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Tonight's match-up felt like Vancouver's games against Chicago last year, in which the sum of each period all came down to the performances of two of the best goalies in the league.
Goalkeeping for Chicago was aptly handled by Khabibulin and for Vancouver, Luongo. The playoff series between the teams eventually lead to a respectable game six victory for Chicago. Well, Khabibulin has moved on, since joining the Edmonton Oilers, which leads up to tonight's game.
With the score at 2-1, the Oilers have the advantage and the clock is ticking down. We're left with Wellwood scrambling up the ice in the last few seconds and finally positioning himself in front of Khabibulin with 0.5 left on the play clock. Unlikely as it may be, Wellwood made his shot. The goal music was flicked on and all seemed well. Bernier and his teammates began to celebrate until one of the refs stepped in. Turns out that the goal was late and the game was over. Canucks captain Luongo stood at the entry to the locker room impatiently, awaiting the video review of the play. He knew it was over. Everyone knew it was over.
The Canucks have effectively extended their losing streak in road games to 4 consecutive loses. Their effort had no heart in it, losing out on any momentum gained from Rypien settling the score with Stortini or "Bolduc's goal" from early in the first.
Where the trouble started is difficult to pinpoint. It could have been with that opening goal of Bernier's which was recorded incorrectly, as Bolduc's, or any of the other examples of inattentive officiating from the refs and linesman. There were times where it became problematic and even a little worrisome.
It's difficult to blame them, when the rules were often overlooked on both sides. Calls that probably would've helped were late in the third. There was slashing and a free penalty shot that didn't come through. Not sure how the refs can do their job with their eyes shut. Apparently, Zack Stortini of the Oilers, takes on a similar strategy while fighting.
It wasn't all bad for an injury-ridden Vancouver team. One major plus was the conclusion of the Stortini vs. Rypien confrontation, which evolved from a broken up fight last April into a fully realized bout tonight. Rypien can throw a left with the best of them, and his positioning in the fight gave him the clear cut advantage tonight.
While the fight was one of the few highlights to arise from either side, but it just isn't enough. The Canucks need to start racking up some points on the road. It's still fairly early in, so there's no reason to have a poor outlook for the remainder of the year just yet. Their next game is going to be in Chicago - always a challenge for any hockey club - but if they're able to secure a win there, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be able to elsewhere, also?
Besides, we have until October 24th before the Toronto match brings the Canucks back to GM Place. If they lose to a Maple Leafs team whom hasn't won a preceding game all year (they're 0-6-1, at the moment), then it's probably safe to become despondent and look for a new sport to follow.
Khabibulin, on the Oilers' performance tonight:
"I know I'm not going to play good every game. Sometimes it might be a 6-5 game. It works both ways but it doesn't matter at the end..."
The main concerns revolve around the absence of Demitra, Daniel Sedin, and Sami Salo. Where the Oilers found themselves most successful however, was in their zone, with Khabibulin deflecting several extremely close shots whether it be by luck or by skill, out-performing Luongo from the opposing end of the ice. Samuelsson nearly came through twice, but again, Khabibulin was exceptional tonight, turning down 39 of the 40 SOG.
In short, the game was pretty ugly for both teams, neither playing to their full potential.
Fresh off a disappointing 1-7 loss in Calgary, the Canucks return to an oddly quiet GM Place, improving to a 3-4 win-loss record in last night’s victory over the Minnesota Wild. To be honest, the style of play was a little sloppy on both sides. With Minnesota’s new coach Todd Richards continuing on his ambitious push to play more up-tempo style of hockey, we find the team unable to fit into their roles, and thus losing out on the few opportunities they were able to create (and they were few). This brings the down-trodden team to their sixth straight loss and a record of 6-1 thus far, making it the worst opening to any season in franchise history. They remain last in the division. Having Niklas Backstrom in the crease is great for the Wild, but that doesn’t quite solve their issues up ice, where they struggled to put anything on the scoreboard.
