And we're back.
Unless you were living under a rock during the Vancouver Canucks' run to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, you might have noticed that the team was not exactly at the top of a lot of peoples' Christmas card lists. It wasn't just spurned opponents, either--although the likes of Jonathan Toews, Dave Bolland, Dan Boyle and Ben Eager had their share of beaking to do in the media. Players on teams who weren't even in the hunt for the grail were espousing their loathing for the Canucks.
It didn't end with the players--the media outlets mercilessly railed against the Canucks and their cheap shotting tactics. Ryan Kesler chicken-winging sticks, The Sedin Twins diving, Maxim Lapierre yapping or embellishing, Alexandre Burrows' famous instance of mistaking Patrice Bergeron's fingers for chicken fingers--all of this received premium play time amongst the press clippings of each game.
The comments ranged from the intelligent (they play with an edge and are difficult to play against) to the idiotic (anything Mike Milbury opened his trap to say).
But that was last year. To start this season, the Canucks were radically inconsistent. They would play one night looking like gangbusters, and the next night they could come out and lay an egg so profundly that I was starting to debate throwing them in the oven to cook for Thanksgiving. Suspiciously, the national press had virtually nothing to say about them while they struggled. That's all changed, now, thanks to a 9-1-0 run of sterling hockey that has seen the Canucks return to their high-flying, in your face brand of hockey.
It has not gone unnoticed by the media who, faced with a resurgent band of players, are now going out of their way once again to paint the Canucks as villains in every sense of the word. Watching Saturday night's contest on CBC between the Vancouver Canucks and the Ottawa Senators was painful on the ears at times. Listening to Jim Hughson call the play by play is always a treat, but he was paired with Gary Galley and Cassie Campbell--a duo that covers the Senators on a regular basis. To call their commentary biased would be generous, as it was legitimately far worse than that. But the real fun began with the intermission shows, Coach's Corner and the Satellite Hotstove.
Let me preface all of this by saying that when Don Cherry seems to come across as your voice of reason, you are in big, big trouble.
CBC seems to have adopted a "WWE"-style method of promoting storylines. The last time the Canucks and the Senators played on November 20, a non-incident occurred when Maxim Lapierre bodychecked Jesse Winchester into the bench door for the Canucks. Burrows had his hand on top of the door which--unfortunately, unluckily, and unintentionally--opened, depositing Winchester into the bench.
This non-incident received exactly nothing in terms of lip service amongst CBC's talking heads for nearly a month until game-day arrived. And then "latch-gate" or "gate-gate" was in full swing. Why? Well gee, those pesky Canuckleheads are 8-1-0 in their last few starts and looking like they might be able to dominate the league once more. Shall we take them down a peg?
Ron MacLean, he of noted attempted character assassinations on Alex Burrows in the past (followed by a boycott of CBC by the Canucks, followed by a private apology from CBC to the Canucks) can barely contain himself when he gets the chance to villify the Canucks, Burrows in particular. So when Don Cherry called him on it on live television, it was more than a little gratifying to watch MacLean grit his teeth, narrow his eyes, and to see that little vein on the side of his head sticking out as he restrained himself from strangling Cherry.
Cherry finished his heckling of MacLean by saying "the Canucks are going back to the Final, and you'll be in big trouble".
Mike Milbury (he of the famouse shoe-beating and worst-general-managing in history incidents) proceeded to detail a list of reasons why people hated the Vancouver Canucks later in the evening, listing their cheap shots and diving as being among the principle reasons. Putting aside the irony of a man who once climbed into the audience to beat a man with his own shoe accusing anyone of dirty play, I cannot for the life of me understand how this man has a job as an analyst. Watching Mike Milbury discuss hockey is fun in the same way that watching a dog chase its own tail is--he is so preposterously stupid that you can't help wondering what he is going to say next. Ask the good folks on Long Island what they think of his hockey knowledge.
To cut a long ramble short, the Vancouver Canucks are putting things back together and are starting to play like an elite team once more. This is making the rest of the hockey world stand up, take not, and go--"oh, yeah, THOSE guys--I hate them".
Well, it's time to Embrace the Hate, Canuck Nation. Not only does it make every victory all that much sweeter, but it means the team is doing something right if they can rack up the wins while making every other team in the league see red at the same time.
Monday 12 December 2011
Friday 7 October 2011
Runnin' on Empty
It looks as though Canuck coach Alain Vigneault's plan to rest his team through as much of the preseason as possible was a success. The Canucks looked so rested, in fact, that there were times where I legitimately thought they were sleeping on their feet during their season opening loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins last night.
It certainly wasn't a pretty game. Anyone expecting it to have the emotional charge that the games played in April, May and June of this year did were of course going to be disappointed...but it was an extremely sluggish effort from a group of players who clearly have some rust to shake off.
They started to come to life towards the end of the game. To their credit, they found their legs, they started to control the play, and they had a few solid chances to take the lead and win the game. Even when the game was slow to start, the Canucks weren't the worst thing about it--that dubious title went to the announcing duo of Mark Lee and Kevin Weekes. (I actually don't mind Weekes--he's hilarious, if unintentionally so).
There were some things to be happy about for the Canucks. The Sedin Twins put on their usual display of brilliance--Henrik finding Keith Ballard in behind the Pittsburgh defense with a teriffic saucer pass which Ballard buried (hopefully along with the memories of last season for him). Daniel then joined in on the fun by taking another sweet pass from Henrik, outwaiting both a Pittsburgh defender and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, before deftly ripping the puck upstairs to tie the game.
There was a surprisingly nice night from the new fourth line with center Maxim Lapierre leading the way. He was 71% on faceoffs, he scored a goal that came at the end of a great forechecking shift where they hemmed the Penguins into their own zone, and along with wingers Aaron Volpatti and Dale Weise (or as Mark Lee knows them, whatshisname and whoshisface), had a strong night.
There was second line center Cody Hodgson who looked quite dangerous, and he even had a glorious chance to put the Canucks ahead in the third period. He showed excellent patience, waited until everyone had over committed to the play...and then slid the puck just wide of the net. Newcomer winger Marco Sturm had a solid game on the defensive side of the puck, but the big goose egg next to the shots on net column in his game is a bit alarming for a player the Canucks are hoping will be able to provide some secondary scoring this year.
There were some warts to this game, too. The Canucks' penalty kill clearly missed Ryan Kesler, as two of the three goals scored by the Penguins were scored on their quick-strike power play. The Canucks' net clearly missed a goaltender who was awake, when Roberto Luongo whiffed on a 44-foot-wing-and-a-prayer shot by Matt Cooke to give the Penguins a then 3-1 lead. It was an auspicious debut for Luongo, as the first goal (scored from behind the goal line by James Neal) and the aforementioned Matt Cooke goal both had a distinct odour to them. If Canuck Nation was hoping Luongo would come out and immediately start allowing them to forget his inconsistent play in the Final, they were let down last night.
In Luongo's defense, he typically has awful Octobers and rebounds with a stellar close to the regular season. But none of that is going to matter this year--for Luongo, it's all about the playoffs.
There were a smattering of veterans who looked as though they were playing together for the first time (in truth, it was the second for many of them), and so the rust will take a bit of time to wear off. The promising thing about this game is that the Canucks were able to come back, tie it, squeak out a point and at least have some positives to look back on. But in all honesty, it was a clunker of a game and a sign that maybe--just maybe--Alain Vigneault should let his veterans play together a bit during the preseason in the future, something he hasn't done to any great extent in the past, but took to a whole new level this year.
To make matters worse, it's a long wait until Monday for the Canucks' next game. But perhaps some time on the road (they are travelling to Columbus for the start of a four-game road trip) to bond together as a team will be productive. And hopefully they'll play with a little more gas in the tank than they had last night.
It certainly wasn't a pretty game. Anyone expecting it to have the emotional charge that the games played in April, May and June of this year did were of course going to be disappointed...but it was an extremely sluggish effort from a group of players who clearly have some rust to shake off.
They started to come to life towards the end of the game. To their credit, they found their legs, they started to control the play, and they had a few solid chances to take the lead and win the game. Even when the game was slow to start, the Canucks weren't the worst thing about it--that dubious title went to the announcing duo of Mark Lee and Kevin Weekes. (I actually don't mind Weekes--he's hilarious, if unintentionally so).
There were some things to be happy about for the Canucks. The Sedin Twins put on their usual display of brilliance--Henrik finding Keith Ballard in behind the Pittsburgh defense with a teriffic saucer pass which Ballard buried (hopefully along with the memories of last season for him). Daniel then joined in on the fun by taking another sweet pass from Henrik, outwaiting both a Pittsburgh defender and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, before deftly ripping the puck upstairs to tie the game.
There was a surprisingly nice night from the new fourth line with center Maxim Lapierre leading the way. He was 71% on faceoffs, he scored a goal that came at the end of a great forechecking shift where they hemmed the Penguins into their own zone, and along with wingers Aaron Volpatti and Dale Weise (or as Mark Lee knows them, whatshisname and whoshisface), had a strong night.
There was second line center Cody Hodgson who looked quite dangerous, and he even had a glorious chance to put the Canucks ahead in the third period. He showed excellent patience, waited until everyone had over committed to the play...and then slid the puck just wide of the net. Newcomer winger Marco Sturm had a solid game on the defensive side of the puck, but the big goose egg next to the shots on net column in his game is a bit alarming for a player the Canucks are hoping will be able to provide some secondary scoring this year.
There were some warts to this game, too. The Canucks' penalty kill clearly missed Ryan Kesler, as two of the three goals scored by the Penguins were scored on their quick-strike power play. The Canucks' net clearly missed a goaltender who was awake, when Roberto Luongo whiffed on a 44-foot-wing-and-a-prayer shot by Matt Cooke to give the Penguins a then 3-1 lead. It was an auspicious debut for Luongo, as the first goal (scored from behind the goal line by James Neal) and the aforementioned Matt Cooke goal both had a distinct odour to them. If Canuck Nation was hoping Luongo would come out and immediately start allowing them to forget his inconsistent play in the Final, they were let down last night.
In Luongo's defense, he typically has awful Octobers and rebounds with a stellar close to the regular season. But none of that is going to matter this year--for Luongo, it's all about the playoffs.
There were a smattering of veterans who looked as though they were playing together for the first time (in truth, it was the second for many of them), and so the rust will take a bit of time to wear off. The promising thing about this game is that the Canucks were able to come back, tie it, squeak out a point and at least have some positives to look back on. But in all honesty, it was a clunker of a game and a sign that maybe--just maybe--Alain Vigneault should let his veterans play together a bit during the preseason in the future, something he hasn't done to any great extent in the past, but took to a whole new level this year.
To make matters worse, it's a long wait until Monday for the Canucks' next game. But perhaps some time on the road (they are travelling to Columbus for the start of a four-game road trip) to bond together as a team will be productive. And hopefully they'll play with a little more gas in the tank than they had last night.
Monday 3 October 2011
Here I Go Again
In just a few short days, the puck will drop and the Vancouver Canucks will begin anew their quest to bring the franchise and the city its first Stanley Cup. All of this after coming so agonizingly close back in June, when they lost in Game 7 on home ice. It was the shortest off-season in the history of the team, but it certainly felt long.
That's all behind us now, as we look forward to the new season ahead. It's finally time to start getting excited about hockey again. There have been some changes over the summer--some for the better, some for the worse, some which the jury will remain out on for some time to come. In a nutshell, let's review.
Gone is offensive defensemen Christian Ehrhoff, who signed a whopping 10-year, $40million deal with the Buffalo Sabres during the summer. Replacing his 50-points from the blueline will be a challenge, but it's not impossible. Kevin Bieksa, Dan Hamhuis, Alex Edler and Sami Salo all missed significant time last year due to injury--they missed a combined 120 games. If one or more of them are able to remain mostly healthy throughout the season, they should all be able to contribute a bit offensively to make up the lost points from Ehrhoff. This is ignoring the two most interest defenders heading into the season--Keith Ballard and Chris Tanev.
Ballard is interesting because his first season in Vancouver was, let's face it, awful. He arrived on the day of the 2010 draft as a much ballyhooed defender who was capable of skating well, putting up 25-30 points, and playing a gritty, in your face game. Specifically, he had a penchant for throwing amazing hipchecks. As Jamie McGinn of the San Jose Sharks can attest to (has he stopped cartwheeling through the air after that hit in Game 4 vs. San Jose yet?), the hipchecks were certainly there. Unfortunately, that was about all that was a hit for poor Ballard. He had his worst professional season to date, scoring a measly 2 goals and 5 assists while spending most of his time--especially during the Stanley Cup Run--in the press box.
So why is he interesting? There's an old adage that when you're on the bottom, the only direction you can go is up. (the inverse is true as well, but that's for another day) So whether or not Keith Ballard can rebound and find the form that made him a highly sought after defender by the Canucks in the first place will be an interesting story this year.
On the other end of the spectrum is Chris Tanev. Anyone who says they knew his name at this time last year is either lying, or they read HFBoards a lot. Tanev stepped into the franchise last summer as a relatively unheralded free agent signing straight out of the lower tiers of the American collegiate system, where he had played for the Rochester Institute of Technology. He had a surprisingly solid camp, and an even more surprisingly strong start to the year with the AHL's Manitoba Moose, before cracking the Canucks' roster for the remainder of the year due to the massive amounts of injuries the big club incurred.
Tanev displayed remarkable poise, patience and smarts for such a young and inexperienced player. He was even thrown into the fire of the Stanley Cup Final where he continued to acquit himself admirably. He has since bulked up over the off-season, putting on ten pounds of muscle by his own admission. In training camp, he looks stronger, faster, and he has shown a greater willingness to jump into the attack to generate offense--something he seems, again, surprisingly good at. If he is able to contribute offensively, that may also lessen the burden his defensive counterparts now face in trying to replace Ehrhoff's offense.
Up front, there are some temporary and permanent changes. Gone is hard-hitting forward Raffi Torres, whose bone crunching hits were the cause of much hand wringing amongst the Canucks' critics during the playoffs. While the intensity and intimidation of the hard charging forward will be missed, in the new era of the NHL where headshots are being examined more closely, it might be a benefit to the Canucks that he was allowed to walk.
Missing for the start of the year will be Selke trophy winner Ryan Kesler, who required surgery after the Canucks were defeated in the Finals last year. He is expected to be back by November, but his spot will be temporarily filled by another interesting Canuck rookie--Cody Hodgson.
Cut and paste Keith Ballard's story here and you would have a similar tale. Cody Hodgson was the 10th overall pick in the 2008 Entry Draft, and was immediately called by many pundits an absolute steal. A sure fire NHL player who dripped with character, intelligence and skill. This didn't change over the following year, as he lead Team Canada in scoring at the World Junior Championships, teaming with 1st overall selection John Tavares to wreak havoc. He was picked by many hockey outlets as a candidate to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie in the 2009/2010 season.
Then came the back problems. Hodgson injured his back while training in the summer of 2009 and was set back drastically. He tried to battle his way through camp that year, but was ultimately slowed down far too much by the injury. Alain Vigneault inadvertently put his foot in his own mouth when Hodgson announced he was seeking a second opinion on his back, when Vigneault stated that Hodgson was perhaps not used to disappointment at this stage in his career.
Imagine Vigneault's surprise when that second opinion Hodgson saught revealed a tear in the muscles surrounding his back. Oops.
The 2009/2010 season was lost for Hodgson, who missed almost the entire year with his injury. He played just 13 regular season games and a handful more in the playoffs. The 2010/2011 season had some growing pains as well--he did see NHL time and scored his first goal, but he did not look as NHL ready as he had before his injury.
Now, he seems ready--he arrived at camp this year looking faster and stronger, and he has not missed a chance to showcase his offensive abilities. He will fill the vacant second line center spot left by Ryan Kesler until he returns, at which time the "what to do with Hodgson" discussion can begin. But for the moment, he's on the team and he's a player many in Canuck Nation are excited about.
Also missing up front is Mason Raymond, who will be out considerably longer with his broken back. Brought in to fill in is veteran Marco Sturm, who also has something to prove. Having had both of his knees surgically repaired in the last few years, he will be looking to regain the form that has seen him eclipse the 20-goal mark seven times in his NHL career. He also brings some defensive responsibility in his game, so look for him to rome all over the lineup.
In goal, the song remains the same for the Canucks (for now). Roberto Luongo is back as the No. 1 man, and Cory Schneider returns as his backup. Both are capable of playing teriffic hockey, but this is a season where no matter what they do in the regular season, they will not earn praise. For both (moreso for Luongo), the real test will be when the playoffs begin again. In spite of leading the Canucks to the Final, Luongo still faces a great deal of questions with respect to his mental toughness. (allowing 21 goals against in four losses in the Final will do that).
But overall, it's a new season. The journey begins anew, and for the Canucks, there is only one all-consuming goal: to get the storybook ending that eluded them in June. To get back to the Stanley Cup Final and, this time, skate off with the trophy in hand.
And it all begins this week. It's about time.
That's all behind us now, as we look forward to the new season ahead. It's finally time to start getting excited about hockey again. There have been some changes over the summer--some for the better, some for the worse, some which the jury will remain out on for some time to come. In a nutshell, let's review.
Gone is offensive defensemen Christian Ehrhoff, who signed a whopping 10-year, $40million deal with the Buffalo Sabres during the summer. Replacing his 50-points from the blueline will be a challenge, but it's not impossible. Kevin Bieksa, Dan Hamhuis, Alex Edler and Sami Salo all missed significant time last year due to injury--they missed a combined 120 games. If one or more of them are able to remain mostly healthy throughout the season, they should all be able to contribute a bit offensively to make up the lost points from Ehrhoff. This is ignoring the two most interest defenders heading into the season--Keith Ballard and Chris Tanev.
Ballard is interesting because his first season in Vancouver was, let's face it, awful. He arrived on the day of the 2010 draft as a much ballyhooed defender who was capable of skating well, putting up 25-30 points, and playing a gritty, in your face game. Specifically, he had a penchant for throwing amazing hipchecks. As Jamie McGinn of the San Jose Sharks can attest to (has he stopped cartwheeling through the air after that hit in Game 4 vs. San Jose yet?), the hipchecks were certainly there. Unfortunately, that was about all that was a hit for poor Ballard. He had his worst professional season to date, scoring a measly 2 goals and 5 assists while spending most of his time--especially during the Stanley Cup Run--in the press box.
So why is he interesting? There's an old adage that when you're on the bottom, the only direction you can go is up. (the inverse is true as well, but that's for another day) So whether or not Keith Ballard can rebound and find the form that made him a highly sought after defender by the Canucks in the first place will be an interesting story this year.
On the other end of the spectrum is Chris Tanev. Anyone who says they knew his name at this time last year is either lying, or they read HFBoards a lot. Tanev stepped into the franchise last summer as a relatively unheralded free agent signing straight out of the lower tiers of the American collegiate system, where he had played for the Rochester Institute of Technology. He had a surprisingly solid camp, and an even more surprisingly strong start to the year with the AHL's Manitoba Moose, before cracking the Canucks' roster for the remainder of the year due to the massive amounts of injuries the big club incurred.
Tanev displayed remarkable poise, patience and smarts for such a young and inexperienced player. He was even thrown into the fire of the Stanley Cup Final where he continued to acquit himself admirably. He has since bulked up over the off-season, putting on ten pounds of muscle by his own admission. In training camp, he looks stronger, faster, and he has shown a greater willingness to jump into the attack to generate offense--something he seems, again, surprisingly good at. If he is able to contribute offensively, that may also lessen the burden his defensive counterparts now face in trying to replace Ehrhoff's offense.
Up front, there are some temporary and permanent changes. Gone is hard-hitting forward Raffi Torres, whose bone crunching hits were the cause of much hand wringing amongst the Canucks' critics during the playoffs. While the intensity and intimidation of the hard charging forward will be missed, in the new era of the NHL where headshots are being examined more closely, it might be a benefit to the Canucks that he was allowed to walk.
