Happy Trails

A more analytical mind might look at some of the positives as well as the negatives from last night's epice Game 7 showdown between the Vancouver Canucks and the Chicago Blackhawks. But after all the negativity that had covered British Columbia for the last few days like a fog, I hope you will forgive me for flat out ignoring the negatives.

Last night's game bordered on legendary. On a night where great performances were needed, the Vancouver Canucks got them. Specifically, I am talking about a few players: Ryan Kesler, Alexandre Burrows, Dan Hamhuis and Roberto Luongo.

Ryan Kesler brought forth the greatest game I had ever seen him play. Previously, his greatest game had not been in a Canuck uniform, but in the Red, White and Blue of Team USA during the 2010 Olympics where he was one of the best forwards for the Americans, scoring 2 goals against Canada in two games and generally being a major thorn in the side of the home team.

Last night, he brought all that effort and then some. He skated miles, he hit everything in sight (they're still peeling Nick Hjalmarsson off the endboards at Rogers Arena where Kesler nailed him), he set up the opening goal of the game and he killed some absolutely huge penalties. Burrows scored the goals, but Kesler was arguably the Canucks' top player for me.

But speaking of Burrows, let me stop and tip my hat. In advance of Game 6, I remarked to some friends how I was disappointed with Burrows in the series. He hadn't really factored into the scoring at all, and I remarked that I wanted Burrows circa 2009 vs. the St. Louis Blues back. The guy that scored the OT winner and fired an arrow from his quiver into the sky in honor of the late Luc Bourdon. The guy that always seemed to come through in the clutch for the Canucks.

Well, maybe he heard me. First in Game 6 and then in Game 7, Burrows was a force. Isolating just Game 7, he drove the net hard to open the scoring and could easily have had a few more goals--noteably on the penalty shot he was awarded early in the third period. When he took a penalty in overtime, I'm sure there was a massive intake of breath from around British Columbia, but then the boys in blue, green and white killed it off--and Burrows repaid them in the best possible way, by scoring the game winning goal in dramatic fashion.

Perhaps unsung in this game will be defensemen Dan Hamhuis' contributions, but he was quite possibly the most important defensemen for the Canucks last night. He stepped up, he made hits, he had smart sticks, he made smart passes, he just had a smart game. When a guy like Hamhuis is on, you don't always notice his contributions. His game is to make safe and smart plays. He did that with aplomb last night.

Saving the biggest for last, let's talk about Roberto Luongo. Last night was the biggest game of his life, make no bones about it. After the game several players who have played for and won Olympic medals remarked how this was bigger, more important. The media yesterday was talking about how kids playing street hockey don't pretend they're scoring an Olympic gold medal winning goal, but a Stanley Cup winning goal. And not to diminish the Olympics at all, but they are right to a certain extent--the goal of every person who straps on a set of skates in Canada is a Stanley Cup.

Luongo had been stuck in his own personal nightmare against the Blackhawks for nearly three years. He had been chased from the net in both Games 4 and 5, and he didn't even start Game 6. But he came in for Game 7 with all the pressure in the world on his shoulders.

He wasn't the best goaltender on the ice--that distinction belonged to Corey Crawford, who single-handedly kept the Blackhawks in a game that they really had no business being in. But Luongo was good. Very good, especially in overtime where he slid across the crease to rob Patrick Sharp on a back-door play while the Canucks were shorthanded. If that goes in, that's all she wrote. If you were to believe what some of Luongo's detractors were saying, Sharp could have shot a beach ball and still beaten Luongo on that play.

But he didn't. Not even with a puck. Luongo made the save and set the stage for Alex Burrows to bring the house down with what may well be the biggest goal this franchise has seen since the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals.

It will be a brief rest for Vancouver before they play an entirely different opponent, the Nashville Predators. But we'll get to that later.

As for Chicago? Happy Trails to you, until we meet again.