It’s not that easy to improve the Wild’s offensive situation, when some of their forwards have been benched. Wild GM Chuck Fletcher has already confirmed Cal Clutterbuck and Pierre-Marc Bouchard as being out indefinitely. Then there’s Petr Sykora - and as of last night, Martin Havlat, with their day-to-day injuries. who skated during yesterday’s warm-ups but didn’t return to the ice for the night due to what look to be short-term injuries. What transpired at GM Place was hardly the fault of a benched offensive line. Instead, our focus should be placed on the improvement of the Wild’s often faulty defense. Even when they’re unable to make good on any shots on goal, there are typically the opportunities. However, Saturday’s defense saw Brent Burns, the worst player in the NHL in terms of +/- ratings come out and deliver an early, unnecessary penalty, and then adding insult to injury, by away the puck on the Wild blue line. All without expending much energy. Prior to Saturday, he took the honor of having the worst +/- rating in the league, at a -10. He’s now a -9, but is still playing very uninspired, lazy hockey.
The Canucks aren’t having the best of times this season, either. Having numerous chances in the first, whereas the Wild were only given 1, it took the Canucks until a couple minutes into the second for Kesler to find the net behind Backstrom, whom had dropped his stick to his right only moments before. It was a confident glove-side shot which made way to Samuelson‘s go-ahead goal in the third.
If there were anything the Canucks could do differently, it’s to hold the defensive zone more securely and to not allow so many opportunities around the neutral zone. Had they been less passive - in their zone especially - the score would probably be a lot higher right now. I have no complaints about Robert Luongo’s goaltending. He was on top of his game, last night.
The series is on its way back to the steel city once again, and thus far there has not been a single victory for an away team in any of the five games. This match-up is the first Stanley Cup Finals Rematch in 25 years. Half a century ago, Edmonton took that series without looking back, after losing the prior year. It seems unlikely that the Penguins will catch the fate of the Oilers, but several aspects of Pittsburgh's game remain largely uncharted. Even with their consecutive trips to the 'big one', the Pens are a young team, with a young netminder.
Odds may be stacked against the Igloo-dwellers, but there's still a glimmer of hope in one Marc-Andre Fleury, who was playing exceptionally well up until about the second period of game five.
As one of the league's younger talents (goalies almost never make it to the cup in their rookie years, letalone two years in a row), the Flower needs to pick up where he left off Thursday night. It's certainly not an easy task, in Joe Louis Arena, defending your zone against the infamous Red Wings starting lines. They've got a thing for mucking up the plays in their zone, and leaving the dirty work for an unheralded name who's about to sell a lot of jerseys. That's just Detroit's way, and getting frustrated about their style of hockey (a throwback to the clutch-and-grab play of the Devils, from the mid-90's) isn't going to do any good.
It's just unfortunate that the sport has become dominated in the same way the Yankees are year-in-year-out the most prominent threat in the American Division, in the MLB. It's frustrating that the jump-start Chicago team couldn't bring themselves to a Western Conference victory.
Now its up to Crosby and his cast of off-and-on performers to rally and bring the cup back home over the next couple of games. No matter how cool it is to see Mario's appearances at so many of the games, I'm sure Pens fans are getting tired of seeing his dissapointed reactions and knowing look that only comes when you've played the game for so long. I don't mean to say that I'm not a fan of #66, but I just don't want to see the hockey bug bite him again in Detroit, Wednesday night, as he reveals a return from his latest retirement in an effort to reinvigorate the tired team he's holding part-ownership of at this point.
Bettman & Company at the NHL have claimed that the Penguins are the most marketable team in hockey. For the sake of the sport, lets hope Detroit's boring albeit infectious brand of puck control doesn't ruin a good thing.
If the Penguins can pull it off two games in a row, Crosby, Malkin, and Fluery will have shown that the sport is relishing in its inherent youth and that its biggest stars are delivering when it counts.
So long as the Flower Marc-Andre Fleury doesn't wilter like he did on Saturday I still think they've got a pretty good shot of making their Cup dreams a reality.
Fresh off a disappointing 1-7 loss in Calgary, the Canucks return to an oddly quiet GM Place, improving to a 3-4 win-loss record in last night’s victory over the Minnesota Wild. To be honest, the style of play was a little sloppy on both sides. With Minnesota’s new coach Todd Richards continuing on his ambitious push to play more up-tempo style of hockey, we find the team unable to fit into their roles, and thus losing out on the few opportunities they were able to create (and they were few). This brings the down-trodden team to their sixth straight loss and a record of 6-1 thus far, making it the worst opening to any season in franchise history. They remain last in the division. Having Niklas Backstrom in the crease is great for the Wild, but that doesn’t quite solve their issues up ice, where they struggled to put anything on the scoreboard.
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