Missing for the start of the year will be Selke trophy winner Ryan Kesler, who required surgery after the Canucks were defeated in the Finals last year. He is expected to be back by November, but his spot will be temporarily filled by another interesting Canuck rookie--Cody Hodgson.
Cut and paste Keith Ballard's story here and you would have a similar tale. Cody Hodgson was the 10th overall pick in the 2008 Entry Draft, and was immediately called by many pundits an absolute steal. A sure fire NHL player who dripped with character, intelligence and skill. This didn't change over the following year, as he lead Team Canada in scoring at the World Junior Championships, teaming with 1st overall selection John Tavares to wreak havoc. He was picked by many hockey outlets as a candidate to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie in the 2009/2010 season.
Then came the back problems. Hodgson injured his back while training in the summer of 2009 and was set back drastically. He tried to battle his way through camp that year, but was ultimately slowed down far too much by the injury. Alain Vigneault inadvertently put his foot in his own mouth when Hodgson announced he was seeking a second opinion on his back, when Vigneault stated that Hodgson was perhaps not used to disappointment at this stage in his career.
Imagine Vigneault's surprise when that second opinion Hodgson saught revealed a tear in the muscles surrounding his back. Oops.
The 2009/2010 season was lost for Hodgson, who missed almost the entire year with his injury. He played just 13 regular season games and a handful more in the playoffs. The 2010/2011 season had some growing pains as well--he did see NHL time and scored his first goal, but he did not look as NHL ready as he had before his injury.
Now, he seems ready--he arrived at camp this year looking faster and stronger, and he has not missed a chance to showcase his offensive abilities. He will fill the vacant second line center spot left by Ryan Kesler until he returns, at which time the "what to do with Hodgson" discussion can begin. But for the moment, he's on the team and he's a player many in Canuck Nation are excited about.
Also missing up front is Mason Raymond, who will be out considerably longer with his broken back. Brought in to fill in is veteran Marco Sturm, who also has something to prove. Having had both of his knees surgically repaired in the last few years, he will be looking to regain the form that has seen him eclipse the 20-goal mark seven times in his NHL career. He also brings some defensive responsibility in his game, so look for him to rome all over the lineup.
In goal, the song remains the same for the Canucks (for now). Roberto Luongo is back as the No. 1 man, and Cory Schneider returns as his backup. Both are capable of playing teriffic hockey, but this is a season where no matter what they do in the regular season, they will not earn praise. For both (moreso for Luongo), the real test will be when the playoffs begin again. In spite of leading the Canucks to the Final, Luongo still faces a great deal of questions with respect to his mental toughness. (allowing 21 goals against in four losses in the Final will do that).
But overall, it's a new season. The journey begins anew, and for the Canucks, there is only one all-consuming goal: to get the storybook ending that eluded them in June. To get back to the Stanley Cup Final and, this time, skate off with the trophy in hand.
And it all begins this week. It's about time.
Thursday 16 June 2011
Go Your Own Way
Some people might expect me to be disappointed with the game last night. The reality is exactly the opposite. The only thing I am tremendously disappointed with is the idiots who spilled into the streets of Vancouver last night and began rioting. It was shameful, disgusting and horrifying to witness. Out of that darkness, however, comes hope this morning: thousands of volunteers are arriving to clean up the mess, and thousands more on Facebook and Twitter have started campaigns of collecting photo and video evidence of the perpetrators to help police find, arrest and--hopefully--convict these fools for their terrible actions.
But truly, I am immensely proud of every member of the Vancouver Canucks. It's easy to dissect the team after an emotional loss, to declare that it's time to blow up the core, fire the coach, replace the GM, trade half the players, and so on and so forth.
There will be some changes this off-season, no doubt--but they will be very minor. Because lost in the emotion of a heartbreaking Game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup Final is the fact that this year was and is the greatest season the Vancouver Canucks have ever had in their 40 year history. The list of accolades isn't small--the Vancouver Canucks were Northwest Division Champions. They also won the President's Trophy for having the No. 1 record through the regular season. They were Western Conference Champions, representing the West in the Stanley Cup Final. The individual accolades are numerous as well--Mike Gillis has been nominated for Executive of the Year. Ryan Kesler has been nominated, and is expected to win, the Frank J. Selke Trophy (best two-way player). Daniel Sedin has won the Art Ross Trophy(league's leading scorer) and is a nominee for both the Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP) and the Ted Lindsay Trophy (MVP as voted by the players). Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider split the William M. Jennings Trophy(lowest goals against) and Luongo is a nominee for the Vezina Trophy(best goaltender). Daniel and Henrik Sedin are joint nominees for the NHL's Foundation Player Award (recognition of charitable work and contributions).
This was an amazing year. The Vancouver Canucks slayed their demon in the Chicago Blackhawks and took us on a wonderful ride to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. They won a great many games on home ice in this playoff run, giving all of Vancouver something to celebrate about. The injuries that this team persevered through on this Cup run are beginning to trickle to light. They include, but are not limited too: an abdominal tear for Tanner Glass, sports hernia surgery for Mikael Samuelsson, more eye surgery for Manny Malhotra, an abdominal tear for Dan Hamhis, a torn groin and a torn labrum for Ryan Kesler, two broken fingers for Alex Edler, a broken foot for Chris Higgins...the list will go on. We haven't even gotten to the Sedin Twins yet, but the list of the walking wounded is astounding.
These guys gave it their all and gave us a teriffic season. They now get to take a short, well-earned break before gearing up for what will hopefully be an amazing encore in the 2011/2012 season.
Thank you to the Vancouver Canucks for an amazing year, it was a hell of a ride.
But truly, I am immensely proud of every member of the Vancouver Canucks. It's easy to dissect the team after an emotional loss, to declare that it's time to blow up the core, fire the coach, replace the GM, trade half the players, and so on and so forth.
There will be some changes this off-season, no doubt--but they will be very minor. Because lost in the emotion of a heartbreaking Game 7 loss in the Stanley Cup Final is the fact that this year was and is the greatest season the Vancouver Canucks have ever had in their 40 year history. The list of accolades isn't small--the Vancouver Canucks were Northwest Division Champions. They also won the President's Trophy for having the No. 1 record through the regular season. They were Western Conference Champions, representing the West in the Stanley Cup Final. The individual accolades are numerous as well--Mike Gillis has been nominated for Executive of the Year. Ryan Kesler has been nominated, and is expected to win, the Frank J. Selke Trophy (best two-way player). Daniel Sedin has won the Art Ross Trophy(league's leading scorer) and is a nominee for both the Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP) and the Ted Lindsay Trophy (MVP as voted by the players). Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider split the William M. Jennings Trophy(lowest goals against) and Luongo is a nominee for the Vezina Trophy(best goaltender). Daniel and Henrik Sedin are joint nominees for the NHL's Foundation Player Award (recognition of charitable work and contributions).
This was an amazing year. The Vancouver Canucks slayed their demon in the Chicago Blackhawks and took us on a wonderful ride to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. They won a great many games on home ice in this playoff run, giving all of Vancouver something to celebrate about. The injuries that this team persevered through on this Cup run are beginning to trickle to light. They include, but are not limited too: an abdominal tear for Tanner Glass, sports hernia surgery for Mikael Samuelsson, more eye surgery for Manny Malhotra, an abdominal tear for Dan Hamhis, a torn groin and a torn labrum for Ryan Kesler, two broken fingers for Alex Edler, a broken foot for Chris Higgins...the list will go on. We haven't even gotten to the Sedin Twins yet, but the list of the walking wounded is astounding.
These guys gave it their all and gave us a teriffic season. They now get to take a short, well-earned break before gearing up for what will hopefully be an amazing encore in the 2011/2012 season.
Thank you to the Vancouver Canucks for an amazing year, it was a hell of a ride.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Stairway to Heaven
And then there was one.
June 15, 2011 will mark the final game of the 2010/2011 NHL season, one way or another. Whether it's the Vancouver Canucks or the Boston Bruins that ultimately hoist the Stanley Cup over their heads, this season ends tonight. It has been a long and winding road for the Vancouver Canucks, but they have found themselves as close to the Stanley Cup as this franchise has ever come.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs began on April 14. Two months plus one day later, and the Vancouver Canucks have been through an awful lot. In the first round, they drew their arch-nemesis Chicago Blackhawks. After walking through the first half of the series to stake a 3-0 lead, the Canucks looked to be ready to punch an easy ticket to the 2nd round. But then the Blackhawks mounted a counter-attack, forcing a decisive Game 7 at Rogers Arena. All eyes were on Canuck goaltender Roberto Luongo to see how he would fare under the pressure. He delivered and so did his teammates, as Alexandre Burrows' overtime slapshot over the shoulder of Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford ended the Blackhawks' three-year reign of torment and propelled the Canucks into the second round.
Things didn't get much easier from there. The scrappy Nashville Predators and the towering figure of goaltender Pekka Rinne awaited the Canucks. This time, the eyes of the hockey world were on Ryan Kesler who single-handedly dominated the Predators in one of the most amazing one-series performances the Canucks franchise has ever seen. 11 points in 6 games, plus being in on 11 of the Canucks' 14 goals in that series were all eye-popping figures.
The San Jose Sharks waited for the Canucks next, and the Sedin Show began. Not to be outdone by his American counterpart, Henrik Sedin racked up a whopping 12 points in just 5 games against the San Jose Sharks, as he and brother Daniel Sedin ran roughshod over the Stanley Cup hopefuls from California. Kevin Bieksa also came to the fore with some clutch offense, ultimately scoring the goal that sent this team to the Final for the first time in 17 years.
And now, it's the Boston Bruins. It has been a strange series, with the home team taking every game thus far. The games at Rogers Arena have been nailbiters, all being decided by 1-goal and two of the three being shutouts for Roberto Luongo. Just the opposite has held true when the series shifted to Boston, where the Bruins outscored the Canucks by a combined 17-3 and Roberto Luongo was relegated to the bench twice.
It has been a long two months. The Canucks have lost soldiers along the way. Mikael Samuelsson went down in the second round to a season-ending sports hernia injury that required surgery. Steady Dan Hamhuis has been MIA since Game 1 of the Final with a mysterious injury. And then the worst of them all, Mason Raymond suffering a broken back in Boston in Game 6.
They have lost more over the years. Many a Canuck gets lost in thought when the name "Luc Bourdon" is mentioned. The affable and friendly Canucks' defender who was killed in a motorcycle crash back in 2008. He is never far from the minds of his teammates, especially now with the ultimate goal for any hockey player within reach.
They have faced tremendous adversity. In Games 4 and 5 against Chicago, they were outscored 12-2. Roberto Luongo didn't even start Game 6, with Alain Vigneault opting to start Cory Schneider. But Luongo came back in Game 7, making 31 saves while only allowing 1 goal. They faced adversity in this series against the Bruins, where after being outscored 12-1 in Games 3 and 4 in Boston, Roberto Luongo bounced back with a 31-save shutout while Maxim Lapierre provided the game's only goal.
For two months, this team has persevered through loss, controversy, pressure and more, all in the search of a dream. It's the dream of every player who ever plays the game: to lift the Stanley Cup over your head.
Tonight doesn't just represent the end of the 2010/2011 season, it represents the last time that this group of players will hit the ice as a team. It's a sad fact of the NHL that every team has changing faces from year to year. On this year's team alone, unrestricted free agents include Raffi Torres, Christopher Higgins, Sami Salo, Kevin Bieksa, Christian Ehrhoff, Andrew Alberts, and Tanner Glass.
Not all of these players will be brought back. Not all of them may even play next year; Sami Salo is 36-years-old and has an impressive compilation of injuries. After the long grind to reach this moment, this may just be the final stop on the journey of his career.
The Canucks need to take a good, long look around their dressing room. The chance doesn't come very often. The chance to win the Stanley Cup is a rare gift indeed. 17 years ago, when the Canucks last made the Final, they had two franchise cornerstones: Trevor Linden and Pavel Bure. Linden was 25 years old, and Bure was 24 years old. Both young by any standard. When they came away from Game 7 against the New York Rangers, some conventional wisdom suggested that they had their whole careers ahead of them to get another chance.
But they never did. Bure retired 9 years later, Linden 14 years later. Neither of them came close to winning that coveted Cup ever again.
The chance doesn't come very often. For many of these players, it may in fact never come again. That's a sobering reality that they need to think long and hard about.
The bottom line is that these men, these hockey players, these Vancouver Canucks, cannot leave anything in the dressing room. They must lay everything they've got on the ice, they must fight with every stride of their skates and they must push with every ounce of their intensity. We've seen their will bend, but never break in this Stanley Cup playoff, and they can ill afford to start that now.
To a man, the Vancouver Canucks need to play the game of their lives tonight. Trends, statistics, history, patterns, superstitions, doubt, controversy--none of that matters now. All that matters when the puck drops tonight is the Game. 60 minutes of the hardest hockey anyone will ever play is what seperates the Vancovuer Canucks from the biggest prize in the game.
Win or lose, they should be incredibly proud of what they have accomplished to this point. I know I am.
But they call the Stanley Cup the most difficult trophy to win in all of professional sports for a reason. To quote Bruce Cockburn, "nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight". The Canucks need to seize the opportunity in front of them and step up, stand up, and play like Champions.
Tonight, they need to become Champions in every sense of the word.
They need to do it in Vancouver, on June 15, 2011. They need to make history.
Go Canucks Go.
June 15, 2011 will mark the final game of the 2010/2011 NHL season, one way or another. Whether it's the Vancouver Canucks or the Boston Bruins that ultimately hoist the Stanley Cup over their heads, this season ends tonight. It has been a long and winding road for the Vancouver Canucks, but they have found themselves as close to the Stanley Cup as this franchise has ever come.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs began on April 14. Two months plus one day later, and the Vancouver Canucks have been through an awful lot. In the first round, they drew their arch-nemesis Chicago Blackhawks. After walking through the first half of the series to stake a 3-0 lead, the Canucks looked to be ready to punch an easy ticket to the 2nd round. But then the Blackhawks mounted a counter-attack, forcing a decisive Game 7 at Rogers Arena. All eyes were on Canuck goaltender Roberto Luongo to see how he would fare under the pressure. He delivered and so did his teammates, as Alexandre Burrows' overtime slapshot over the shoulder of Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford ended the Blackhawks' three-year reign of torment and propelled the Canucks into the second round.
Things didn't get much easier from there. The scrappy Nashville Predators and the towering figure of goaltender Pekka Rinne awaited the Canucks. This time, the eyes of the hockey world were on Ryan Kesler who single-handedly dominated the Predators in one of the most amazing one-series performances the Canucks franchise has ever seen. 11 points in 6 games, plus being in on 11 of the Canucks' 14 goals in that series were all eye-popping figures.
The San Jose Sharks waited for the Canucks next, and the Sedin Show began. Not to be outdone by his American counterpart, Henrik Sedin racked up a whopping 12 points in just 5 games against the San Jose Sharks, as he and brother Daniel Sedin ran roughshod over the Stanley Cup hopefuls from California. Kevin Bieksa also came to the fore with some clutch offense, ultimately scoring the goal that sent this team to the Final for the first time in 17 years.
And now, it's the Boston Bruins. It has been a strange series, with the home team taking every game thus far. The games at Rogers Arena have been nailbiters, all being decided by 1-goal and two of the three being shutouts for Roberto Luongo. Just the opposite has held true when the series shifted to Boston, where the Bruins outscored the Canucks by a combined 17-3 and Roberto Luongo was relegated to the bench twice.
It has been a long two months. The Canucks have lost soldiers along the way. Mikael Samuelsson went down in the second round to a season-ending sports hernia injury that required surgery. Steady Dan Hamhuis has been MIA since Game 1 of the Final with a mysterious injury. And then the worst of them all, Mason Raymond suffering a broken back in Boston in Game 6.
They have lost more over the years. Many a Canuck gets lost in thought when the name "Luc Bourdon" is mentioned. The affable and friendly Canucks' defender who was killed in a motorcycle crash back in 2008. He is never far from the minds of his teammates, especially now with the ultimate goal for any hockey player within reach.
They have faced tremendous adversity. In Games 4 and 5 against Chicago, they were outscored 12-2. Roberto Luongo didn't even start Game 6, with Alain Vigneault opting to start Cory Schneider. But Luongo came back in Game 7, making 31 saves while only allowing 1 goal. They faced adversity in this series against the Bruins, where after being outscored 12-1 in Games 3 and 4 in Boston, Roberto Luongo bounced back with a 31-save shutout while Maxim Lapierre provided the game's only goal.
For two months, this team has persevered through loss, controversy, pressure and more, all in the search of a dream. It's the dream of every player who ever plays the game: to lift the Stanley Cup over your head.
Tonight doesn't just represent the end of the 2010/2011 season, it represents the last time that this group of players will hit the ice as a team. It's a sad fact of the NHL that every team has changing faces from year to year. On this year's team alone, unrestricted free agents include Raffi Torres, Christopher Higgins, Sami Salo, Kevin Bieksa, Christian Ehrhoff, Andrew Alberts, and Tanner Glass.
Not all of these players will be brought back. Not all of them may even play next year; Sami Salo is 36-years-old and has an impressive compilation of injuries. After the long grind to reach this moment, this may just be the final stop on the journey of his career.
The Canucks need to take a good, long look around their dressing room. The chance doesn't come very often. The chance to win the Stanley Cup is a rare gift indeed. 17 years ago, when the Canucks last made the Final, they had two franchise cornerstones: Trevor Linden and Pavel Bure. Linden was 25 years old, and Bure was 24 years old. Both young by any standard. When they came away from Game 7 against the New York Rangers, some conventional wisdom suggested that they had their whole careers ahead of them to get another chance.
But they never did. Bure retired 9 years later, Linden 14 years later. Neither of them came close to winning that coveted Cup ever again.
The chance doesn't come very often. For many of these players, it may in fact never come again. That's a sobering reality that they need to think long and hard about.
The bottom line is that these men, these hockey players, these Vancouver Canucks, cannot leave anything in the dressing room. They must lay everything they've got on the ice, they must fight with every stride of their skates and they must push with every ounce of their intensity. We've seen their will bend, but never break in this Stanley Cup playoff, and they can ill afford to start that now.
To a man, the Vancouver Canucks need to play the game of their lives tonight. Trends, statistics, history, patterns, superstitions, doubt, controversy--none of that matters now. All that matters when the puck drops tonight is the Game. 60 minutes of the hardest hockey anyone will ever play is what seperates the Vancovuer Canucks from the biggest prize in the game.
Win or lose, they should be incredibly proud of what they have accomplished to this point. I know I am.
But they call the Stanley Cup the most difficult trophy to win in all of professional sports for a reason. To quote Bruce Cockburn, "nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight". The Canucks need to seize the opportunity in front of them and step up, stand up, and play like Champions.
Tonight, they need to become Champions in every sense of the word.
They need to do it in Vancouver, on June 15, 2011. They need to make history.
Go Canucks Go.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Two Minutes to Midnight
Dissecting last night's game is a difficult task. In trying to piece through it bit by bit with a scalpel, I almost become enraged and tempted to carve the memories of last night's game into a million unrecognizable pieces, never to be spoken of or thought of ever again. Alas, if it were only that easy.
I am once again going to offer full disclosure, something I wish many of the "unbiased" talking heads in the media would do from time to time. I'm a Canucks fan through and through, and I definitely see the world through Canuck coloured glasses. I like to think I can be a fairly objective hockey fan, but first and foremost, I am a Canucks fan.
To say I was baffled by the combination of the officials, the league and the media's approach to last night's game would be putting it delicately. I was left shaking my head after the game last night, completely frustrated with the way this game was called.
