I Feel Very Olympic Today

February 8, 2010

Well it was really yesterday, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use that quote.  On Sunday afternoon it appeared as if the Penguins had the Capitals in the bag and I could use the time before the Super Bowl started to check out the progress in Vancouver for the Olympics.  Well, clearly I made the wrong choice as the Capitals came back and there wasn’t as much to see downtown as I thought there would be.  But for those interested here are a few pictures that I thought were worth enough to post and will also give you an idea of what to expect next week.  For those people reading that have not been to Vancouver you might be interested in seeing what some of the venues look like from the outside and from afar.  Click on any picture for a larger view!

Like a true tourist I hopped on the Seabus in North Vancouver around 10:30.  As you can see by the sign I made it with just 5 minutes to spare.  I then hopped on the Skytrain and took it down to the BC Place/GM Place stopping hoping to see some cool stuff on the outside of the buildings.

Taking public transit like a loser

Yay! I made it.

I then made my way down Beatty Street towards BC Place and then came back towards GM Place, or “Canada Hockey Place” as its known during the Olympics.

The Cops have all roads near venues blocked off.

How often can you stand in the middle of Georgia and not get killed?

When you get to the event areas you’ll meet these tents where you’re likely to get an anal probe.  If you’re part of the Olympic family then you can wave goodbye to the rest of us suckers and go though your own special entrance while the rest of us continue to wait.

The Olympic Family entrance at BC Place Stadium

The way in for the rest of us

I’m also including a few pictures of BC Place for no other reason than because I took them.  Yay for ugly cement buildings.  Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint too many people who have traveled long distances to see the opening or closing ceremony.

It is what it is

BC Place from Georgia

Next I headed next door to GM Place trying to get a good view of something.  Instead I was just met by a bunch of fences.  What suprised me was that there is still traces of Canucks type things on the building.  I’m wondering if they’ll take those down by Friday.

The side of GM Place from along the Georgia Viaduct

There is still a trace of the Vancouver Canucks at GM Place

Expo Blvd decked out in Olympic designs outside GM Place

A good shot of the security check point outside GM Place. Complete with bag scanner like at the airport

Next I decided to head up Dunsmuir before walking up to Georgia and to Pacific Centre.  Live City is apparently a place for entertainment and creating a lasting impression with family orientated entertainment.  I assume its a good place for families to go spend money when they can’t get into something like the Molson Canadian Hockey House.

Side view of Live City Vancouver from Georgia

Front entrance of Live City

Next I kept on traveling up Georgia.  The further up you go, the more people there were.  I saw a couple waving an Australian flag as well as two women in Russia tracksuits.  I considered taking their picture but I thought that that might be a little too weird.  Nonetheless, here are some pictures from along Georgia.

Hey look, it's the renovated CBC building

Canada Post has the Olympic Fever

As does a new hotel going in at Georgia and Howe

I still don't know how the Olympic lane is different than a regular HOV lane

At “The Bay” at Pacific Centre there were A LOT of people inside buying the latest Canada Olympic gear.  I was going to actually buy something but I didn`t have 15 minutes to stand in the lineup to pay.  The VISA advertisements on The Bay building has been up for about a year but they’re still pretty cool and worth posting.

A few great Canadian moments

A few more

We were made for this!

Is there anything more Canadian than The Hudson's Bay Company?...

...Well maybe this picture of CPR trains that I took is.

Some good looking people

On Granville street there was some sort of Cultural Olympiad thing going on.  I’m not sure exactly what the point of it was but I look pictures anyway.

The money shot down Granville?

You typical totem poles at the Cultural Olympiad.

I have no idea what's going on here

Japan and Hole in the Wall invades Canada.

Next up was the final stop in my short trip downtown.  Naturally I had to get a shot of the countdown clock at the Art Gallery like everyone else

What`s a day at the Vancouver Art Gallery without some sort of protest?

All these people wanted to see the time tick down on the start of the games

We`re almost there!

Now it was back to the Seabus to pickup my car and head to a Super Bowl party. While waiting for the Seabus one comes to realize that London really wants you to come visit them.  Only 2 and a half years until they get to host the Summer Games!

