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 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.

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. 

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.

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)

Seeing as how we were downtown for the Thanksgiving long weekend, I decided to head down to the hotel bar for the final half of the Dallas game. 

Maybe it was just the fact that it wasn’t much of a sports bar, but there didn’t really seem to be a whole lot of life to the place, even when Willie Mitchell gave the Canucks the lead with about 14 minutes or so to go.

But the room sure did get quiet when the Stars tied the game late in the third.  You could just kind of feel that the game was destined for the shootout based on the overtime – not a whole lot of chances really, at either end.  But with both Kyle Wellwood and Ryan Kesler scoring, and Roberto Luongo stopping everything the Stars threw at him, the Canucks managed their second win of the season.

Now they’re off again until Friday, when they play in Calgary.  Nothing like almost a week off to kill some momentum.  It won’t even help them injury-wise, really, as Daniel Sedin is off long-term, and God knows how long Sami Salo will be out this time.

Hank didn’t play too badly without his brother, either, picking up assists 4 and 5 of the year.  We’ll see how he continues to play over the course of Daniel’s forced time off.

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.

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.

It’s official as of about half an hour ago.  This post on Canucks.com confirms that Roberto Luongo has signed a 12 year contract extension with the Canucks that’ll keep him here until the 2021-22 season.  Think about that.  If you have kids starting Grade 1 in a few days, they’ll be graduating from high school when this deal runs through.  As I mentioned the other day, he most likely won’t play all twelve of those years, but it’s still pretty impressive.

I remember when Luongo first came here in the Todd Bertuzzi trade, and everyone was worried about whether or not Dave Nonis would be able to sign him to a longer term contract, as it was said that that was not what Luongo wanted to get himself in to.

Times sure have changed, huh?

One good thing that the Canucks gain from all of this is the confidence of other players in the NHL.  Which means to say that players might look more favourably on coming to Vancouver knowing that there is a good core that has the potential to win.  And with skaters like Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows, and eventually Cody Hodgson, things have the potential to get very interesting indeed.

Last year it was almost laughable at just how much the Canucks were accomplishing while being so far under the salary cap.  Even with the hit that they took for paying Mats Sundin, they still had the bucks to go out and buy a bunch of players if they had felt so inclined.

This year?  Not so much.  Right now, the Sedins and Roberto Luongo are taking up more than a third of the total payroll for the upcoming season.  Alex Burrows shows no signs of not being worth the money that they’ve now signed him for.  But you’d better believe that Willie Mitchell and Ryan Kesler are paying attention.  And they’ve just replaced 34 year old Mathias Ohlund with *40 year old* Mathieu Schneider.

I sure hope I’m wrong, but a couple of long-term injuries could quite easily wipe out a season due to the lack of room that they have under the cap.  And Luongo isn’t going to be any cheaper next year.  If the Canucks don’t sign him by his imposed deadline on the 13th of September, it’ll be hard to keep him here for the balance of this season, let alone next year.

It’s been shown that every year that the Winter Olympics have been held in North America, that the closest NHL team to the host city has won the Stanley Cup either the year before, the year of, or the year after the Olympics.  Even in years like 1960 (Squaw Valley, CA).  The NHL team closest to California at the time, won the Stanley Cup in the spring of 1961 – the Chicago Blackhawks.  And uh, Canucks fans might have heard about this, um, tournament, that’s taking place at the Garage in February.

They might not get another shot in 2010-11 if the team falls apart due to salary cap issues, though.  This might be the one and only chance for the next few years.  Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want that to be the case.

They just need to find a way to not run up against the same issues Calgary did late last season – not even being able to skate the full roster during games due to salary cap issues.

A solution needs to be found, Mr. Gillis.