It started in the first twenty seconds of the game and it didn't let up. But let's isolate what happened to poor Mason Raymond, who has a compression fracture in a vertebrae in his spine as a result of a dangerous and awkward hit by Bruins' defensemen Johnny Boychuk. Boychuk got his stick between Raymond's legs, Raymond's head between Boychuk's legs, and then drove him forcefully backwards into the boards, ending Raymond's 2010/2011 season with his play.
I can't necessarilly blame the officials for not calling a penalty on this play (although I will blame them for a littany of other atrocious non-calls and calls in just a moment). It took quite a while before a replay even surfaced of exactly what occurred. Everyone was confused, because the hit happened away from the play as Raymond and Boychuk got tangled up going to the corner. The puck came back in and Raymond was already lying prone, unmoving on the ice, to which the Boston faithful started to chant "flopper". (I'll come back to that in a moment, too)
I do not believe Boychuk had any malicious intent. He was finishing a check. But it's a funny thing; I said the exact same thing when Aaron Rome flattened Nathan Horton, too. So how exactly is it that Aaron Rome, he who had never had a disciplinary hearing in his short NHL career nevermind a suspension, had the proverbial book thrown at him with the longest suspension in the history of the Stanley Cup Final, while Johnny Boychuk is getting off scott-free for breaking vertebrae in Mason Raymond's back?
Bias and conspiracy be damned, there is most certainly a double standard at play here. Rome was a journeyman player who hit a star, and he was punished accordingly. Boychuk and Raymond are two middling players so there was no massive outcry for justice, at least not outside of Canuck nation. Noted moron Glen Healy, of CBC, even went so far as to state--ludicrously--that Mason Raymond "had his head down" and got hit cleanly.
I beg your pardon? Of course Raymond's head was down, you pedantic little idiot. It was jammed between Boychuk's legs!
The most bitter pill to swallow here, however, is that the NHL will not be reviewing this matter further. So I ask again if this sounds familiar--a player with no malicious intent attempting to finish his check does so in questionable fashion and, unfortunately, a player got hurt. So I ask again--how does Aaron Rome get the book thrown at him while Johnny Boychuk gets nothing?
Maybe it is Mason Raymond's fault. Maybe it's his fault for not being a star player, a big point producer like Nathan Horton. Maybe if he was, there would be more outrage. But as it is right now, Boychuk is skating on free of the short, shrivelled arm of the NHL law. Hypocrisy.
I wish I could say that I felt the poor calls on the night ended there. Zdeno Chara and Henrik Sedin got tangled up a short while later. Chara sent Henrik Sedin crashing to the ice with a bodily shove. It was somewhat akin to watching a gorilla swat a fly. The whistle went and, one assumed, the Canucks would go to the power play.
Except Henrik got called for "diving". I beg your pardon? A wookie slams Henrik Sedin to the ice and he gets called for diving?
It's an interesting world. I can somewhat understand that they offset both Chara and Sedin; they are both star players, it's not taking them both off is a lopsided tradeoff. But let's flash forward to later in the game to when Brad Marchand had ahold of Daniel Sedin and proceeded to punch the NHL's Art Ross Trophy winner and Hart Trophy finalist in the face approximately seven times.
The result? No call.
Imagine if the table was turned and Alexandre Burrows or Maxim Lapierre grabbed David Krejci and proceeded to punch him in the face seven times. The outrage! The nerve! The shock!
But no, a rookie shift disturber for the Bruins slugs the NHL's leading scorer and potential MVP seven times and it doesn't even warrant a foot note in the writings and ramblings of the talking heads around the league. If a Canuck player did it, it's horrible/disgraceful/terrible, but a Bruins player does it and it's a "good hockey play" and perfectly acceptable to the officials, the league and the fans.
Not to sound like a broken record, but again, it's a double standard. Just like the Bruins fans chanting "flopper" after Mason Raymond was sent into the boards, fracturing his vertebrae. Not even a mention of the complete lack of compassion, care and class of the Bruins faithful. Not a peep. But lo and behold if it happened in Rogers Arena--Vancouver fans would be called the worst in professional sports, not just the NHL.
I wrote a piece the other day on how the Canucks were the mosted hated team and fanbase in the NHL and wrote "do we really give a damn?" The answer is still no. I really don't care if we're hated. What I do give a damn about is that the game is called fairly, and that means knocking the halos off the heads of the Boston Bruins. They have been just as dirty, cheap and disgusting as the lowest moments of the Vancouver Canucks in this series, but not a peep gets written about them.
Topping it off with listening to morons like Glen Healy talk about how "the officials have not been a factor" in this series just makes it all the more difficult to swallow. How idiot, marginal NHL players like Healy get coveted positions as "hockey analysts" is simply astounding. First we have to listen to Mike Milbury's misogynistic and sexist rantings with respect to the Sedin Twins, now we have to listen to Healy try and defend the incompetent and ludicrous officiating that has been front and center in this series.
What are these men's qualifications? In Milbury's case, he is noted for two things--climbing into an audience and beating a man with his own shoe, and being one of the worst General Managers in the history of the National Hockey League. And they let this idiot have a microphone and air time?
And Glen Healy was a marginal backup goaltender at best. Have I missed some sort of background or pedigree that qualifies him to be a TV personality?
It's adding insult to injury when the calls on the ice are pathetic enough, but then we have to top it off by listening to the inane ramblings of marginal hockey players turned worse broadcasters.
I will fully focus on the setup for Game 7 tomorrow, but today I am simply left shaking my head. I do not think the Canucks were truly awful in Boston last night. A disastrous first period sunk them, but there were positives to take away, such as outscoring the Bruins in the 3rd period 2-1. The Canucks also missed a glut of open-net opportunities, a recurring theme through this series. They seem to always miss the puck/miss the net/break the stick whatever the screw-up du jour at the moment is.
But of course, the media will continue their love-in with "likeable" Tim Thomas. Credit where credit is due--he has made some fine saves in this series, but he has also been absurdly lucky that the Canucks have not capitalized on any of the various open net chances that they have had.
One last thing that really gets my goat. It's like deja vu all over again, but it needs to be said once again: I cannot believe, for the life of me, that there are people still questioning just who should start Game 7. Do we suffer from short-term memory loss, or are we just stupid? Roberto Luongo rebounded from the two worst games of his life to take on Game 7 against Chicago and win. He did it again, rebounding after two awful games in Boston to win Game 5 on home ice in this Stanley Cup Final. All the man does is bounce back from controversy, and I am 100% confident he will do it again in the Stanley Cup Final. And for those fans who turn on him over the course of one game, step back and chill out. You don't win every game, and not every loss is going to be flattering. This man has gotten us this far, and I remain confident in his ability to bring this thing home tomorrow.
The Canucks need to salvage what they can from last night. They need to take solace in the fact that the Sedins--finally--hit the scoresheet. They need to remember that apart from a 10-minute span in the first period, they outplayed and outscored the Bruins. They need to remember that they had a littany of offensive opportunities that they simply didn't capitalize on.
They also need to remember their comrades who have fallen in this final, or on the way here: Mikael Samuelsson, Dan Hamhuis, Aaron Rome and now Mason Raymond--important foot soldiers who all played big roles to get here, but now due to a combination of injury and suspension, are unable to fight the greatest fight of their lives tomorrow night.
The Canucks need to remember all of this, in addition to the preposterous calls of the league and the media, and play the game of their lives tomorrow.
But we'll talk more about that then. For the moment, I am disgusted with the league as well as the media.
I am once again going to offer full disclosure, something I wish many of the "unbiased" talking heads in the media would do from time to time. I'm a Canucks fan through and through, and I definitely see the world through Canuck coloured glasses. I like to think I can be a fairly objective hockey fan, but first and foremost, I am a Canucks fan.
To say I was baffled by the combination of the officials, the league and the media's approach to last night's game would be putting it delicately. I was left shaking my head after the game last night, completely frustrated with the way this game was called.
It started in the first twenty seconds of the game and it didn't let up. But let's isolate what happened to poor Mason Raymond, who has a compression fracture in a vertebrae in his spine as a result of a dangerous and awkward hit by Bruins' defensemen Johnny Boychuk. Boychuk got his stick between Raymond's legs, Raymond's head between Boychuk's legs, and then drove him forcefully backwards into the boards, ending Raymond's 2010/2011 season with his play.
I can't necessarilly blame the officials for not calling a penalty on this play (although I will blame them for a littany of other atrocious non-calls and calls in just a moment). It took quite a while before a replay even surfaced of exactly what occurred. Everyone was confused, because the hit happened away from the play as Raymond and Boychuk got tangled up going to the corner. The puck came back in and Raymond was already lying prone, unmoving on the ice, to which the Boston faithful started to chant "flopper". (I'll come back to that in a moment, too)
I do not believe Boychuk had any malicious intent. He was finishing a check. But it's a funny thing; I said the exact same thing when Aaron Rome flattened Nathan Horton, too. So how exactly is it that Aaron Rome, he who had never had a disciplinary hearing in his short NHL career nevermind a suspension, had the proverbial book thrown at him with the longest suspension in the history of the Stanley Cup Final, while Johnny Boychuk is getting off scott-free for breaking vertebrae in Mason Raymond's back?
Bias and conspiracy be damned, there is most certainly a double standard at play here. Rome was a journeyman player who hit a star, and he was punished accordingly. Boychuk and Raymond are two middling players so there was no massive outcry for justice, at least not outside of Canuck nation. Noted moron Glen Healy, of CBC, even went so far as to state--ludicrously--that Mason Raymond "had his head down" and got hit cleanly.
I beg your pardon? Of course Raymond's head was down, you pedantic little idiot. It was jammed between Boychuk's legs!
The most bitter pill to swallow here, however, is that the NHL will not be reviewing this matter further. So I ask again if this sounds familiar--a player with no malicious intent attempting to finish his check does so in questionable fashion and, unfortunately, a player got hurt. So I ask again--how does Aaron Rome get the book thrown at him while Johnny Boychuk gets nothing?
Maybe it is Mason Raymond's fault. Maybe it's his fault for not being a star player, a big point producer like Nathan Horton. Maybe if he was, there would be more outrage. But as it is right now, Boychuk is skating on free of the short, shrivelled arm of the NHL law. Hypocrisy.
I wish I could say that I felt the poor calls on the night ended there. Zdeno Chara and Henrik Sedin got tangled up a short while later. Chara sent Henrik Sedin crashing to the ice with a bodily shove. It was somewhat akin to watching a gorilla swat a fly. The whistle went and, one assumed, the Canucks would go to the power play.
Except Henrik got called for "diving". I beg your pardon? A wookie slams Henrik Sedin to the ice and he gets called for diving?
It's an interesting world. I can somewhat understand that they offset both Chara and Sedin; they are both star players, it's not taking them both off is a lopsided tradeoff. But let's flash forward to later in the game to when Brad Marchand had ahold of Daniel Sedin and proceeded to punch the NHL's Art Ross Trophy winner and Hart Trophy finalist in the face approximately seven times.
The result? No call.
Imagine if the table was turned and Alexandre Burrows or Maxim Lapierre grabbed David Krejci and proceeded to punch him in the face seven times. The outrage! The nerve! The shock!
But no, a rookie shift disturber for the Bruins slugs the NHL's leading scorer and potential MVP seven times and it doesn't even warrant a foot note in the writings and ramblings of the talking heads around the league. If a Canuck player did it, it's horrible/disgraceful/terrible, but a Bruins player does it and it's a "good hockey play" and perfectly acceptable to the officials, the league and the fans.
Not to sound like a broken record, but again, it's a double standard. Just like the Bruins fans chanting "flopper" after Mason Raymond was sent into the boards, fracturing his vertebrae. Not even a mention of the complete lack of compassion, care and class of the Bruins faithful. Not a peep. But lo and behold if it happened in Rogers Arena--Vancouver fans would be called the worst in professional sports, not just the NHL.
I wrote a piece the other day on how the Canucks were the mosted hated team and fanbase in the NHL and wrote "do we really give a damn?" The answer is still no. I really don't care if we're hated. What I do give a damn about is that the game is called fairly, and that means knocking the halos off the heads of the Boston Bruins. They have been just as dirty, cheap and disgusting as the lowest moments of the Vancouver Canucks in this series, but not a peep gets written about them.
Topping it off with listening to morons like Glen Healy talk about how "the officials have not been a factor" in this series just makes it all the more difficult to swallow. How idiot, marginal NHL players like Healy get coveted positions as "hockey analysts" is simply astounding. First we have to listen to Mike Milbury's misogynistic and sexist rantings with respect to the Sedin Twins, now we have to listen to Healy try and defend the incompetent and ludicrous officiating that has been front and center in this series.
What are these men's qualifications? In Milbury's case, he is noted for two things--climbing into an audience and beating a man with his own shoe, and being one of the worst General Managers in the history of the National Hockey League. And they let this idiot have a microphone and air time?
And Glen Healy was a marginal backup goaltender at best. Have I missed some sort of background or pedigree that qualifies him to be a TV personality?
It's adding insult to injury when the calls on the ice are pathetic enough, but then we have to top it off by listening to the inane ramblings of marginal hockey players turned worse broadcasters.
I will fully focus on the setup for Game 7 tomorrow, but today I am simply left shaking my head. I do not think the Canucks were truly awful in Boston last night. A disastrous first period sunk them, but there were positives to take away, such as outscoring the Bruins in the 3rd period 2-1. The Canucks also missed a glut of open-net opportunities, a recurring theme through this series. They seem to always miss the puck/miss the net/break the stick whatever the screw-up du jour at the moment is.
But of course, the media will continue their love-in with "likeable" Tim Thomas. Credit where credit is due--he has made some fine saves in this series, but he has also been absurdly lucky that the Canucks have not capitalized on any of the various open net chances that they have had.
One last thing that really gets my goat. It's like deja vu all over again, but it needs to be said once again: I cannot believe, for the life of me, that there are people still questioning just who should start Game 7. Do we suffer from short-term memory loss, or are we just stupid? Roberto Luongo rebounded from the two worst games of his life to take on Game 7 against Chicago and win. He did it again, rebounding after two awful games in Boston to win Game 5 on home ice in this Stanley Cup Final. All the man does is bounce back from controversy, and I am 100% confident he will do it again in the Stanley Cup Final. And for those fans who turn on him over the course of one game, step back and chill out. You don't win every game, and not every loss is going to be flattering. This man has gotten us this far, and I remain confident in his ability to bring this thing home tomorrow.
The Canucks need to salvage what they can from last night. They need to take solace in the fact that the Sedins--finally--hit the scoresheet. They need to remember that apart from a 10-minute span in the first period, they outplayed and outscored the Bruins. They need to remember that they had a littany of offensive opportunities that they simply didn't capitalize on.
They also need to remember their comrades who have fallen in this final, or on the way here: Mikael Samuelsson, Dan Hamhuis, Aaron Rome and now Mason Raymond--important foot soldiers who all played big roles to get here, but now due to a combination of injury and suspension, are unable to fight the greatest fight of their lives tomorrow night.
The Canucks need to remember all of this, in addition to the preposterous calls of the league and the media, and play the game of their lives tomorrow.
But we'll talk more about that then. For the moment, I am disgusted with the league as well as the media.
Monday 13 June 2011
Break on Through
June 13, 2011 is a day that every single person inside of Canuck Nation is hoping against hope will become a historic day for the Vancouver Canucks and their fanbase.
Tonight in Boston, the Canucks have a chance to do what their franchise has never accomplished in 40 years. They have a chance to accomplish what no team from Vancouver has accomplished since 1915. That's right. For the first time in 96 years, a hockey team from Vancouver will have the chance to win a Stanley Cup.
The Canucks enter this game coming off a roller coaster of a series that has had more than its share of twists and turns. After two gut-check victories in Games 1 and 2 that made the Canucks look like a team of destiny, they got ventilated in Games 3 and 4 in Boston by a resurgent Bruins team. Calls for goaltender Roberto Luongo not to start in Game 5 were heard, but then he bounced back in tremendous fashion by posting a 1-0 shutout victory in Game 5 to put the Canuck on the precipice of glory.
The storylines don't stop there. It's been well publicized that tonight's game could almost represent a story coming full circle for Daniel and Henrik Sedin. For it was Boston's home building, the TD Banknorth Arena, where the Sedin Twins were first drafted as fresh-faced teenagers by the Vancouver Canucks back in 1999. They now have the chance to win the franchise's first ever championship in that same building.
Meanwhile, Ryan Kesler is simply looking for a win. The 2009/2010 season wasn't too kind to Kesler. He was one of the best players on Team USA during the 2010 Olympics, but ultimately had to settle for silver as they lost to Canada in the gold medal game. His Canucks were then trounced in the second round by the arch-nemesis Chicago Blackhawks. He then went on to lose by the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league's best two-way forward to Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk, by only a handful of votes.
Kesler needs to win something, and tonight he gets a chance to do just that. He looked rejuvenated in Game 5. It's not secret that he was injured in the climax of the Western Conference Final. While he had a strong first game of this series--setting up Raffi Torres' dramatic winner--he faded badly in the subsequent games. Yet in a must-win Game 5 on home ice, he looked like the man who defeated the Nashville Predators single handedly, the man who shut down Jonathan Toews in the first round. He didn't hit the score sheet, but he did everything else short of playing goal.
And how about Roberto Luongo? The man with one of the most bizarre love-hate relationships with fans and media that I have ever seen. His highs are so high--he becomes a media darling, is considered one of the best goaltenders in the league (if not on the planet) and the chants of "Luuuu" are sang with adoration. But the lows reach almost submarine-like levels in depth, as the questions of his mental fortitude roll in, whether or not he can lead a team to a championship, do teams win in spite of him rather than because of him, and are the Canucks better suited playing their backup and then dealing Luongo in the off-season.
All of this for a guy who, really, has proven himself a winner in every sense of the word. I've talked about his international resume before, but just to recap--a World Cup of Hockey Gold, two World Hockey Championship Golds and an Olympic Gold medal. He has also been nominated for the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender three times, twice has been a 2nd Team All-Star and he shared the William M. Jennings Trophy this year with backup Cory Schneider for the fewest goals allowed.
The guy is good. And if there was still any lingering doubt, he put a stamp on it with his performance in Game 5. But really and truly, the questions will still linger until he hoists a Stanley Cup over his head.
Which brings us back to tonight. The Canucks have been a quiet bunch when it comes to what motivates them. Be it Luongo's walks along the seawalls, Alexandre Burrows getting lost in thought thinking about his fallen teammate Luc Bourdon, Ryan Kesler wanting to win anything in sight, or Sami Salo perhaps having his last, best chance to win hockey's holy grail, they remain a tight-lipped bunch about it.
But make no mistake, they know that the Stanley Cup is in the building tonight. None will see it early in the game--it will remain hidden in the bowls of the TD Banknorth Garden, waiting to be unveiled should the Canucks emerge victorious. But to borrow a Star Wars reference, the Canucks will know it is there. They will sense its presence. To a man, no one who dresses for the Vancouver Canucks tonight has ever won that Cup. The only players on the team who have--Mikael Samuelsson and Aaron Rome--have been lost due to injury and suspension. For everyone except Raffi Torres, this will represent the first game ever that they have had a chance to win the Cup. Torres' last chance was 5 years ago in Game 7 when, as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, he lost his chance to win the grail.
The Canucks have been quiet about what motivates them, but make no mistake. They will feel the presence of Lord Stanley's mug. They will feel the presence of perhaps the most iconic trophy in the history of professional sports, the most difficult trophy in all of sport to win.
It has been a long, gruelling two month grind. The puck dropped on the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs back on April 14th, and here the Canucks are, two months minus a day later with the ultimate prize in sight.
