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.