Tonight, Tonight

Re-making a movie can be hit or miss, and the Vancouver Canucks are certainly hoping they can make a blockbuster tonight.

After a Game 4 in which the Vancouver Canucks acted and played like the immature, over emotional team they were last season rather than 2011's top NHL team, the Canucks need a boost. No one perhaps more than Kevin Bieksa, who got sucked into a war of words with noted minute-munching defensemen John Scott.

The difference between this year's Canucks teams and previous incarnations is supposed to be simple: this team plays from whistle to whistle. They do not shout at officials, they do not agitate the opposition(with their mouths, anyway) and they shut out off ice distractions such as the one provided by Scott heading into Game 4.

But Kevin Bieksa fell into that trap and, with the benefit of hindsight, wound up with egg on his face.

But that is the last of that, or so the Canucks would have you believe. To a man they have reverted back to the strong, silent persona that they have put forth all year. There has been no muttering about missed calls by the officials, there has been no promises of retribution on the scoresheet or otherwise, and there has been not one peep about the Blackhawks whooping it up as a group after goals 6 and 7 were scored in Game 4.

None of that matters. The Canucks are focussed on the task at hand, and that is ending this series tonight in Game 5 on home ice. The Canucks are 2-0 at Rogers Arena in this playoff, and they carried the run of the play in both Games 1 and 2 with clinical precision. They know what awaits them. They have given the Blackhawks a glimmer of hope in this series, and the Blackhawks feel they have an ace in the hole with the rejuvenated Dave Bolland in their lineup.

Now it's up to the Canucks to douse that flickering flame with a heavy splash of Pacific ocean water. The matchups are plentiful: The Sedin Twins vs. Dave Bolland, Jonathan Toews vs. Ryan Kesler, and Alexander Edler vs. Patrick Kane. Make no mistake that both of these teams are banged up. The Canucks would love nothing more than to ice the Blackhawks and get a well earned break heading into the Western Conference Semi Finals, whereas the Blackhawks would love nothing more than becoming one of the few teams in the history of the NHL to come back from a 3-0 series defecit.

One of these teams is about to put their money where their mouth is.