This is what motivates them. From the first time as toddlers that they grabbed a toddler-sized hockey stick to bat a tennis ball idly around their living room. The times where they beat, battered and bruised the shins of their parents and siblings by playing around on the floor or out in the road. The times where they became rep players, got drafted to junior or college teams. The days where they were either drafted to the NHL or signed as free agents. The days where they played in their first regular season games and the days where they played in their first playoff games. The days where they missed the playoffs and the days when they were acquired by the Vancouver Canucks. The days of this Stanley Cup run of 2011...all of this has lead to this moment.
This is the day that every single member of the Vancouver Canucks has dreamt of for their entire lives. The marking slogan for the Canucks right now is "This is what we live for".
This is what they've dreamed of.
And it's within reach. So go get it.
Tonight in Boston, the Canucks have a chance to do what their franchise has never accomplished in 40 years. They have a chance to accomplish what no team from Vancouver has accomplished since 1915. That's right. For the first time in 96 years, a hockey team from Vancouver will have the chance to win a Stanley Cup.
The Canucks enter this game coming off a roller coaster of a series that has had more than its share of twists and turns. After two gut-check victories in Games 1 and 2 that made the Canucks look like a team of destiny, they got ventilated in Games 3 and 4 in Boston by a resurgent Bruins team. Calls for goaltender Roberto Luongo not to start in Game 5 were heard, but then he bounced back in tremendous fashion by posting a 1-0 shutout victory in Game 5 to put the Canuck on the precipice of glory.
The storylines don't stop there. It's been well publicized that tonight's game could almost represent a story coming full circle for Daniel and Henrik Sedin. For it was Boston's home building, the TD Banknorth Arena, where the Sedin Twins were first drafted as fresh-faced teenagers by the Vancouver Canucks back in 1999. They now have the chance to win the franchise's first ever championship in that same building.
Meanwhile, Ryan Kesler is simply looking for a win. The 2009/2010 season wasn't too kind to Kesler. He was one of the best players on Team USA during the 2010 Olympics, but ultimately had to settle for silver as they lost to Canada in the gold medal game. His Canucks were then trounced in the second round by the arch-nemesis Chicago Blackhawks. He then went on to lose by the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league's best two-way forward to Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk, by only a handful of votes.
Kesler needs to win something, and tonight he gets a chance to do just that. He looked rejuvenated in Game 5. It's not secret that he was injured in the climax of the Western Conference Final. While he had a strong first game of this series--setting up Raffi Torres' dramatic winner--he faded badly in the subsequent games. Yet in a must-win Game 5 on home ice, he looked like the man who defeated the Nashville Predators single handedly, the man who shut down Jonathan Toews in the first round. He didn't hit the score sheet, but he did everything else short of playing goal.
And how about Roberto Luongo? The man with one of the most bizarre love-hate relationships with fans and media that I have ever seen. His highs are so high--he becomes a media darling, is considered one of the best goaltenders in the league (if not on the planet) and the chants of "Luuuu" are sang with adoration. But the lows reach almost submarine-like levels in depth, as the questions of his mental fortitude roll in, whether or not he can lead a team to a championship, do teams win in spite of him rather than because of him, and are the Canucks better suited playing their backup and then dealing Luongo in the off-season.
All of this for a guy who, really, has proven himself a winner in every sense of the word. I've talked about his international resume before, but just to recap--a World Cup of Hockey Gold, two World Hockey Championship Golds and an Olympic Gold medal. He has also been nominated for the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender three times, twice has been a 2nd Team All-Star and he shared the William M. Jennings Trophy this year with backup Cory Schneider for the fewest goals allowed.
The guy is good. And if there was still any lingering doubt, he put a stamp on it with his performance in Game 5. But really and truly, the questions will still linger until he hoists a Stanley Cup over his head.
Which brings us back to tonight. The Canucks have been a quiet bunch when it comes to what motivates them. Be it Luongo's walks along the seawalls, Alexandre Burrows getting lost in thought thinking about his fallen teammate Luc Bourdon, Ryan Kesler wanting to win anything in sight, or Sami Salo perhaps having his last, best chance to win hockey's holy grail, they remain a tight-lipped bunch about it.
But make no mistake, they know that the Stanley Cup is in the building tonight. None will see it early in the game--it will remain hidden in the bowls of the TD Banknorth Garden, waiting to be unveiled should the Canucks emerge victorious. But to borrow a Star Wars reference, the Canucks will know it is there. They will sense its presence. To a man, no one who dresses for the Vancouver Canucks tonight has ever won that Cup. The only players on the team who have--Mikael Samuelsson and Aaron Rome--have been lost due to injury and suspension. For everyone except Raffi Torres, this will represent the first game ever that they have had a chance to win the Cup. Torres' last chance was 5 years ago in Game 7 when, as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, he lost his chance to win the grail.
The Canucks have been quiet about what motivates them, but make no mistake. They will feel the presence of Lord Stanley's mug. They will feel the presence of perhaps the most iconic trophy in the history of professional sports, the most difficult trophy in all of sport to win.
It has been a long, gruelling two month grind. The puck dropped on the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs back on April 14th, and here the Canucks are, two months minus a day later with the ultimate prize in sight.
This is what motivates them. From the first time as toddlers that they grabbed a toddler-sized hockey stick to bat a tennis ball idly around their living room. The times where they beat, battered and bruised the shins of their parents and siblings by playing around on the floor or out in the road. The times where they became rep players, got drafted to junior or college teams. The days where they were either drafted to the NHL or signed as free agents. The days where they played in their first regular season games and the days where they played in their first playoff games. The days where they missed the playoffs and the days when they were acquired by the Vancouver Canucks. The days of this Stanley Cup run of 2011...all of this has lead to this moment.
This is the day that every single member of the Vancouver Canucks has dreamt of for their entire lives. The marking slogan for the Canucks right now is "This is what we live for".
This is what they've dreamed of.
And it's within reach. So go get it.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Runnin' with the Devil
I decided to tackle this subject today as tomorrow will represent the biggest game in the history of the Vancouver Canucks' franchise to date, and I would like to focus all my ramblings on the set up for that biggest of the big games. So today, I'll sink my teeth into the subject that seems to have gripped the media and the fandom of the National Hockey League while we endure this excruciating two-day wait for Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.
I am referring to the notion of the Vancouver Canucks as the most hated team in the NHL.
Now, the concept of people hating our team should be nothing new. This is sports, after all, and it's competetive. Without even getting the oft-sensationalistic media involved with this, cities can develop and instant and profound dislike for one another. That's the nature of competition. Now, you add the media to that powder keg and things start to get crazy.
We live in a world where one of the most compelling storylines, no matter what the subject, is "good vs. evil". You can see it portrayed in just about every film or novel out there, even if they try to slide it by as "protagonist vs. antagonist". We can see it in our political system where, come election time, one party is also trying to cast themselves as the good guy whilst simultaneously casting their opposition as the root of all evil.
So it makes sense that on hockey's biggest stage, people are trying to find heroes and villains. This isn't new to the NHL, as the history of the league has been replete with these types of storylines for as long as it has existed. Vancouver fans need to look no further than two recent pieces of history to get their blood boiling: Mark Messier and Dustin Byfuglien.
Canuck fans remember Messier, to be certain. He was the Captain of the Hall of Fame-laden New York Rangers team that bounced the Canucks in seven hard-fought games in the 1994 Finals. The man that brought the Stanley Cup back to the Big Apple for the first time in 54 years. The man they call "The Captain--Capital T, Capital C".
But Canuck fans see red when his name is brought up, because they remember him taking an opportunity to nail Canuck captain Trevor Linden when he was down on the ice on all-fours in the dying seconds of Game 6 at the Pacific Coliseium, the play that prompted broadcaster Jim Robson to famously declare "he'll play, you know he'll play, he'll play on crutches!"
It didn't help matters that just a few short years later, Messier was acquired by the Canucks and made the team's Captain. It further didn't help when he lead the Canucks absolutely nowhere and bolted back to the Big Apple once his lucreative deal with the Canucks expired.
But more recently, let's look at Dustin Byfuglien. You could forgive many Canuck fans for simply not giving a damn about the league, the media and other fanbases crying foul over the Canucks' dirty tactics in this post-season. That would be because we had to deal with Dustin Byfuglien and his preposterously sized posterior for the past two years in the playoffs. He was allowed to run roughshod over Roberto Luongo, he taunted the Canucks and their fans, he rubbed our faces in our own failure. He was the epitome of an on-ice troll and an emotional demon for the Vancouver Canucks.
But how was he viewed to the rest of the hockey world? As a clutch playoff performer who came through in big moments.
So that brings us to this current edition of the Vancouver Canucks. I'm a Canucks fan and an admitted homer, but I am certainly not blind. This team has dove. They have cheapshotted. They have taunted. They have hacked, slashed and whacked. They have done whatever it takes to win, and in doing so, it's made them to other fans what Mark Messier and Dustin Byfuglien were to us.
But after 40 years of never winning a thing, maybe a change in style was just what the doctor ordered. You can look at almost any good team the Canucks have ever had, and the things they lacked were the things they have now--that willingness to do whatever it takes, no matter what that is, to win. The Championship drive.
So now they get universally reviled outside of Canuck Nation. So what? There's an old quote that every boo on the road is akin to a cheer. When you're hated outside of your own building, it means you are doing something right. And right now, the Canucks have every single one of their haters shaking in their boots. Because for 40-years whenever a discussion regarding the Canucks vs. Team X has taken place, the penultimate put down of the Canucks has always been "well, you guys have never won a Cup".
So the Canucks are now just 1 win away from taking away the biggest argument their detractors have had for four decades. That is no small thing.
So are we the most hated team in the league? A bunch of devils, sissies, pansies, divers, biters, whiners, trolls and cowards?
Maybe. But the more important question for the Canucks and their fans is, do we really give a damn?
I am referring to the notion of the Vancouver Canucks as the most hated team in the NHL.
Now, the concept of people hating our team should be nothing new. This is sports, after all, and it's competetive. Without even getting the oft-sensationalistic media involved with this, cities can develop and instant and profound dislike for one another. That's the nature of competition. Now, you add the media to that powder keg and things start to get crazy.
We live in a world where one of the most compelling storylines, no matter what the subject, is "good vs. evil". You can see it portrayed in just about every film or novel out there, even if they try to slide it by as "protagonist vs. antagonist". We can see it in our political system where, come election time, one party is also trying to cast themselves as the good guy whilst simultaneously casting their opposition as the root of all evil.
So it makes sense that on hockey's biggest stage, people are trying to find heroes and villains. This isn't new to the NHL, as the history of the league has been replete with these types of storylines for as long as it has existed. Vancouver fans need to look no further than two recent pieces of history to get their blood boiling: Mark Messier and Dustin Byfuglien.
Canuck fans remember Messier, to be certain. He was the Captain of the Hall of Fame-laden New York Rangers team that bounced the Canucks in seven hard-fought games in the 1994 Finals. The man that brought the Stanley Cup back to the Big Apple for the first time in 54 years. The man they call "The Captain--Capital T, Capital C".
But Canuck fans see red when his name is brought up, because they remember him taking an opportunity to nail Canuck captain Trevor Linden when he was down on the ice on all-fours in the dying seconds of Game 6 at the Pacific Coliseium, the play that prompted broadcaster Jim Robson to famously declare "he'll play, you know he'll play, he'll play on crutches!"
It didn't help matters that just a few short years later, Messier was acquired by the Canucks and made the team's Captain. It further didn't help when he lead the Canucks absolutely nowhere and bolted back to the Big Apple once his lucreative deal with the Canucks expired.
But more recently, let's look at Dustin Byfuglien. You could forgive many Canuck fans for simply not giving a damn about the league, the media and other fanbases crying foul over the Canucks' dirty tactics in this post-season. That would be because we had to deal with Dustin Byfuglien and his preposterously sized posterior for the past two years in the playoffs. He was allowed to run roughshod over Roberto Luongo, he taunted the Canucks and their fans, he rubbed our faces in our own failure. He was the epitome of an on-ice troll and an emotional demon for the Vancouver Canucks.
But how was he viewed to the rest of the hockey world? As a clutch playoff performer who came through in big moments.
So that brings us to this current edition of the Vancouver Canucks. I'm a Canucks fan and an admitted homer, but I am certainly not blind. This team has dove. They have cheapshotted. They have taunted. They have hacked, slashed and whacked. They have done whatever it takes to win, and in doing so, it's made them to other fans what Mark Messier and Dustin Byfuglien were to us.
But after 40 years of never winning a thing, maybe a change in style was just what the doctor ordered. You can look at almost any good team the Canucks have ever had, and the things they lacked were the things they have now--that willingness to do whatever it takes, no matter what that is, to win. The Championship drive.
So now they get universally reviled outside of Canuck Nation. So what? There's an old quote that every boo on the road is akin to a cheer. When you're hated outside of your own building, it means you are doing something right. And right now, the Canucks have every single one of their haters shaking in their boots. Because for 40-years whenever a discussion regarding the Canucks vs. Team X has taken place, the penultimate put down of the Canucks has always been "well, you guys have never won a Cup".
So the Canucks are now just 1 win away from taking away the biggest argument their detractors have had for four decades. That is no small thing.
So are we the most hated team in the league? A bunch of devils, sissies, pansies, divers, biters, whiners, trolls and cowards?
Maybe. But the more important question for the Canucks and their fans is, do we really give a damn?
Saturday 11 June 2011
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
And just like that, all is right in the world again.
Canuck Nation is once again head over heels in love with Roberto Luongo, who bounced back in a massive way in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final with a 31-save shutout. The Vancouver Canucks, as a group, are knocking on heaven's door now as they are just 1 victory away from winning the franchise's first Stanley Cup. The eerie silence and tension that gripped the whole of British Columbia has been trampled underfoot as the bandwagon's proverbial cup hath runneth over again with a sea of blue and green clad supporters.
The Canucks are up 3-2 in the Stanley Cup Final after one of the most tense and momentous games in the history of the franchise. Roberto Luongo and his counterpart, Tim Thomas, were going shot for shot until the oft-criticised (outside of Vancouver) Maxim Lapierre finally managed to put a puck behind the Boston netminder. While he would never admit it, it must have been sweet vindication for Lapierre.
I remember watching TSN the day that Lapierre was acquired by the Canucks at the trade deadline, and being quite surprised at how much the TSN analysts hated the move. Pierre Maguire questioned whether or not he truly fit the culture of discipline and "playing between the whistles" that the Canucks organization had cultivated, and Ray Ferraro took it one step further in saying he was a selfish player that lacked discipline and focus, citing an instance where Lapierre had actually trash talked Ferraro--an analyst--during a game.
The criticism hasn't really stopped, either; noted plug Krystofer Barch, of the Dallas Stars, tweeted that he would be ashamed to be Lapierre's father, and called him a slew of other names.
However, to those in Canuck Nation, Lapierre has been an extremely valuable asset. He stepped into the void left by Manny Malhotra when the latter went down with an eye injury and filled the role capably. He leads the team in hits, he wins better than 50% of his faceoffs, he drives the opposition nuts, and he has provided some timely offense. Last night was no different, as he stuck a fair sized dagger into the Bruins with his game-winning goal.
But the real story last night was Roberto Luongo. The questions had surfaced once again as to whether he posessed the mental fortitude to lead the Canucks to the promised land in advance of the game. Let's just say he answered that with an exclamation point, pitching a shutout and then finally taking a dig at Tim Thomas, claiming that if Thomas wasn't so over-aggressive, the save on Lapierre's shot would have been "easy".
It was a comment that quickly drew criticism from the anti-Canuck factions around the league, nevermind that Thomas has, after every Bruins loss, complained that his teammates just haven't made it difficult enough for Luongo. Hardly ringing endorsements from the diminutive Bruins' netminder.
But of course, it's a non-Canuck player saying it. That's just "gamesmanship" and "old fashioned hockey" or "playing the right way". Much like a Boston restaurant allowing Vancouver players to sit for 30 minutes without eating before informing them that "we are out of food". That happens in Boston and again, it's "gamesmanship", "cute fan antics", "good competetive behaviour". If it happens in Vancouver it's "disgraceful", "pathetic", "they kill puppies" and things of that sort.
Yes, the double standard is back in full force. Networks such as ESPN aren't even attempting to hide their blatant bias towards the Boston Bruins, hoping against hope that the team from Vancouver won't have a chance to bring home the Cup.
But as of now, the Canucks have a chance to do just that on Monday.
The 12-1 blowouts of Games 3 and 4 seem like a distant memory now, as the Canucks put forth one of their best efforts of the season in Game 5. Thomas stood tall for Boston and made several great saves, but Luongo was his equal and more on this night as he silenced many-a-critic with his performance. The Canucks will likely need him to do the same on Monday, as Thomas isn't going to make it easy. The Bruins have also played easily their best hockey when playing within the confines of the TD Banknorth Garden.
But there's a new motivator on Monday night. And that is the fact that, for the first time in this series, the Stanley Cup will be in the building. There is only one team that has a chance of winning it on Monday night, and that is the Vancouver Canucks. For a team that was chased out of the Banknorth Garden with their tails between their legs just this past Wednesday, the opportunity to showcase that trophy in front of the Bruins' faithful has to seem tantalizing.
But the players can't get ahead of themselves. That's what they did so well yesterday. They shut out the whit e noise and shennanigans (for the most part), they played smart, disiciplined hockey and they got back to their transition game that has been so successful for them this season. They looked like the best team in the league once again as opposed to the band of impostors who showed up in Boston for Games 3 and 4.
They need to focus on the task at hand. They need to play smart, they need to play fast. And just as Roberto Luongo stepped up in Game 5, the rest of the Canucks' best players need to be their best players--Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler, Alexandre Burrows--everyone needs to stand up and assert themselves as champions.
The Stanley Cup will be in the building on Monday. It's there for the Canucks to take.
So, go get it.
Canuck Nation is once again head over heels in love with Roberto Luongo, who bounced back in a massive way in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final with a 31-save shutout. The Vancouver Canucks, as a group, are knocking on heaven's door now as they are just 1 victory away from winning the franchise's first Stanley Cup. The eerie silence and tension that gripped the whole of British Columbia has been trampled underfoot as the bandwagon's proverbial cup hath runneth over again with a sea of blue and green clad supporters.
The Canucks are up 3-2 in the Stanley Cup Final after one of the most tense and momentous games in the history of the franchise. Roberto Luongo and his counterpart, Tim Thomas, were going shot for shot until the oft-criticised (outside of Vancouver) Maxim Lapierre finally managed to put a puck behind the Boston netminder. While he would never admit it, it must have been sweet vindication for Lapierre.
I remember watching TSN the day that Lapierre was acquired by the Canucks at the trade deadline, and being quite surprised at how much the TSN analysts hated the move. Pierre Maguire questioned whether or not he truly fit the culture of discipline and "playing between the whistles" that the Canucks organization had cultivated, and Ray Ferraro took it one step further in saying he was a selfish player that lacked discipline and focus, citing an instance where Lapierre had actually trash talked Ferraro--an analyst--during a game.
The criticism hasn't really stopped, either; noted plug Krystofer Barch, of the Dallas Stars, tweeted that he would be ashamed to be Lapierre's father, and called him a slew of other names.
However, to those in Canuck Nation, Lapierre has been an extremely valuable asset. He stepped into the void left by Manny Malhotra when the latter went down with an eye injury and filled the role capably. He leads the team in hits, he wins better than 50% of his faceoffs, he drives the opposition nuts, and he has provided some timely offense. Last night was no different, as he stuck a fair sized dagger into the Bruins with his game-winning goal.
But the real story last night was Roberto Luongo. The questions had surfaced once again as to whether he posessed the mental fortitude to lead the Canucks to the promised land in advance of the game. Let's just say he answered that with an exclamation point, pitching a shutout and then finally taking a dig at Tim Thomas, claiming that if Thomas wasn't so over-aggressive, the save on Lapierre's shot would have been "easy".
