodeur should be getting all the ice time in net for Canada, claiming experience, and all that crap.  Sure, he’s got more international experience.  But if you think Luongo has none, let’s have a read of his Wikipedia entry:

Internationally, Luongo has competed for Team Canada in numerous tournaments. As a junior, he won a silver medal at the 1999 World Junior Championships, while being named Best Goaltender in his second tournament appearance. In four World Championships, Luongo has won two gold medals in 2003 and 2004 and a silver in 2005. He also won the 2004 World Cup championship and appeared in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin as a backup to Martin Brodeur in both instances.

Still think that you want to go with the guy with the most Olympic experience as the starting goaltender?  Okay, fine.  But what happens next time?  Right now Luongo has three games of Olympic experience, and in 2014, he’s going to be the one with the most Olympic ice time.  Or do you want to hang it all on Marc-Andre Fleury, who might have a Stanley Cup, but no experience in a tournament the scale of the Olympics.

Maybe Luongo will get another start, and maybe he won’t.  In the end it doesn’t really matter as long as Canada wins the gold medal.  But unless he has a complete meltdown, it wouldn’t be fair to blame a Canadian loss on Brodeur.  To be honest, the whole team has been pretty underwhelming so far.  They played like a bunch of prima donnas to start the tournament, before waking up.  They refused to lean from the 2006 Olympics and could very well have lost to the Swiss again.

Tonight’s game could very well determine how Canada does in this tournament.  A win, and I feel that they’ll make it to the gold medal game.  Lose, though, and I have a feeling that we might have another repeat of 2006. 

Go Canada Go.

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

How long has it been since I last posted here?  Let’s see…the Canucks’ record before I updated the sidebar widget, was 19-15-0 for 38 points, 3rd in the Northwest, and 10th in the Western Conference.  Since then, they’ve gone 7-1-1, and are STILL 3rd in the division, but have moved up to 6th in the conference.  Well, at least they’d be in the playoffs if they started today.  Unlike the Detroit Red Wings, who wouldn’t.

The difference is, though, that they’re only two points out of a tie for first in the division.  Makes that game coming up against Calgary seem even better, doesn’t it?

Back in November I wrote a post on Canucks.com saying that if the Canucks were to go 10-5 in December, that they’d probably be all right for the balance of the season.  What was their record?  10-5 (yeah, yeah, there was an overtime loss, I know.  But it’s still 10 wins and 5 losses, okay?)

So far they’re 2-0 this year, and they completely dominated the Blue Jackets last night, after they recovered from spotting them a 2 goal lead early in the first period.  Roberto Luongo didn’t have to stand on his head, or save the game for them, as scoring wasn’t an issue.  And whenever someone like Rick Rypien chips in with a goal, you know that the secondary scoring is contributing the way that it should be.  A hat-trick from Alex Burrows doesn’t hurt either.

I have to admit that Mikael Samuelsson’s goal was one of the weirdest I’ve seen in a long time.  Sure looked like the guy was offside, but it appears that the officials indicated that the Blue Jackets put the puck back over the blue line, which made Samuelsson on-side.  But shouldn’t that have made it an unassisted goal, rather than giving two assists?  No matter.

Two more games coming up this week, and with the Phoenix Coyotes not playing the way they did last year, maybe the Canucks will play a little better, too.  Not play down to the level of their opponents.  And the Calgary game on Saturday night is just going to be nothing but fun.  Especially if the Canucks knock them off 5-1 like they did in their last meeting.  Time will tell.

I’d like to announce right now that while the league might be shutting down for the Olympics, CanuckNation.ca will be posting on all of Canada’s games during the tournament.  Or games that involve Canucks players, anyway.

Last night’s game between the Devils and the Canucks was just that – a regular season NHL game.  It wasn’t a “showdown” between Roberto Luongo and Martin Brodeur to see who should be the starting goaltender for Canada in the Olympics.  It was an opportunity to see two of the best goalies in the game facing off against each other.  Nothing more.  Nothing less. 

Hell, the way the game started, you’d think that Brodeur not only wouldn’t get the starting job, but would be dropped from the roster completely.  But then you’d think the same thing about Luongo if  you watched the last five minutes of the first period, too.  But that’s not the way that Steve Yzerman or Hockey Canada work.  And that’s not the way people should be thinking about it, anyway. 

Alex Burrows has settled in quite well with the Sedins again, picking up his 7th goal of the year.  The Sedins had four points between them on those first three goals, and it was sure great to see Sami Salo rip one in from the point.   Without a doubt, the Canucks outplayed the Devils for almost the entire first period, just having those lapses at the end to make the game appear a little closer than it actually was.

It was fundamentally sound, if not the most exciting thing to watch, save for the final outcome.  There were no obviously glaring errors that showed up.  Definitely a good thing.

One thing that kind of struck me was how empty the Prudential Center seemed to be.  I saw a whole lot of empty seats for a game against a decent team that doesn’t turn up too often in Jersey.  I mean, it’s not like it was St. Louis in town.  I checked the box score on NHL.com, and I wasn’t imagining it: 13,586 in attendance.   This for a team that’s 8 games above .500 and 3 points out of first in their division?  Or maybe New Jersey’s always like this?  I don’t know.

I think tonight’s PPV game against the Flyers will have a little more emotion in it.  Roberto Luongo will probably be starting tonight and then Andrew Raycroft will most likely be getting the start against Carolina on Saturday morning.  10:30am?  Jeez, it only used to be Sunday games in Boston that started at weird times.

As I wrote yesterday, any time your powerplay is 4 for 5, chances are, you’re going to win the game.  Consequently, if in the follow-up game, your powerplay goes 0 for 4, AND you give up three straight powerplays to the opposition in the second period, AND if that opposition is the league-leading San Jose Sharks (who’ve scored 77% of their powerplay goals this season on the road), well…you can kind of see what’s coming, right?

The Canucks were in the game for the first 20 minutes, but then seemed to be content on sitting back and watching the Sharks walk all over them.  In fact, the 4-2 final is pretty flattering to the Canucks.  Down 2-1 late in the game, they allowed a pair of really soft goals to put the thing completely out of reach.  In fact, I turned the game off after the fourth Sharks goal.  I was more than a little surprised to find out that the Canucks had actually scored with 7 seconds left in the game.  Minus the easy ones they gave San Jose, and we would have had a tie game and maybe a different result.  Ah, well, not to be.

To be honest, it was tough to find anyone really worth mentioning in the recap if all you had seen were the final 40 minutes.  Roberto Luongo didn’t play badly, except for the couple of lapses late in the game which handed the decision to the Sharks.  Sure, the Canucks did have moments of looking like they might tie it up, but unfortunately those were just moments in the game.  There was no real extended periods of domination by the locals.

So they finished up the home stand at 3-2 and now get to jet off to face the east coast for a few games.  Devils and Flyers should be good games, although not easy ones.  The Preds and Hurricanes should be a little easier, but certainly not to be taken for granted.

Also, according to Canucks.com, the team has also assigned both Alex Bolduc and Aaron Rome to the Manitoba Moose.  Considering the fact that pretty much everyone except Pavol Demitra is back from injuries, it’s not really that surprising.

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.

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.