It was a comment that quickly drew criticism from the anti-Canuck factions around the league, nevermind that Thomas has, after every Bruins loss, complained that his teammates just haven't made it difficult enough for Luongo. Hardly ringing endorsements from the diminutive Bruins' netminder.
But of course, it's a non-Canuck player saying it. That's just "gamesmanship" and "old fashioned hockey" or "playing the right way". Much like a Boston restaurant allowing Vancouver players to sit for 30 minutes without eating before informing them that "we are out of food". That happens in Boston and again, it's "gamesmanship", "cute fan antics", "good competetive behaviour". If it happens in Vancouver it's "disgraceful", "pathetic", "they kill puppies" and things of that sort.
Yes, the double standard is back in full force. Networks such as ESPN aren't even attempting to hide their blatant bias towards the Boston Bruins, hoping against hope that the team from Vancouver won't have a chance to bring home the Cup.
But as of now, the Canucks have a chance to do just that on Monday.
The 12-1 blowouts of Games 3 and 4 seem like a distant memory now, as the Canucks put forth one of their best efforts of the season in Game 5. Thomas stood tall for Boston and made several great saves, but Luongo was his equal and more on this night as he silenced many-a-critic with his performance. The Canucks will likely need him to do the same on Monday, as Thomas isn't going to make it easy. The Bruins have also played easily their best hockey when playing within the confines of the TD Banknorth Garden.
But there's a new motivator on Monday night. And that is the fact that, for the first time in this series, the Stanley Cup will be in the building. There is only one team that has a chance of winning it on Monday night, and that is the Vancouver Canucks. For a team that was chased out of the Banknorth Garden with their tails between their legs just this past Wednesday, the opportunity to showcase that trophy in front of the Bruins' faithful has to seem tantalizing.
But the players can't get ahead of themselves. That's what they did so well yesterday. They shut out the whit e noise and shennanigans (for the most part), they played smart, disiciplined hockey and they got back to their transition game that has been so successful for them this season. They looked like the best team in the league once again as opposed to the band of impostors who showed up in Boston for Games 3 and 4.
They need to focus on the task at hand. They need to play smart, they need to play fast. And just as Roberto Luongo stepped up in Game 5, the rest of the Canucks' best players need to be their best players--Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler, Alexandre Burrows--everyone needs to stand up and assert themselves as champions.
The Stanley Cup will be in the building on Monday. It's there for the Canucks to take.
So, go get it.
Friday 10 June 2011
Riders in the Storm
Let the gamesmanship begin.
We are now less than five hours away from puckdrop in Vancouver, and an eerie silence has gripped the Province. Or at least, it has up here in Kitimat. 16 hours Northwest of Vancouver, Kitimat has been gripped with a similar "Canuck Fever" to what the Lower Mainland has experienced. Jubilant throngs fill the parking lots of the local malls, proudly waving Canuck fans and honking their horns after every Canuck victory thus far in this post-season.
But at the moment, it is all quiet. It has been that way for mostly a week, or since the Boston Bruins slapped the Canucks around in two consecutive games.
It's not quiet on the Canucks' roster front, however. The Canucks' blueline--fresh off a game in which calling it a "Chinese Fire Drill" would have been generous--is going to go through some more changes tonight. Out comes hapless defensemen Keith Ballard and in comes green-as-grass rookie Chris Tanev. Yes, Chris Tanev; the 21-year-old kid who was playing in the second tier of the collegiate ranks in the USA last year.
That isn't to be negative on Tanev. I think he is a very good defensemen, even now. More than likely, he plays a safer game than Ballard which might be what the Canucks are looking for. Nevertheless, it is just another notch on the belt of the worst professional season of Ballard's career. But we'll cover that another day, as I could probably fill up several blog entries with my speculation on just what the heck is going on with Keith Ballard and the Canucks' coaching staff.
So let's focus on Tanev. He acquitted himself extremely well in 29 games this season, and also suited up for Games 4 and 5 against the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Final--both victories. He is an unflappable, cool-as-a-cucumber player who makes extremely intelligent plays with the puck, highlighted moreso by the fact that he is still only 21 years old. The kid has a great hockey IQ.
While it's somewhat of an odd decision to insert him in the lineup, the Canucks needed a shakeup. Since Dan Hamhuis went down to injury, the chemistry hasn't been there, the quick movements of the puck haven't been there, and the smart, lateral passes haven't been there. Chris Tanev is strong in all of these categories, and while he isn't expected to see a whopping amount of ice time, it's difficult (but not impossible) to imagine him having a much worse go of it than Keith Ballard and Andrew Alberts have had.
In goal, the party line remains the same: Roberto Luongo will be in goal. Anyone questioning that decision, in my humble opinion, needs to go find a doctor since they clearly are in dire need of some assistance in removing their own head from their rectum.
The notion that somehow still plagues Luongo of him not being a "big game player" is truly silly. He proved it in the Olympics, he proved it in Game 7 of the opening round against Chicago, and he proved it in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final against San Jose. He was hotly talked about as a Conn Smythe Trophy candidate after Game 2 of the playoffs, and the "Luuuuuuu" chants were being sung loud and proud.
Two days later, and some in the media as well as Canuck Nation want to see Cory Schneider start. Maybe those people should put the "BC Bud" down.
Cory Schneider is a teriffic goaltender and he is fully capable of winning games. I would be highly confident in him were he starting these games. But you just do not do this to a team that has come this far as a team. Roberto Luongo, like him or love him, is just as big a reason for the Canucks being in this Stanley Cup Final fighting for their first championship as Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows, or the brothers Sedin. To say he is somehow riding the coat-tails of anyone is beyond idiotic, it is pure fantasy.
Roberto Luongo has proven that he has the mental toughness to bounce back from some putrid outings, and I don't expect tonight to be any different. He can be better, and he will be better. I'm not giving him a mulligan for Game 4--I thought he let in two incredibly soft goals. But so many people like talking about the goaltender that he becomes when is game is off. Boston had better hope they don't get the chance to talk about the goaltender he is when his game is on.
Now, I'm a Canucks fan. The Canucks could have gone 0-82 to this point (they wouldn't be in the Cup Final were that the case, but give me some suspension of disbelief for a second) and I would still be waving the pom poms saying I believe in them.
But they are headed into Game 5, on home ice, with the chance to put a loaded gun to the head of the Boston Bruins with just one victory. One victory, tonight on home ice, and they have a chance to sip from the Cup on Monday. That is 60 minutes (or more, depending on overtime) of good, smart, hard hockey.
And that's the way the Canucks need to play. Whether it's Keith Ballard, Chris Tanev or Daffy Duck playing on the Canucks' blueline, they need to get back to playing Canuck hockey. Enough of this between-the-whistles horse-pucky. Enough of getting sucked into jousting wars with the goaltender. Enough of an anemic power play that wouldn't strike fear into a Pee Wee hockey team.
The Canucks need to get back to the smooth skating, fast-moving transition game that has gotten them to this point. They need to calm down, play as a team, and let Boston make their own bed with their antics and tomfoolery.
Like it or not, that will start with Luongo between the pipes. But if he's proven anything, it's that he can shut out all the white noise going on around him and bring a big game when he needs to.
To quote a TV ad that's been going around, the clock is ticking. Let's see what they've got.
We are now less than five hours away from puckdrop in Vancouver, and an eerie silence has gripped the Province. Or at least, it has up here in Kitimat. 16 hours Northwest of Vancouver, Kitimat has been gripped with a similar "Canuck Fever" to what the Lower Mainland has experienced. Jubilant throngs fill the parking lots of the local malls, proudly waving Canuck fans and honking their horns after every Canuck victory thus far in this post-season.
But at the moment, it is all quiet. It has been that way for mostly a week, or since the Boston Bruins slapped the Canucks around in two consecutive games.
It's not quiet on the Canucks' roster front, however. The Canucks' blueline--fresh off a game in which calling it a "Chinese Fire Drill" would have been generous--is going to go through some more changes tonight. Out comes hapless defensemen Keith Ballard and in comes green-as-grass rookie Chris Tanev. Yes, Chris Tanev; the 21-year-old kid who was playing in the second tier of the collegiate ranks in the USA last year.
That isn't to be negative on Tanev. I think he is a very good defensemen, even now. More than likely, he plays a safer game than Ballard which might be what the Canucks are looking for. Nevertheless, it is just another notch on the belt of the worst professional season of Ballard's career. But we'll cover that another day, as I could probably fill up several blog entries with my speculation on just what the heck is going on with Keith Ballard and the Canucks' coaching staff.
So let's focus on Tanev. He acquitted himself extremely well in 29 games this season, and also suited up for Games 4 and 5 against the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Final--both victories. He is an unflappable, cool-as-a-cucumber player who makes extremely intelligent plays with the puck, highlighted moreso by the fact that he is still only 21 years old. The kid has a great hockey IQ.
While it's somewhat of an odd decision to insert him in the lineup, the Canucks needed a shakeup. Since Dan Hamhuis went down to injury, the chemistry hasn't been there, the quick movements of the puck haven't been there, and the smart, lateral passes haven't been there. Chris Tanev is strong in all of these categories, and while he isn't expected to see a whopping amount of ice time, it's difficult (but not impossible) to imagine him having a much worse go of it than Keith Ballard and Andrew Alberts have had.
In goal, the party line remains the same: Roberto Luongo will be in goal. Anyone questioning that decision, in my humble opinion, needs to go find a doctor since they clearly are in dire need of some assistance in removing their own head from their rectum.
The notion that somehow still plagues Luongo of him not being a "big game player" is truly silly. He proved it in the Olympics, he proved it in Game 7 of the opening round against Chicago, and he proved it in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final against San Jose. He was hotly talked about as a Conn Smythe Trophy candidate after Game 2 of the playoffs, and the "Luuuuuuu" chants were being sung loud and proud.
Two days later, and some in the media as well as Canuck Nation want to see Cory Schneider start. Maybe those people should put the "BC Bud" down.
Cory Schneider is a teriffic goaltender and he is fully capable of winning games. I would be highly confident in him were he starting these games. But you just do not do this to a team that has come this far as a team. Roberto Luongo, like him or love him, is just as big a reason for the Canucks being in this Stanley Cup Final fighting for their first championship as Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows, or the brothers Sedin. To say he is somehow riding the coat-tails of anyone is beyond idiotic, it is pure fantasy.
Roberto Luongo has proven that he has the mental toughness to bounce back from some putrid outings, and I don't expect tonight to be any different. He can be better, and he will be better. I'm not giving him a mulligan for Game 4--I thought he let in two incredibly soft goals. But so many people like talking about the goaltender that he becomes when is game is off. Boston had better hope they don't get the chance to talk about the goaltender he is when his game is on.
Now, I'm a Canucks fan. The Canucks could have gone 0-82 to this point (they wouldn't be in the Cup Final were that the case, but give me some suspension of disbelief for a second) and I would still be waving the pom poms saying I believe in them.
But they are headed into Game 5, on home ice, with the chance to put a loaded gun to the head of the Boston Bruins with just one victory. One victory, tonight on home ice, and they have a chance to sip from the Cup on Monday. That is 60 minutes (or more, depending on overtime) of good, smart, hard hockey.
And that's the way the Canucks need to play. Whether it's Keith Ballard, Chris Tanev or Daffy Duck playing on the Canucks' blueline, they need to get back to playing Canuck hockey. Enough of this between-the-whistles horse-pucky. Enough of getting sucked into jousting wars with the goaltender. Enough of an anemic power play that wouldn't strike fear into a Pee Wee hockey team.
The Canucks need to get back to the smooth skating, fast-moving transition game that has gotten them to this point. They need to calm down, play as a team, and let Boston make their own bed with their antics and tomfoolery.
Like it or not, that will start with Luongo between the pipes. But if he's proven anything, it's that he can shut out all the white noise going on around him and bring a big game when he needs to.
To quote a TV ad that's been going around, the clock is ticking. Let's see what they've got.
Thursday 9 June 2011
Don't Fear The Reaper
I have said before that I am a fairly optimistic fellow, a guy most people would likely refer to as "glass half full". Wherever possible I try to see the positive in a given situation and put that spin on it.
So that begs the question: how the hell does one put a positive spin on the last two games for the Vancouver Canucks?
It's not an easy question to answer, but we can give it a shot. In Games 3 and 4, the Canucks were outscored by the Boston Bruins by a combined total of 12-1. Wait, that's not very good.
How about this: in Games 3 and 4, the Canucks went a combined 0-for-18 while racking up a whopping 96 penalty minutes of their own, misconducts included. Damn. That's not very good either.
How about the fact that our star goaltender got lite up for 12 goals against in two games, eventually getting the hook in favour of rookie backup Cory Schneider for the first time since the opening round against the Chicago Blackhawks? Nope, that's not very good.
Okay, so maybe finding a silver lining for the past two games is more difficult than I thought. Call it a side effect of the team mailing in two poor efforts.
But I think I finally have it: the Canucks head back to Vancouver not trailing in this series, but tied. That's right! Tied. The Boston Bruins have not yet won the Stanley Cup, we didn't miss a parade, and the Vancouver Canucks' season is not yet over. The series is all even at 2-2 heading back to home ice.
It was only a few short days ago that the Canucks headed to Boston with all the momentum on their side on the heels of two dramatic victories. Canuck Nation was whispering "sweep" as the frustrated Bruins headed back to the TD Banknorth Garden.
And now, several days later, it's a whole new ball game. Tim Thomas is the goaltender who has the most recent shutout now, not Roberto Luongo. And Brad Marchand has usurpsed Alexandre Burrows as the most annoying French Canadian pest on the ice who also happens to be able to burn you with some teriffic hockey skills.
But in spite of all this, the series is tied. It's easy to forget, given the manner in which the Canucks lost the last two games, that they won the first two. Yes, it is easy to get caught up staring at the 12-1 combined score of the last two games and miss the fact that--where it counts--this series is tied at 2-2.
But the bottom line is that there is still hockey to be played, and on home ice at that. The Canucks are 9-3 as the home team in the playoffs to this point and have not lost a game at Rogers Arena since the second round series against the Nashville Predators. They save their best for the home rink, and that is a decided benefit at this point.
Granted, decided benefits are tricky. Yesterday I speculated that with the NHL announcing they would be calling things tighter, that this would work in Vancouver's favour. Frankly, the NHL never followed through on its pledge and yesterday's game was just as much of a gong show as Game 3 before it. (I don't necessarilly think the officiating was tilted in either direction--it was simply awful, period)
So, if there is some positivity to take away from the past few days it is that the Canucks are returning to the (hopefully) friendly confines of Rogers Arena in a series tied 2-2. The Canucks now have to take a Best-of-Three to win the Stanley Cup. If any of us was approached before the season to ask if this sounded like a good deal, would any of us say no? Would any of us say "well, what order were the games won in to get to Game 5"?
I didn't think so. Anyone in Canuck Nation would have taken that deal in a heartbeat.
One other thing I noticed last night was a bizarre sound. It was probably louder in Vancouver than it was up here in Kitimat, but it was still distinct and instantly recognizeable. I'd grown accustomed to it after facing the Chicago Blackhawks in the last three playoff seasons: the sound of the knives coming out and being sharpened for Roberto Luongo.
I'm the first to admit, the last two games were not pretty for him. I couldn't actually fault him for Game 3, but I thought he had a poor outting in Game 4. His failure to stop a fairly lousy five-hole shot by Rich Peverley on the game's opening goal, and whiffing completely on a long knuckle-puck from Michael Ryder for the second goal were both deflating moments for the Canucks. The last two goals weren't really his fault--a miscommunication by Keith Ballard and Henrik Sedin ended with the puck behind Luongo for the third goal, and an unfortunate bounce off a Bruin glove resulted in the fourth. But it was those first two that were costly.
But putting that aside--I can't believe that after everything this team and this goaltender have been through that Luongo's fans are still so...fair weather.
This is a guy who rebounded from the darkest moments of his professional career in the first round. He was lit up like a Christmas tree by the Blackhawks before being benched in favour of Cory Schneider for Game 6. He then returned in the all important Game 7 and played one of the best games of his career, punctuated with a season-saving stop off Patrick Sharp while the Canucks were shorthanded in overtime.
He was solid against Nashville, and he completely shut down the San Jose attack in Games 4 and 5 of the Western Conference Final, playing what certainly was his finest game as a Canuck with 54 saves in Game 5. He earned a shutout in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, and had another fine performance in Game 2.
So the team, as a whole, has a collective brain fart and drops two consecutive games in Boston. All of a sudden everyone is turning on Luongo again?
Give me a break. He has bounced back from worse than what he is facing now, and so has this team. The Boston Bruins, all due respect, are not the Chicago Blackhawks. They are not the defending Stanley Cup Champions, and they are not the team that built a hotel inside the collective psyche of the Vancouver Canucks and remained their on a semi-permanent basis for three years.
The Canucks will bounce back. Roberto Luongo will bounce back.
The Canucks have gotten past too many demons to get to this point and come home empty handed. They have too much pride, skill and will to simply burn out or fade away against this chippy Boston Bruins team.
And I think they'll prove it in Game 5.
So that begs the question: how the hell does one put a positive spin on the last two games for the Vancouver Canucks?
It's not an easy question to answer, but we can give it a shot. In Games 3 and 4, the Canucks were outscored by the Boston Bruins by a combined total of 12-1. Wait, that's not very good.
How about this: in Games 3 and 4, the Canucks went a combined 0-for-18 while racking up a whopping 96 penalty minutes of their own, misconducts included. Damn. That's not very good either.
How about the fact that our star goaltender got lite up for 12 goals against in two games, eventually getting the hook in favour of rookie backup Cory Schneider for the first time since the opening round against the Chicago Blackhawks? Nope, that's not very good.
Okay, so maybe finding a silver lining for the past two games is more difficult than I thought. Call it a side effect of the team mailing in two poor efforts.
But I think I finally have it: the Canucks head back to Vancouver not trailing in this series, but tied. That's right! Tied. The Boston Bruins have not yet won the Stanley Cup, we didn't miss a parade, and the Vancouver Canucks' season is not yet over. The series is all even at 2-2 heading back to home ice.
It was only a few short days ago that the Canucks headed to Boston with all the momentum on their side on the heels of two dramatic victories. Canuck Nation was whispering "sweep" as the frustrated Bruins headed back to the TD Banknorth Garden.
And now, several days later, it's a whole new ball game. Tim Thomas is the goaltender who has the most recent shutout now, not Roberto Luongo. And Brad Marchand has usurpsed Alexandre Burrows as the most annoying French Canadian pest on the ice who also happens to be able to burn you with some teriffic hockey skills.
But in spite of all this, the series is tied. It's easy to forget, given the manner in which the Canucks lost the last two games, that they won the first two. Yes, it is easy to get caught up staring at the 12-1 combined score of the last two games and miss the fact that--where it counts--this series is tied at 2-2.
But the bottom line is that there is still hockey to be played, and on home ice at that. The Canucks are 9-3 as the home team in the playoffs to this point and have not lost a game at Rogers Arena since the second round series against the Nashville Predators. They save their best for the home rink, and that is a decided benefit at this point.
Granted, decided benefits are tricky. Yesterday I speculated that with the NHL announcing they would be calling things tighter, that this would work in Vancouver's favour. Frankly, the NHL never followed through on its pledge and yesterday's game was just as much of a gong show as Game 3 before it. (I don't necessarilly think the officiating was tilted in either direction--it was simply awful, period)
So, if there is some positivity to take away from the past few days it is that the Canucks are returning to the (hopefully) friendly confines of Rogers Arena in a series tied 2-2. The Canucks now have to take a Best-of-Three to win the Stanley Cup. If any of us was approached before the season to ask if this sounded like a good deal, would any of us say no? Would any of us say "well, what order were the games won in to get to Game 5"?
I didn't think so. Anyone in Canuck Nation would have taken that deal in a heartbeat.
One other thing I noticed last night was a bizarre sound. It was probably louder in Vancouver than it was up here in Kitimat, but it was still distinct and instantly recognizeable. I'd grown accustomed to it after facing the Chicago Blackhawks in the last three playoff seasons: the sound of the knives coming out and being sharpened for Roberto Luongo.
I'm the first to admit, the last two games were not pretty for him. I couldn't actually fault him for Game 3, but I thought he had a poor outting in Game 4. His failure to stop a fairly lousy five-hole shot by Rich Peverley on the game's opening goal, and whiffing completely on a long knuckle-puck from Michael Ryder for the second goal were both deflating moments for the Canucks. The last two goals weren't really his fault--a miscommunication by Keith Ballard and Henrik Sedin ended with the puck behind Luongo for the third goal, and an unfortunate bounce off a Bruin glove resulted in the fourth. But it was those first two that were costly.
But putting that aside--I can't believe that after everything this team and this goaltender have been through that Luongo's fans are still so...fair weather.
This is a guy who rebounded from the darkest moments of his professional career in the first round. He was lit up like a Christmas tree by the Blackhawks before being benched in favour of Cory Schneider for Game 6. He then returned in the all important Game 7 and played one of the best games of his career, punctuated with a season-saving stop off Patrick Sharp while the Canucks were shorthanded in overtime.
He was solid against Nashville, and he completely shut down the San Jose attack in Games 4 and 5 of the Western Conference Final, playing what certainly was his finest game as a Canuck with 54 saves in Game 5. He earned a shutout in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, and had another fine performance in Game 2.
So the team, as a whole, has a collective brain fart and drops two consecutive games in Boston. All of a sudden everyone is turning on Luongo again?
Give me a break. He has bounced back from worse than what he is facing now, and so has this team. The Boston Bruins, all due respect, are not the Chicago Blackhawks. They are not the defending Stanley Cup Champions, and they are not the team that built a hotel inside the collective psyche of the Vancouver Canucks and remained their on a semi-permanent basis for three years.
The Canucks will bounce back. Roberto Luongo will bounce back.
The Canucks have gotten past too many demons to get to this point and come home empty handed. They have too much pride, skill and will to simply burn out or fade away against this chippy Boston Bruins team.
And I think they'll prove it in Game 5.
Wednesday 8 June 2011
Come Together
For the first time since the opening round series against the Chicago Blackhawks in this 2011 playoffs, the Vancouver Canucks are being forced to deal with some adversity.
After winning both Games 1 and 2 in dramatic fashion, the Canucks headed to Boston holding all the momentum in the series. The Bruins seemed frustrated, the Canucks were playing their quick transition game to perfection, and Bruins netminder Tim Thomas was being forced to move around both in and outside of his crease, resulting in critical goals for the Canucks.
But then Game 3 happened.
Now, the Canucks are coming off their worst loss of the season thanks to that 8-1 tubthumping, and they are also faced with the loss of defensemen Aaron Rome, who was suspended by the league for the duration of the Stanley Cup Final after he wiped out Nathan Horton with a borderline hit.
So how do the Canucks rebound for Game 4? Well to start with, they need to ignore everything I just said and leave that behind them. The past is the past and there's no use in crying over spilt milk. The Canucks will make the necessary adjustments to their starting lineup to accomodate for Aaron Rome's absence tonight and show up with their game faces on.
They also can't get caught looking ahead. Many a fan is breathless with their optimism that if the Canucks do emerge victorious tonight, they will return home with a chance to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup on Friday in front of Canuck Nation at Rogers Arena--a tantalizing thought, to be certain, but also a premature one.
Ex-Canuck Brad May was speaking the other day of the time he and his 2007 Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup. The Ducks had just won the first two games of their series against the Ottawa Senators on home ice, and in the leadup to Game 3, the players were abuzz about what to do if they won. Would they fly their families in from Anaheim to watch Game 4 in Ottawa, in case they won the Cup?
In spite of Chris Pronger's efforts to get his teammates to focus on the game, they didn't. Ottawa emerged victorious in Game 3, causing the Ducks to regroup.
You could conceivably guess that maybe the Canucks were caught looking ahead in Game 3, and it burned them. They need to avoid that mistake in Game 4 and focus on the task at hand. They will be receiving some assistance from off the ice, however, as the NHL (in its infinite wisdom) made a press release yesterday announcing that they would actually be enforcing their own rules. No more scrums after whistles, no more finger wagging in each other's faces, no more hacks and slashes during or after the play--just none of it.
This plays into the Vancouver style of game far more than the Boston style. Vancouver has always been at its best when they have played from whistle to whistle and shut out the chatter and mixing it up in between them. They certainly haven't gotten this far by having key players such as Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows getting tossed from games, much less in the same one and almost at the same time.
The Bruins, conversely, love mixing it up. They love to agitiate and they love to throw their considerable size advantage over most teams(the Canucks included) around. So if the NHL is actually serious about this "crap and garbage", as Mike Murphy called it, coming to an end, then it is a decided benefit for the Canucks.
But it will be for naught if the Canucks can't improve in a category that largely got them to the Stanley Cup Final, and that is their power play. The same power play that lit up the Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks has gone ice cold against the Bruins. In fact, they gave up two short handed goals to Boston in Game 3. None of that is acceptable, and the Canucks will need to be better in that respect tonight.
In the second and the third rounds, the Canucks laid some big goose eggs in a couple of games. It was Game 5 against Nashville and Game 3 against San Jose, where costly defensive blunders, ineffective special teams and brain cramps cost them. The Canucks, to a man, were able to rebound in both instances and play a tight road game the following night in both instances--in Nashville, they closed out the Predators 2-1 in Game 6. In San Jose, they defeated the Sharks 4-2 to send themselves back to Vancouver up three games to one.
They now find themselves in a similar situation in Boston. Vancouver was one of the best road teams in the NHL this season for a reason. In large part, it is their ability to shut out the chatter and distractions and just play a solid, clinical road game. They will need to do just that tonight.
The most important game is always the next one. And right now, that is Game 4.
After winning both Games 1 and 2 in dramatic fashion, the Canucks headed to Boston holding all the momentum in the series. The Bruins seemed frustrated, the Canucks were playing their quick transition game to perfection, and Bruins netminder Tim Thomas was being forced to move around both in and outside of his crease, resulting in critical goals for the Canucks.
But then Game 3 happened.
Now, the Canucks are coming off their worst loss of the season thanks to that 8-1 tubthumping, and they are also faced with the loss of defensemen Aaron Rome, who was suspended by the league for the duration of the Stanley Cup Final after he wiped out Nathan Horton with a borderline hit.
So how do the Canucks rebound for Game 4? Well to start with, they need to ignore everything I just said and leave that behind them. The past is the past and there's no use in crying over spilt milk. The Canucks will make the necessary adjustments to their starting lineup to accomodate for Aaron Rome's absence tonight and show up with their game faces on.
They also can't get caught looking ahead. Many a fan is breathless with their optimism that if the Canucks do emerge victorious tonight, they will return home with a chance to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup on Friday in front of Canuck Nation at Rogers Arena--a tantalizing thought, to be certain, but also a premature one.
Ex-Canuck Brad May was speaking the other day of the time he and his 2007 Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup. The Ducks had just won the first two games of their series against the Ottawa Senators on home ice, and in the leadup to Game 3, the players were abuzz about what to do if they won. Would they fly their families in from Anaheim to watch Game 4 in Ottawa, in case they won the Cup?
In spite of Chris Pronger's efforts to get his teammates to focus on the game, they didn't. Ottawa emerged victorious in Game 3, causing the Ducks to regroup.
You could conceivably guess that maybe the Canucks were caught looking ahead in Game 3, and it burned them. They need to avoid that mistake in Game 4 and focus on the task at hand. They will be receiving some assistance from off the ice, however, as the NHL (in its infinite wisdom) made a press release yesterday announcing that they would actually be enforcing their own rules. No more scrums after whistles, no more finger wagging in each other's faces, no more hacks and slashes during or after the play--just none of it.
This plays into the Vancouver style of game far more than the Boston style. Vancouver has always been at its best when they have played from whistle to whistle and shut out the chatter and mixing it up in between them. They certainly haven't gotten this far by having key players such as Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows getting tossed from games, much less in the same one and almost at the same time.
The Bruins, conversely, love mixing it up. They love to agitiate and they love to throw their considerable size advantage over most teams(the Canucks included) around. So if the NHL is actually serious about this "crap and garbage", as Mike Murphy called it, coming to an end, then it is a decided benefit for the Canucks.
But it will be for naught if the Canucks can't improve in a category that largely got them to the Stanley Cup Final, and that is their power play. The same power play that lit up the Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks has gone ice cold against the Bruins. In fact, they gave up two short handed goals to Boston in Game 3. None of that is acceptable, and the Canucks will need to be better in that respect tonight.
In the second and the third rounds, the Canucks laid some big goose eggs in a couple of games. It was Game 5 against Nashville and Game 3 against San Jose, where costly defensive blunders, ineffective special teams and brain cramps cost them. The Canucks, to a man, were able to rebound in both instances and play a tight road game the following night in both instances--in Nashville, they closed out the Predators 2-1 in Game 6. In San Jose, they defeated the Sharks 4-2 to send themselves back to Vancouver up three games to one.
They now find themselves in a similar situation in Boston. Vancouver was one of the best road teams in the NHL this season for a reason. In large part, it is their ability to shut out the chatter and distractions and just play a solid, clinical road game. They will need to do just that tonight.
The most important game is always the next one. And right now, that is Game 4.
Tuesday 7 June 2011
Breaking the Law
I wrote earlier today that I would not be surprised if the league decided to make an example out of Aaron Rome. The NHL has a history of being woefully inconsistent with their brand of justice, and there is a tangible double standard--one for the stars of the league and one for everyone else.
Take, for example, the much ballyhooed hit from Boston Bruins' Captain Zdeno Chara on Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty earlier this season. It made highlight reels around the country and had some Montreal fans calling the police to report an assault. It was the play where Chara ran Pacioretty into a stanchion at the end of the players' bench. Pacioretty's season was ended on the play thanks to fractures in his neck and a severe concussion.
Finding a consensus on that hit was extremely difficult, and getting an objective viewpoint from either Bruins or Habs' fanbases was virtually impossible. My own point of view is that it was a tad on the late side, and while Chara certainly meant to finish a check on vulnerable Pacioretty, he clearly never intended to injure the forward in the fashion that he did. The fact that Chara had absolutely no record of this kind of activity leant credence to that. In the end, Chara--a star player--was let off the hook with not even so much as a fine, much to the chagrin of the Canadiens fanbase.
Flash forward to Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final last night and we have something of a similar situation, except this time it wasn't a star player(Chara) hitting a rookie(Pacioretty). It was a journeyman defensemen(Canucks' defensemen Aaron Rome) hitting a star player(Bruins' forward Nathan Horton).
The circumstances were similar. Rome delivered a hit that was on the late side and it has ended Nathan Horton's season. Rome, much like Chara before him, has absolutely no record with the NHL. He has never been accused by anyone in the league or the media of being a dirty player. He is a meat and potatoes player who is very popular with players and coaching staff alike. While--again, like Chara--it was clear that he meant to finish his check, it was also clear that he never meant to injure Horton in the fashion he did.
The NHL's response? A 4-game suspension that will keep Rome out for the remainder of the playoffs, much like Horton is now prohibited from playing again in the Finals due to a severe concussion.
Now, I don't necessarilly disagree that supplemental discipline was in order for Rome. But if you agree with the adage sometimes thrown around that a 1 game suspension in the playoffs is equal to two or three games in the regular season, than you might also accept that Rome's punishment was quite steep--especially for a player with no prior history whom everyone, including the league's own disciplinarian in this case--Mike Murphy--said was maybe only a second, or even a fraction of a second too late in his hit.
So this "one second" delay warrants the biggest suspension ever levied in a Stanley Cup Final?
To me, this smacks of the NHL picking a no-name player to make an example of. The NHL is "putting its foot down" with respect to late hits, hits that cause concussions and hits that make contact with the head.
Again, I am not defending Rome's hit--but I am saying that the consistency of the NHL's brand of discipline is questionable at best. If a star player crunches a no-name player, there is no suspension. You could even argue that when a no-name player crunches another no-name player, there is no suspension. See the previous round against San Jose when Sharks' forward Jamie McGinn hit Aaron Rome (yes, the same man) squarely in the numbers and drove him into the boards. Rome missed two games with a concussion. McGinn got nothing.
You see where inconsistency comes into play?
Now, Aaron Rome is an interesting figure. He has been something of a lightning rod for controversy and criticism this season amongst Canuck fans. Last off-season, the Canucks made two celebrated acquisitions for the blueline--Dan Hamhuis and Keith Ballard. One of the long standing mysteries of the 2010-2011 season has been what exactly does Keith Ballard need to do to remain in the lineup? Here you have a player who was a top four, 20+ minute-a-night defensemen everywhere he was been. A defender consistently capable of playing 82-games and putting up 20+ points while being mobile, strong with the puck and surprisingly gritty.
In contrast, you have Rome. Who's 49 games, 0 goals and 4 assists in 2009-2010 were all career highs. This was a player signed to play a depth role, as a spare part.
Yet on almost any given night, given a choice between the two, the Canucks opted for Rome. When there was a choice of who to put in the lineup, Rome would almost always slot in before Ballard. When both players were in the lineup, Rome would almost always get more ice-time than Ballard. This in spite of a consensus edge in skill and ability belonging to Ballard.
This has resulted in a lot of criticism coming Rome's way. My own view is that Rome is actually a solid defensemen; he goes out and he plays a safe game when he plays within his limitations. But it's when he is asked to play a bigger role that the warts in his game show through. Take, for example, Game 2 of the Final. With Dan Hamhuis out due to injury, Rome was asked to play a bigger role. In such a role, you need to be a little quicker, a little smarter, and a little more creative with the puck and your positioning. Rome--in spite of all his good qualities--is not really any of those.
So he was in over his head. And now, perhaps even as a result of that, he will be watching from the sidelines as his teammates fight to win the Stanley Cup. And now, the Canucks' coaching staff is virtually forced to employ their prized off-season acquisition in Keith Ballard, who has yet to play a game in this Stanley Cup Final.
It is a crushing end to Rome's season. No doubt there are some who are happy that he will be out of the lineup, as they felt that--based on merit and skill--he should have been some time ago. And they may well be right.
But to have Rome cast from the lineup due to the incompetence and inconsistency of the long arm of the NHL law is a shame for a player who has had nothing come easy and has had to work hard to earn his way into a regular role on the best team in the NHL this season. It is not fair that Rome receives different treatment than a star in this league would.
So if the Canucks need a rallying cry heading into Game 4 tomorrow, on the heels of their worst loss of the season, maybe that's it: do it for Rome.
Take, for example, the much ballyhooed hit from Boston Bruins' Captain Zdeno Chara on Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty earlier this season. It made highlight reels around the country and had some Montreal fans calling the police to report an assault. It was the play where Chara ran Pacioretty into a stanchion at the end of the players' bench. Pacioretty's season was ended on the play thanks to fractures in his neck and a severe concussion.
Finding a consensus on that hit was extremely difficult, and getting an objective viewpoint from either Bruins or Habs' fanbases was virtually impossible. My own point of view is that it was a tad on the late side, and while Chara certainly meant to finish a check on vulnerable Pacioretty, he clearly never intended to injure the forward in the fashion that he did. The fact that Chara had absolutely no record of this kind of activity leant credence to that. In the end, Chara--a star player--was let off the hook with not even so much as a fine, much to the chagrin of the Canadiens fanbase.
Flash forward to Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final last night and we have something of a similar situation, except this time it wasn't a star player(Chara) hitting a rookie(Pacioretty). It was a journeyman defensemen(Canucks' defensemen Aaron Rome) hitting a star player(Bruins' forward Nathan Horton).
The circumstances were similar. Rome delivered a hit that was on the late side and it has ended Nathan Horton's season. Rome, much like Chara before him, has absolutely no record with the NHL. He has never been accused by anyone in the league or the media of being a dirty player. He is a meat and potatoes player who is very popular with players and coaching staff alike. While--again, like Chara--it was clear that he meant to finish his check, it was also clear that he never meant to injure Horton in the fashion he did.
The NHL's response? A 4-game suspension that will keep Rome out for the remainder of the playoffs, much like Horton is now prohibited from playing again in the Finals due to a severe concussion.
Now, I don't necessarilly disagree that supplemental discipline was in order for Rome. But if you agree with the adage sometimes thrown around that a 1 game suspension in the playoffs is equal to two or three games in the regular season, than you might also accept that Rome's punishment was quite steep--especially for a player with no prior history whom everyone, including the league's own disciplinarian in this case--Mike Murphy--said was maybe only a second, or even a fraction of a second too late in his hit.
So this "one second" delay warrants the biggest suspension ever levied in a Stanley Cup Final?
To me, this smacks of the NHL picking a no-name player to make an example of. The NHL is "putting its foot down" with respect to late hits, hits that cause concussions and hits that make contact with the head.
Again, I am not defending Rome's hit--but I am saying that the consistency of the NHL's brand of discipline is questionable at best. If a star player crunches a no-name player, there is no suspension. You could even argue that when a no-name player crunches another no-name player, there is no suspension. See the previous round against San Jose when Sharks' forward Jamie McGinn hit Aaron Rome (yes, the same man) squarely in the numbers and drove him into the boards. Rome missed two games with a concussion. McGinn got nothing.
You see where inconsistency comes into play?
Now, Aaron Rome is an interesting figure. He has been something of a lightning rod for controversy and criticism this season amongst Canuck fans. Last off-season, the Canucks made two celebrated acquisitions for the blueline--Dan Hamhuis and Keith Ballard. One of the long standing mysteries of the 2010-2011 season has been what exactly does Keith Ballard need to do to remain in the lineup? Here you have a player who was a top four, 20+ minute-a-night defensemen everywhere he was been. A defender consistently capable of playing 82-games and putting up 20+ points while being mobile, strong with the puck and surprisingly gritty.
In contrast, you have Rome. Who's 49 games, 0 goals and 4 assists in 2009-2010 were all career highs. This was a player signed to play a depth role, as a spare part.
Yet on almost any given night, given a choice between the two, the Canucks opted for Rome. When there was a choice of who to put in the lineup, Rome would almost always slot in before Ballard. When both players were in the lineup, Rome would almost always get more ice-time than Ballard. This in spite of a consensus edge in skill and ability belonging to Ballard.
This has resulted in a lot of criticism coming Rome's way. My own view is that Rome is actually a solid defensemen; he goes out and he plays a safe game when he plays within his limitations. But it's when he is asked to play a bigger role that the warts in his game show through. Take, for example, Game 2 of the Final. With Dan Hamhuis out due to injury, Rome was asked to play a bigger role. In such a role, you need to be a little quicker, a little smarter, and a little more creative with the puck and your positioning. Rome--in spite of all his good qualities--is not really any of those.
So he was in over his head. And now, perhaps even as a result of that, he will be watching from the sidelines as his teammates fight to win the Stanley Cup. And now, the Canucks' coaching staff is virtually forced to employ their prized off-season acquisition in Keith Ballard, who has yet to play a game in this Stanley Cup Final.
It is a crushing end to Rome's season. No doubt there are some who are happy that he will be out of the lineup, as they felt that--based on merit and skill--he should have been some time ago. And they may well be right.
But to have Rome cast from the lineup due to the incompetence and inconsistency of the long arm of the NHL law is a shame for a player who has had nothing come easy and has had to work hard to earn his way into a regular role on the best team in the NHL this season. It is not fair that Rome receives different treatment than a star in this league would.
So if the Canucks need a rallying cry heading into Game 4 tomorrow, on the heels of their worst loss of the season, maybe that's it: do it for Rome.
In 'n Out of Love
Colour me confused.
The Vancouver Canucks entered the TD Banknorth Gardens in Boston last night on a roll. They had won the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final in dramatic fashion, between Raffi Torres' 1-0 goal with 14 seconds remaining in Game 1 and Alex Burrows' 3-2 winning goal just 11 seconds into overtime in Game 2, the Canucks had certainly had a flair for the dramatic. Conversely, the Bruins had looked slow and tired.
But early in Game 3, an incident occurred which simultaneously invigorated the Bruins while deflating the soaring Canucks. A role player for the Canucks stepped up and threw a devestating hit on a star player for the Boston Bruins, a hit which saw the Bruins player leave the game with a concussion.
Stop me when this starts sounding familiar. It was only a short month ago that Raffi Torres, in his first game of the playoffs, caught Chicago defensemen Brent Seabrook with his head down and exploded into him. A slightly different circumstance, as the league ruled it a clean hit and Seabrook remained in the game temporarily before missing the next two with a concussion.
When Aaron Rome stepped into Nathan Horton with an admittedly late and blindside hit, it had the Bruins seeing red. The Bruins attacked the Canucks; they outskated them to every puck, they won every battle along the boards, they rendered the Canucks' power play impotent, and their own power play which had that very same label before this series came to life. They scored goals at even strength, while shorthanded and with the man advantage.
Horton is lost for the playoffs with a severe concussion. My guess is that Aaron Rome will also be "lost" due to a severe suspension forthcoming from the league today. It is my opinion that the league suspends players based on the results of a hit rather than the action itself. Rome's action warrants 1 or 2 games; but given the fact that we have a no-name player knocking a star out of the Stanley Cup Final, it would not surprise me in the least to see Rome have the proverbial book thrown at him.
But all of this is a side story. The real story last night was how the Bruins surged to life while the Canucks wilted. It's not a new story to us; the Canucks were outscored 12-2 in Games 4 and 5 of their first round series against Chicago before rebounding to take the series in seven games. Last night struck a similar chord for me, in that the game wasn't so much won by the Bruins as it was lost by the Canucks. I made mention of the fact that the Bruins were winning all the battles, but it wasn't as if the Canucks were charging in with their A-Game.
There were plenty of sideshow antics on display. Tim Thomas speared Ryan Kesler in the groin and also cross checked Henrik Sedin; both Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic shoved their hands in the faces of both Maxim Lapierre and Alex Burrows in an attempt to get the latter players to "take a bite", something Boston coach Claude Julien had been critical of the Canucks for in advance of the game. To his credit, he also criticised his own team for doing it after their 8-1 Game 3 victory. But that doesn't change that last night was a complete circus on the ice.
The Canucks reached their boiling point too. Once the Bruins were up by a score of 4-0, they started doing everything they could to cheapshot the Canucks. Late hits, slashes to the ankles and backs of the leagues, facewashes, punches to the face, the aforementioned spears to groins, the whole 9 yards. Daniel Sedin took an elbow to the face from Andrew Ference and nearly dropped the gloves with him for the first time in his career. Alex Burrows took a whack at Tim Thomas and then took punches to the midsection, face and back of the head from Milan Lucic. Ryan Kesler finally had enough and tackled Dennis Seidenberg to the ice, clobbering him in the head with as many punches as he could muster before the linesman intervened.
It was a circus. The officials lost control of the game and the coaches lost control of their respective teams.
Speaking of coaches, Alain Vigneault lost the game of adjustments. He asked Roberto Luongo if he wanted to be pulled when the score was 5-0, to which Luongo declined. Bull. Vigneault shouldn't be asking, he should be telling. With the score completely out of reach and the antics on the ice approaching a parody of Paul Newman's "Slap Shot", Luongo should have been pulled and allowed to rest with a focus on Game 4.
Some have also been extremely critical of Vigneault and the coaching staff's insistance on playing Aaron Rome over the consensus superior player in mobile Keith Ballard. Admittedly, when Rome plays within his limits he is a very effective player. Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final was the best game of his career. But he was forced into a bigger role due to the injury of Dan Hamhuis, and he struggled mightily in Game 2. In Game 3, he only needed 1:29 of ice time to sink the Canucks' hopes.
Vigneault had stated he wanted to employ his quickest lineup to expose the Bruins' lack of foot speed. By choosing to play both Aaron Rome and Andrew Alberts over the much more fleet-of-foot pair of Keith Ballard and Chris Tanev, he did the opposite of that. Look for that change to take effect for Game 4.
But back to my typical "glass half full" self--the Canucks lost this game. The Bruins didn't win it. You will see a much tighter, closer Game 4 in my opinion. The Canucks usually rebound from a blowout loss with a stingy defensive game, and I expect Game 4 to be no different.
For the Chicken Littles out there, look at it this way--the Canucks are up 2-1 and if they are victorious in Game 4, they will have a chance for the first time in franchise history to win a Stanley Cup. And on home ice in Game 5 to boot.
So picture that, and picture the Canucks team that has gotten this far and take a deep breath.
The Vancouver Canucks entered the TD Banknorth Gardens in Boston last night on a roll. They had won the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final in dramatic fashion, between Raffi Torres' 1-0 goal with 14 seconds remaining in Game 1 and Alex Burrows' 3-2 winning goal just 11 seconds into overtime in Game 2, the Canucks had certainly had a flair for the dramatic. Conversely, the Bruins had looked slow and tired.
But early in Game 3, an incident occurred which simultaneously invigorated the Bruins while deflating the soaring Canucks. A role player for the Canucks stepped up and threw a devestating hit on a star player for the Boston Bruins, a hit which saw the Bruins player leave the game with a concussion.
Stop me when this starts sounding familiar. It was only a short month ago that Raffi Torres, in his first game of the playoffs, caught Chicago defensemen Brent Seabrook with his head down and exploded into him. A slightly different circumstance, as the league ruled it a clean hit and Seabrook remained in the game temporarily before missing the next two with a concussion.
When Aaron Rome stepped into Nathan Horton with an admittedly late and blindside hit, it had the Bruins seeing red. The Bruins attacked the Canucks; they outskated them to every puck, they won every battle along the boards, they rendered the Canucks' power play impotent, and their own power play which had that very same label before this series came to life. They scored goals at even strength, while shorthanded and with the man advantage.
Horton is lost for the playoffs with a severe concussion. My guess is that Aaron Rome will also be "lost" due to a severe suspension forthcoming from the league today. It is my opinion that the league suspends players based on the results of a hit rather than the action itself. Rome's action warrants 1 or 2 games; but given the fact that we have a no-name player knocking a star out of the Stanley Cup Final, it would not surprise me in the least to see Rome have the proverbial book thrown at him.
But all of this is a side story. The real story last night was how the Bruins surged to life while the Canucks wilted. It's not a new story to us; the Canucks were outscored 12-2 in Games 4 and 5 of their first round series against Chicago before rebounding to take the series in seven games. Last night struck a similar chord for me, in that the game wasn't so much won by the Bruins as it was lost by the Canucks. I made mention of the fact that the Bruins were winning all the battles, but it wasn't as if the Canucks were charging in with their A-Game.
There were plenty of sideshow antics on display. Tim Thomas speared Ryan Kesler in the groin and also cross checked Henrik Sedin; both Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic shoved their hands in the faces of both Maxim Lapierre and Alex Burrows in an attempt to get the latter players to "take a bite", something Boston coach Claude Julien had been critical of the Canucks for in advance of the game. To his credit, he also criticised his own team for doing it after their 8-1 Game 3 victory. But that doesn't change that last night was a complete circus on the ice.
The Canucks reached their boiling point too. Once the Bruins were up by a score of 4-0, they started doing everything they could to cheapshot the Canucks. Late hits, slashes to the ankles and backs of the leagues, facewashes, punches to the face, the aforementioned spears to groins, the whole 9 yards. Daniel Sedin took an elbow to the face from Andrew Ference and nearly dropped the gloves with him for the first time in his career. Alex Burrows took a whack at Tim Thomas and then took punches to the midsection, face and back of the head from Milan Lucic. Ryan Kesler finally had enough and tackled Dennis Seidenberg to the ice, clobbering him in the head with as many punches as he could muster before the linesman intervened.
It was a circus. The officials lost control of the game and the coaches lost control of their respective teams.
Speaking of coaches, Alain Vigneault lost the game of adjustments. He asked Roberto Luongo if he wanted to be pulled when the score was 5-0, to which Luongo declined. Bull. Vigneault shouldn't be asking, he should be telling. With the score completely out of reach and the antics on the ice approaching a parody of Paul Newman's "Slap Shot", Luongo should have been pulled and allowed to rest with a focus on Game 4.
Some have also been extremely critical of Vigneault and the coaching staff's insistance on playing Aaron Rome over the consensus superior player in mobile Keith Ballard. Admittedly, when Rome plays within his limits he is a very effective player. Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final was the best game of his career. But he was forced into a bigger role due to the injury of Dan Hamhuis, and he struggled mightily in Game 2. In Game 3, he only needed 1:29 of ice time to sink the Canucks' hopes.
Vigneault had stated he wanted to employ his quickest lineup to expose the Bruins' lack of foot speed. By choosing to play both Aaron Rome and Andrew Alberts over the much more fleet-of-foot pair of Keith Ballard and Chris Tanev, he did the opposite of that. Look for that change to take effect for Game 4.
But back to my typical "glass half full" self--the Canucks lost this game. The Bruins didn't win it. You will see a much tighter, closer Game 4 in my opinion. The Canucks usually rebound from a blowout loss with a stingy defensive game, and I expect Game 4 to be no different.
For the Chicken Littles out there, look at it this way--the Canucks are up 2-1 and if they are victorious in Game 4, they will have a chance for the first time in franchise history to win a Stanley Cup. And on home ice in Game 5 to boot.
So picture that, and picture the Canucks team that has gotten this far and take a deep breath.
Tuesday 31 May 2011
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Finally.
A fan remarked today that the layoff between games for the Vancouver Canucks was far, far too long. "Heck, the last time the Vancouver Canucks played a hockey game, Winnipeg didn't even have an NHL team!"
Well, they do now. (congratulations to Winnipeg!) And now, finally, we are sitting on the precipice of the beginning of the Stanley Cup Final. This series has already been dissected to death by people far better at analyzing hockey than myself. The Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks have more than likely scoured hours of video tape on each other, searching for weaknesses that they can exploit in an effort to bring home hockey's Holy Grail.
Everything that can be said about these two teams has been said. Every storyline about the series, every similarity, every difference, every Boston player who has a B.C. connection and every Canuck player who has a Boston connection has been analyzed. Heck, they even traced members of the Boston Bruins team now--today--back to the worst trade in Vancouver Canucks history. You know. The one that saw us ship out B.C. Boy Cam "Seabass" Neely to the Boston Bruins for a big fat pile of nothing. The same Cam Neely that went on to become an NHL Hall of Famer.
Yes. It seems every storyline has been told.
So I'm going to step back and try and be original for a second. I am fully aware that the tale I am about to tell could likely be told by a counterpart of mine in Boston. I am sure that the Bruins' roster is filled with stories of brotherhood, redemption and spirit. But damnit, this is a blog about the Vancouver Canucks. So I'm going to put a hold on delivering lip service to the Boston Bruins for just one night.
I feel the Vancouver Canucks can and will win this series. That is a claim almost any Canuck fan can make. But I am not going to sit here and analyze special teams, goaltending styles, depth of scoring, physicality, impartial vs. partial officiating or what have you. As I said before, that has all been done by writers far better versed than myself.
The reason why I feel the Canucks are going to win this series and win their first Stanley Cup is because, well, they just have to. This is the final chapter in so many stories of redemption, I find myself almost incredulous looking at them all side-by-side. Take a good look at the faces of many of the players wearing Vancouver Canucks colours. Each of their faces, each of their names tells a different story. Each of these men has suffered incredible amounts of blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point. And oh so many of them have something to prove.
Let's start with the new guys. The two cast offs that were acquired at the trade deadline. Two ex-Montreal Canadiens by the names of Christopher Higgins and Maxim Lapierre. It wasn't too long ago, for either of these two, that they were both considered vital players on the most storied franchise in the history of the NHL. Chris Higgins was a high first-round draft pick in 2002. He posted three 20+ goal seasons between 2005 and 2008. He was then dealt away by the Habs at the age of 26 years old. What went wrong?
The popular consensus is that Higgins enjoyed the Montreal night life a bit too much. As a young hockey player whose star was on the rise in one of the biggest hockey hotbeds in the country, he enjoyed a bit too much off-ice extra-cirricular activity. What began as a trade from Montreal to the Big Apple of New York City turned into a two-year exodus that saw him play for five teams in the course of two calendar years. But the Vancouver Canucks saw enough in him that they liked; they rolled the dice and acquired him for a 3rd round draft pick and a defensive prospect (Evan Oberg) who may or may not make an impact on the NHL.
Maxim Lapierre is a similar story. Also an ex-Hab, Lapierre was a vital component of the team that made a surprising run to the Eastern Conference Final last year on the back of sublime goaltending by Jaroslav Halak. The man affectionately referred to by Habs fans as "Yappy Lappy", so dubbed for his propensity for driving opponents bat**** crazy, was considered a keeper. But part way through the 2010-2011 season, he was cast off to Anaheim. The buzz began--he was uncoachable, undisciplined. He bounced from team to team much as Higgins did--he has played for three teams in the 2010-2011 season alone.
But now both of these players are playing in the Stanley Cup Final. And they have both made signifcant contributions along the way. Higgins leads the team in one of the most important departments in which a player can lead a team--game winning goals. He has accounted for three of them. He has also surprised Canuck players, staff and fans alike with a stunning gritty game and teriffic work along the boards. Lapierre, meanwhile, has stepped admirably into the empty skates left by the injured Manny Malhotra. He is far and away the most physical of the Canucks, leading the team in hits thus far on this Stanley Cup run. He has also played a big role on the penalty kill, and is second on the team in faceoff percentage behind only noted defensive demon Ryan Kesler.
From where they came from, to where they are now. Two cast-offs that nobody else wanted, to two vital players on a team endeavouring to win its first Stanley Cup. Do you think these two might, just might, be motivated?
How about Kevin Bieksa? Oh yeah, he's the guy that scored the goal to get us to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since Bill Clinton was President of the United States! Yeah! Everybody loves the man they call "Juice". He's an internet sensation with his "Shot Shot Shot" reference. He's charismatic, he's a leader on the team, and man has he ever scored some big goals for this team. He was great against the Sharks!
We might say that now. But it wasn't always the case.
Flash back to only just last season. For the second time in his career, Bieksa suffered a freak injury--the same injury that caused him to miss significant time in the 2007/2008 season: a laceration to his leg. He returned in time for the playoffs, but he was still somewhat out of sync. Fans lamented what they called a "Jekyll and Hyde" playoff performance last year, perhaps puncuated no better than it was during Games 5 and 6 vs. Chicago in the second round. In Game 5, Bieksa was a force. He scored 2 goals and added an assist in a 4-1 win to extend the life of the Vancouver Canucks. Just two nights later, he committed costly turnover after costly turnover and the Canucks were ventilated 5-1 by the eventual Stanley Cup Champions on home ice.
Canuck Nation, naturally, was screaming for his head. Fans across the internet were lining up with offers to drive him to the airport. Indeed, when the Canucks acquired Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis, it looked like Bieksa's number was up. The media was asking him every day about the possibility of being traded, and Bieksa acknowledged it was all out of his hands. And it was.
And had it not been for another freak injury to fellow Canuck defender Sami Salo, the lasting impression we as Canuck fans might have had of Kevin Bieksa's tenure as a Canuck may well have been that final game against Chicago. A game punctuated by errors. But Bieksa got a reprieve. And here we are, only 1 year later, and he's the man of the hour. He has been the consensus top defender for the Canucks thus far in these playoffs, playing a fantastic blend of physical, in your face hockey. And now he puncutates that with goals rather than errors.
Do you think the defender who many were ready to run out of town only one short year ago might, just might have something to prove?
How about Roberto Luongo? When he played for a nothing team in the middle of the sunbelt, fans across the league agreed he was one of the best goaltenders on the planet. On any given night, he was usually the only reason that the hapless Florida Panthers weren't getting blown out of their rink. Once he was traded to Vancouver, the criticism began. "Reboundo" was a favorite nickname at the time. But Luongo answered his critics with a season to remember in 2006-2007. He was a finalist for both the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender, and the Hart Trophy as the league's MVP. He had a stunning playoff run after making the post-season for the first time in his career. People jokingly referred to the Vancouver Canucks as "the Roberto Luongo". He was, for all intents and purposes, the face of the team. And the most important player.
But perhaps that season built up a bit too much mystique. Flash forward one year, and a difficult pregnancy for his wife lead to a struggle down the stretch for the Canucks--the Northwest Division Champs the previous year--to make the playoffs. They ultimately fell short, and much of the blame fell unfairly at the feet of Luongo.
The next season, he was named Captain of the Vancouver Canucks. A very rare move to make a goaltender Captain, and it was largely a ceremonial duty, but one that he and the team seemed to embrace. He was a man on a mission. In spite of missing time due to injury, he was duly back in form. The Canucks made the playoffs again and swept the St. Louis Blues largely on the strength of Luongo stymying everything that they had to throw at him. He was back in form. But then, the Canucks would run into a nemesis that would haunt them for three years: the Chicago Blackhawks. The 2008/2009 playoff season saw the birth of what many anti-Canucks refer to as "7uongo". Game 6 between the favoured Canucks and the upstart Chicago Blackhawks. A series which the Canucks had lead 2-1 was now lead 3-2 by a young team that had never tasted the playoffs. The Canucks came out hard and poured 5 goals into the Chicago net. 5 goals in front of one of the best goaltenders in the game. It seemed enough to win.
But it wasn't. Luongo allowed 7, and the Canucks were eliminated from the playoffs to the tune of Chelsea Dagger.
The whispers about Luongo began that off-season, and he set out in 2009-2010 to silence them. He started off in teriffic fashion--he was excellent leading up to the Olympic break, and then he got to complete a storybook ending for Team Canada as he came into the net in relief of one of the greatest goaltenders of all-time in Martin Brodeur and helped Team Canada win the Gold Medal for Olympic Hockey on home ice. On Vancouver ice.
But even then, the whispers continued. "The team won in spite of Luongo" was the tune the naysayers were singing. Luongo did little to dispell that down the stretch--he posted his worst statistical season a Canuck. But then the playoffs began and he seemed to have new life; a strong opening round against the Los Angeles Kings, a series the Canucks won in six games, seemed to have him on a role. That is, until the Canucks ran into the Chicago Blackhawks once again in Round 2. One year to the day later, the Blackhawks again eliminated the Canucks in six games. And once again, another round of off-season questions began. Luongo relenquished the captaincy of the team to focus solely on goaltending.
And focus he did. 2010-2011 saw him post the best numbers of his career and he earned his third nomination for the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender. He also won the William M. Jennings Trophy with backup Cory Schneider for allowing the fewest goals against of any team in the league. But when the playoffs began, a familiar nemesis was staring back at him--the Chicago Blackhawks were the Canucks' 1st round opponent. The adversity Luongo had faced in his career combined to this point paled in comparison to what he went through in the first round. Everything went smoothly for the first three games; the Canucks went up 3-0 and a sweep seemed to be in store. The Canucks seemed primed to conquer their playoff demon.
But the Hawks came clawing back. They outscored the Canucks by a whopping 12-2 margin in Games 4 and 5. Luongo took the brunt of the criticism, but the stunning move came in Game 6 when head coach Alain Vigneault opted to start rookie backup Cory Schneider. Luongo was relegated to the dressing room to watch the proceedings from a TV screen. The Vezina goaltender, the Franchise player, the Olympic Gold Medal winner, was not called upon to start the game. Cory Schneider later injured himself and Luongo ended up going in cold; the Canucks lost Game 6 in overtime, and Vigneault turned back to Luongo for Game 7.
This is where Luongo re-wrote the ending to the story. He was a man who had been criticised as being mentally soft. He allowed bad goals and bad games to get to him. He allowed opposing teams into his head. Well, not this time. Luongo shut down the Hawks; only a superhuman effort by Jonathan Toews late in the game beat him. And in overtime of that seventh game, Luongo made a season-saving stop on Patrick Sharp to extend the life of the Canucks just long enough for Alexandre Burrows to score the magic goal to finally, finally, vanquish the Blackhawks.
Luongo still faced criticism in the second round for not being as good as Pekka Rinne, the goaltender at the other end of the ice. This in spite of the fact that through 6 games, Luongo only allowed 11 goals into the net. Luongo did save his best for the series against the Sharks, as the Canucks were outshot handily in the final two games of that series, particularly in the clinching Game 5. Luongo made 54 saves in the 3-2 victory that propelled the Canucks into the Stanley Cup Finals.
Do you think the goaltender who everyone outside of Canuck Nation--and even some within it--criticised as being mentally soft, as not being a big-game goaltender, as being a guy that teams won in spite of rather than because of, might--just might--have something to prove?
Last, but not least--how about Daniel and Henrik Sedin?
Drafted 2nd and 3rd overall in 1999, the Sedin Twins put up with an inhuman amount of flak over the early parts of their careers. The criticisms were quick from the start and they continued on for seasons to come. The nickname "The Sisters" was coined early, a reference to how the Sedins were supposedly soft. They were easily pushed over, they were slow, and in spite of their sixth sense for where the other was and the added ability to make the play to one another, they lacked offensive punch.
Drafted as the saviours of a franchise coming out of one of the bleakest periods in the team's history, they didn't exactly light up the NHL the way players like Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Steve Stamkos or John Tavares have since they have been drafted. No; the Sedins' progress was slow. The benefit of hindsight allows us to also add that it was steady.
But for those going through it at the time, it was just plain slow. The Twins were not putting up eye-popping numbers in either the regular season or the playoffs. The fact that they developed something of a penchant for scoring timely goals, especially in the playoffs, was lost in the shuffle.
The lockout came and went, and the Twins suddenly--quite suddenly--came into their own. They started scoring, at a point-a-game pace no less. In the span of a few short years, they went from players that people were writing off as just another couple of busts from a dreadful 1999 draft year to players who were contending for some of the finest hardware the NHL has to offer. Henrik Sedin capped this off with a dream season in 2009-2010, where he won the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top scorer with 112 points--a franchise record that eclipsed the mark of 110 set by the great Pavel Bure--and the Hart Trophy as the league's MVP. Both were first-time wins for a Vancouver Canuck. Henrik Sedin was also named the Captain of the team to start the 2010-2011 season, a season which saw his brother Daniel follow quickly in Henrik's footsteps. Daniel won the Art Ross Trophy this year and is a finalist for the Hart as the league's MVP. Not bad for a couple of busts.
But even more recently, these two were criticised for their playoff performance this year. They were both virtual no-shows against Nashville (for the most part--back to that in a moment). It was rather obvious that Henrik was labouring through some kind of injury that hampered his whole line's effectiveness, but that didn't stop the boo birds from hopping onto their soap boxes and questioning not only his playing ability, but his leadership as the team's Captain.
Lost in the shuffle of Vancouver's Game 6 win over Nashville was the fact that the Twins combined to score the game winning goal; Henrik Sedin put the puck to Kesler who shot it at the net. The rebound came to Daniel who scored the series-clinching goal. In the furor of Ryan Kesler's stunning 2nd round performance, this was lost.
Henrik was able to rest between the second and third rounds, and he attacked the San Jose Sharks in the Conference Final with a vengeance. Ryan Kesler scored 11 points in 6 games against Nashville. Henrik trumped that with 12 points in 5 games against San Jose as he single-handedly devoured the Sharks. He scored the game-winning goal in the first game. He set up the game-winning goal in Game 4, and he set up the dramatic tying goal in Game 5. Daniel was no slouch either, recording 6 points in the 5 games against the Sharks.
Do you think that these two players who endured ridicule from the press, the league, and their own fans might--just might--have something to prove?
This all brings me back to the title of this blog entry. None of these players have found what they are looking for. Hockey's Holy Grail is the Stanley Cup, and only Mikael Samuelsson and Aaron Rome have played for teams that have won Cups. But for all of the above mentioned players--and there are more on the roster than that, but I feel like I've already written more than most can read in one sitting--they just have to win. Their trials and tribulations have lead them to this moment.
A recent advertisement says "this moment is where everything you want will collide with everything standing in your way".
The Boston Bruins are standing in their way. My hunch is that for these players, the Bruins are child's play in comparison to the personal demons they have overcome to reach this moment.
It's time to bring this thing home
It's time to bring the Stanley Cup to Vancouver.
A fan remarked today that the layoff between games for the Vancouver Canucks was far, far too long. "Heck, the last time the Vancouver Canucks played a hockey game, Winnipeg didn't even have an NHL team!"
Well, they do now. (congratulations to Winnipeg!) And now, finally, we are sitting on the precipice of the beginning of the Stanley Cup Final. This series has already been dissected to death by people far better at analyzing hockey than myself. The Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks have more than likely scoured hours of video tape on each other, searching for weaknesses that they can exploit in an effort to bring home hockey's Holy Grail.
Everything that can be said about these two teams has been said. Every storyline about the series, every similarity, every difference, every Boston player who has a B.C. connection and every Canuck player who has a Boston connection has been analyzed. Heck, they even traced members of the Boston Bruins team now--today--back to the worst trade in Vancouver Canucks history. You know. The one that saw us ship out B.C. Boy Cam "Seabass" Neely to the Boston Bruins for a big fat pile of nothing. The same Cam Neely that went on to become an NHL Hall of Famer.
Yes. It seems every storyline has been told.
So I'm going to step back and try and be original for a second. I am fully aware that the tale I am about to tell could likely be told by a counterpart of mine in Boston. I am sure that the Bruins' roster is filled with stories of brotherhood, redemption and spirit. But damnit, this is a blog about the Vancouver Canucks. So I'm going to put a hold on delivering lip service to the Boston Bruins for just one night.
I feel the Vancouver Canucks can and will win this series. That is a claim almost any Canuck fan can make. But I am not going to sit here and analyze special teams, goaltending styles, depth of scoring, physicality, impartial vs. partial officiating or what have you. As I said before, that has all been done by writers far better versed than myself.
The reason why I feel the Canucks are going to win this series and win their first Stanley Cup is because, well, they just have to. This is the final chapter in so many stories of redemption, I find myself almost incredulous looking at them all side-by-side. Take a good look at the faces of many of the players wearing Vancouver Canucks colours. Each of their faces, each of their names tells a different story. Each of these men has suffered incredible amounts of blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point. And oh so many of them have something to prove.
Let's start with the new guys. The two cast offs that were acquired at the trade deadline. Two ex-Montreal Canadiens by the names of Christopher Higgins and Maxim Lapierre. It wasn't too long ago, for either of these two, that they were both considered vital players on the most storied franchise in the history of the NHL. Chris Higgins was a high first-round draft pick in 2002. He posted three 20+ goal seasons between 2005 and 2008. He was then dealt away by the Habs at the age of 26 years old. What went wrong?
The popular consensus is that Higgins enjoyed the Montreal night life a bit too much. As a young hockey player whose star was on the rise in one of the biggest hockey hotbeds in the country, he enjoyed a bit too much off-ice extra-cirricular activity. What began as a trade from Montreal to the Big Apple of New York City turned into a two-year exodus that saw him play for five teams in the course of two calendar years. But the Vancouver Canucks saw enough in him that they liked; they rolled the dice and acquired him for a 3rd round draft pick and a defensive prospect (Evan Oberg) who may or may not make an impact on the NHL.
Maxim Lapierre is a similar story. Also an ex-Hab, Lapierre was a vital component of the team that made a surprising run to the Eastern Conference Final last year on the back of sublime goaltending by Jaroslav Halak. The man affectionately referred to by Habs fans as "Yappy Lappy", so dubbed for his propensity for driving opponents bat**** crazy, was considered a keeper. But part way through the 2010-2011 season, he was cast off to Anaheim. The buzz began--he was uncoachable, undisciplined. He bounced from team to team much as Higgins did--he has played for three teams in the 2010-2011 season alone.
But now both of these players are playing in the Stanley Cup Final. And they have both made signifcant contributions along the way. Higgins leads the team in one of the most important departments in which a player can lead a team--game winning goals. He has accounted for three of them. He has also surprised Canuck players, staff and fans alike with a stunning gritty game and teriffic work along the boards. Lapierre, meanwhile, has stepped admirably into the empty skates left by the injured Manny Malhotra. He is far and away the most physical of the Canucks, leading the team in hits thus far on this Stanley Cup run. He has also played a big role on the penalty kill, and is second on the team in faceoff percentage behind only noted defensive demon Ryan Kesler.
From where they came from, to where they are now. Two cast-offs that nobody else wanted, to two vital players on a team endeavouring to win its first Stanley Cup. Do you think these two might, just might, be motivated?
How about Kevin Bieksa? Oh yeah, he's the guy that scored the goal to get us to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since Bill Clinton was President of the United States! Yeah! Everybody loves the man they call "Juice". He's an internet sensation with his "Shot Shot Shot" reference. He's charismatic, he's a leader on the team, and man has he ever scored some big goals for this team. He was great against the Sharks!
We might say that now. But it wasn't always the case.
Flash back to only just last season. For the second time in his career, Bieksa suffered a freak injury--the same injury that caused him to miss significant time in the 2007/2008 season: a laceration to his leg. He returned in time for the playoffs, but he was still somewhat out of sync. Fans lamented what they called a "Jekyll and Hyde" playoff performance last year, perhaps puncuated no better than it was during Games 5 and 6 vs. Chicago in the second round. In Game 5, Bieksa was a force. He scored 2 goals and added an assist in a 4-1 win to extend the life of the Vancouver Canucks. Just two nights later, he committed costly turnover after costly turnover and the Canucks were ventilated 5-1 by the eventual Stanley Cup Champions on home ice.
Canuck Nation, naturally, was screaming for his head. Fans across the internet were lining up with offers to drive him to the airport. Indeed, when the Canucks acquired Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis, it looked like Bieksa's number was up. The media was asking him every day about the possibility of being traded, and Bieksa acknowledged it was all out of his hands. And it was.
And had it not been for another freak injury to fellow Canuck defender Sami Salo, the lasting impression we as Canuck fans might have had of Kevin Bieksa's tenure as a Canuck may well have been that final game against Chicago. A game punctuated by errors. But Bieksa got a reprieve. And here we are, only 1 year later, and he's the man of the hour. He has been the consensus top defender for the Canucks thus far in these playoffs, playing a fantastic blend of physical, in your face hockey. And now he puncutates that with goals rather than errors.
Do you think the defender who many were ready to run out of town only one short year ago might, just might have something to prove?
How about Roberto Luongo? When he played for a nothing team in the middle of the sunbelt, fans across the league agreed he was one of the best goaltenders on the planet. On any given night, he was usually the only reason that the hapless Florida Panthers weren't getting blown out of their rink. Once he was traded to Vancouver, the criticism began. "Reboundo" was a favorite nickname at the time. But Luongo answered his critics with a season to remember in 2006-2007. He was a finalist for both the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender, and the Hart Trophy as the league's MVP. He had a stunning playoff run after making the post-season for the first time in his career. People jokingly referred to the Vancouver Canucks as "the Roberto Luongo". He was, for all intents and purposes, the face of the team. And the most important player.
But perhaps that season built up a bit too much mystique. Flash forward one year, and a difficult pregnancy for his wife lead to a struggle down the stretch for the Canucks--the Northwest Division Champs the previous year--to make the playoffs. They ultimately fell short, and much of the blame fell unfairly at the feet of Luongo.
The next season, he was named Captain of the Vancouver Canucks. A very rare move to make a goaltender Captain, and it was largely a ceremonial duty, but one that he and the team seemed to embrace. He was a man on a mission. In spite of missing time due to injury, he was duly back in form. The Canucks made the playoffs again and swept the St. Louis Blues largely on the strength of Luongo stymying everything that they had to throw at him. He was back in form. But then, the Canucks would run into a nemesis that would haunt them for three years: the Chicago Blackhawks. The 2008/2009 playoff season saw the birth of what many anti-Canucks refer to as "7uongo". Game 6 between the favoured Canucks and the upstart Chicago Blackhawks. A series which the Canucks had lead 2-1 was now lead 3-2 by a young team that had never tasted the playoffs. The Canucks came out hard and poured 5 goals into the Chicago net. 5 goals in front of one of the best goaltenders in the game. It seemed enough to win.
But it wasn't. Luongo allowed 7, and the Canucks were eliminated from the playoffs to the tune of Chelsea Dagger.
The whispers about Luongo began that off-season, and he set out in 2009-2010 to silence them. He started off in teriffic fashion--he was excellent leading up to the Olympic break, and then he got to complete a storybook ending for Team Canada as he came into the net in relief of one of the greatest goaltenders of all-time in Martin Brodeur and helped Team Canada win the Gold Medal for Olympic Hockey on home ice. On Vancouver ice.
But even then, the whispers continued. "The team won in spite of Luongo" was the tune the naysayers were singing. Luongo did little to dispell that down the stretch--he posted his worst statistical season a Canuck. But then the playoffs began and he seemed to have new life; a strong opening round against the Los Angeles Kings, a series the Canucks won in six games, seemed to have him on a role. That is, until the Canucks ran into the Chicago Blackhawks once again in Round 2. One year to the day later, the Blackhawks again eliminated the Canucks in six games. And once again, another round of off-season questions began. Luongo relenquished the captaincy of the team to focus solely on goaltending.
And focus he did. 2010-2011 saw him post the best numbers of his career and he earned his third nomination for the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender. He also won the William M. Jennings Trophy with backup Cory Schneider for allowing the fewest goals against of any team in the league. But when the playoffs began, a familiar nemesis was staring back at him--the Chicago Blackhawks were the Canucks' 1st round opponent. The adversity Luongo had faced in his career combined to this point paled in comparison to what he went through in the first round. Everything went smoothly for the first three games; the Canucks went up 3-0 and a sweep seemed to be in store. The Canucks seemed primed to conquer their playoff demon.
But the Hawks came clawing back. They outscored the Canucks by a whopping 12-2 margin in Games 4 and 5. Luongo took the brunt of the criticism, but the stunning move came in Game 6 when head coach Alain Vigneault opted to start rookie backup Cory Schneider. Luongo was relegated to the dressing room to watch the proceedings from a TV screen. The Vezina goaltender, the Franchise player, the Olympic Gold Medal winner, was not called upon to start the game. Cory Schneider later injured himself and Luongo ended up going in cold; the Canucks lost Game 6 in overtime, and Vigneault turned back to Luongo for Game 7.
This is where Luongo re-wrote the ending to the story. He was a man who had been criticised as being mentally soft. He allowed bad goals and bad games to get to him. He allowed opposing teams into his head. Well, not this time. Luongo shut down the Hawks; only a superhuman effort by Jonathan Toews late in the game beat him. And in overtime of that seventh game, Luongo made a season-saving stop on Patrick Sharp to extend the life of the Canucks just long enough for Alexandre Burrows to score the magic goal to finally, finally, vanquish the Blackhawks.
Luongo still faced criticism in the second round for not being as good as Pekka Rinne, the goaltender at the other end of the ice. This in spite of the fact that through 6 games, Luongo only allowed 11 goals into the net. Luongo did save his best for the series against the Sharks, as the Canucks were outshot handily in the final two games of that series, particularly in the clinching Game 5. Luongo made 54 saves in the 3-2 victory that propelled the Canucks into the Stanley Cup Finals.
Do you think the goaltender who everyone outside of Canuck Nation--and even some within it--criticised as being mentally soft, as not being a big-game goaltender, as being a guy that teams won in spite of rather than because of, might--just might--have something to prove?
Last, but not least--how about Daniel and Henrik Sedin?
Drafted 2nd and 3rd overall in 1999, the Sedin Twins put up with an inhuman amount of flak over the early parts of their careers. The criticisms were quick from the start and they continued on for seasons to come. The nickname "The Sisters" was coined early, a reference to how the Sedins were supposedly soft. They were easily pushed over, they were slow, and in spite of their sixth sense for where the other was and the added ability to make the play to one another, they lacked offensive punch.
Drafted as the saviours of a franchise coming out of one of the bleakest periods in the team's history, they didn't exactly light up the NHL the way players like Alexander Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Steve Stamkos or John Tavares have since they have been drafted. No; the Sedins' progress was slow. The benefit of hindsight allows us to also add that it was steady.
But for those going through it at the time, it was just plain slow. The Twins were not putting up eye-popping numbers in either the regular season or the playoffs. The fact that they developed something of a penchant for scoring timely goals, especially in the playoffs, was lost in the shuffle.
The lockout came and went, and the Twins suddenly--quite suddenly--came into their own. They started scoring, at a point-a-game pace no less. In the span of a few short years, they went from players that people were writing off as just another couple of busts from a dreadful 1999 draft year to players who were contending for some of the finest hardware the NHL has to offer. Henrik Sedin capped this off with a dream season in 2009-2010, where he won the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top scorer with 112 points--a franchise record that eclipsed the mark of 110 set by the great Pavel Bure--and the Hart Trophy as the league's MVP. Both were first-time wins for a Vancouver Canuck. Henrik Sedin was also named the Captain of the team to start the 2010-2011 season, a season which saw his brother Daniel follow quickly in Henrik's footsteps. Daniel won the Art Ross Trophy this year and is a finalist for the Hart as the league's MVP. Not bad for a couple of busts.
But even more recently, these two were criticised for their playoff performance this year. They were both virtual no-shows against Nashville (for the most part--back to that in a moment). It was rather obvious that Henrik was labouring through some kind of injury that hampered his whole line's effectiveness, but that didn't stop the boo birds from hopping onto their soap boxes and questioning not only his playing ability, but his leadership as the team's Captain.
Lost in the shuffle of Vancouver's Game 6 win over Nashville was the fact that the Twins combined to score the game winning goal; Henrik Sedin put the puck to Kesler who shot it at the net. The rebound came to Daniel who scored the series-clinching goal. In the furor of Ryan Kesler's stunning 2nd round performance, this was lost.
Henrik was able to rest between the second and third rounds, and he attacked the San Jose Sharks in the Conference Final with a vengeance. Ryan Kesler scored 11 points in 6 games against Nashville. Henrik trumped that with 12 points in 5 games against San Jose as he single-handedly devoured the Sharks. He scored the game-winning goal in the first game. He set up the game-winning goal in Game 4, and he set up the dramatic tying goal in Game 5. Daniel was no slouch either, recording 6 points in the 5 games against the Sharks.
Do you think that these two players who endured ridicule from the press, the league, and their own fans might--just might--have something to prove?
This all brings me back to the title of this blog entry. None of these players have found what they are looking for. Hockey's Holy Grail is the Stanley Cup, and only Mikael Samuelsson and Aaron Rome have played for teams that have won Cups. But for all of the above mentioned players--and there are more on the roster than that, but I feel like I've already written more than most can read in one sitting--they just have to win. Their trials and tribulations have lead them to this moment.
A recent advertisement says "this moment is where everything you want will collide with everything standing in your way".
The Boston Bruins are standing in their way. My hunch is that for these players, the Bruins are child's play in comparison to the personal demons they have overcome to reach this moment.
It's time to bring this thing home
It's time to bring the Stanley Cup to Vancouver.
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