Visit London for the 2012 Summer Games!

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Posted by Simon

Other Referees and Media React to Burrows’ Allegations

January 12, 2010

I don’t normally make a post just to provide a bunch of links but this appears to be a special case that is worthy of it.  The media and Stephan Auger’s peers have now had some time to diget Alex Burrows’ post game comment and weigh in on the whole thing.  The more I think about it, the more I believe Burrows.  It appears as I’m not alone as a poll on tsn.ca showed that 85% of voters believe Burrows was telling the truth.  Honestly, I didn’t think the number would be so high among non-Canuck fans because Burrows doesn’t have the greatest reputation across the league but without an actual statement from Auger or the NHL, it appears as if people will take Burrows’ word as the truth.  Now lets take a look at some of the comments made across the league.

Perhaps the most interesting is from an annoyamous veteran official:

“You file it away in the back of your cranium,” he said. “But you wait until you get a game where the score is 5-1, and then you might call him for something. You say, ‘We’ll meet up again one day.’ But you don’t hurt the team.”

“You don’t even have to be a ref to figure it out,” he said. “Don’t leave the gun at the scene with your fingerprints all over it.”

I was pretty surprised when I read this because I thought most referees would blindly support their own or have no comment.  In all honesty, referees have an incredibly difficult and thankless job to do and as a result will likely stand by their own.  The fact the first public comments by someone, basically throws Auger under the bus should tell you what Auger’s teammates think of him.

Next we have Ray Ferraro who knows a thing or two about yapping.  The “Little Ball of Hate” talks about how most officials, or at least a good official, dealt with people like him or Burrows and how the they should maintain a bigger sense of professionalism even when you want to get back at a guy.

“I have a little experience with this type of situation from my playing days. I, like Burrows at times, talked too much for my own good. I never hesitated to tell an official if I thought he made a bad call. Paul Stewart was one of the officials that I butted heads with. I felt like he saw that the game revolved around him, and I told him that every chance I had. It got to the point where we hated each other – he felt I was a big mouth, I hated seeing his name on the game sheet.

But a strange thing happened. Nothing.

I never felt that Paul leaked his feelings into giving me the short end of the stick. We never spoke, and he would ignore me whenever I had a question, but he was totally professional.”

Head Coach Alain Vigneault is concerned about the bigger picture for his team. Vigneault, rightfully so, is concerned that as a result of Burrows’ comments that the team will be hit with more biased officiating, like the ones in Vancouver last night.  If he knew about what some of Auger’s peers were saying about him then his concerns might disappears but nonetheless it appears as if it could end up being a distraction to the team now

“It’s a concern,” Vigneault told sportsnet.ca on Tuesday. “I can understand the situation, but that being said right now I think it’s best for our players and myself to let Mike Gillis and management take care of this with the league. It’s something they will have to deal with.”

Of course, while the Canucks are concerned of the distraction that might come from all of this the team completely supports Burrows.  As Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province writes that Burrows has the full support of the team and Burrows and Colin Campbell will have a conference call tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm pst.  Mike Gillis has shown that he’ll support his players in anyway that he can since taking of as General Manager.

“Alex Burrows, Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis and NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell will have a hearing via conference call Tuesday afternoon as the league begins an investigation into the accusation one of its referees had a personal vendetta which spilled over into Monday’s Canucks game.”

“We’re going to support him in every way we can support him,” Gillis said. “We’re going to support what he said occurred and we’re going to show why we support that.”

While Burrows will meet with Campbell tomorrow it appears as if the winger is done talking about it for now:

“My focus is on (Wednesday) night’s game,” Burrows said. “They are playing well and they are a good team and the won on Monday night so just make sure we get two points.”

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Alex Burrows Slams Referee, Stephane Auger

January 12, 2010

Yes, there was an actual game tonight and I’ll get around to actually giving my thoughts on that at some point but the bigger news making its way around is the allegation that referee, Stephane Auger was “out to get,” Alex Burrows of the Vancouver Canucks.  Burrows didn’t hide his feeling from the press in a post game media scrub following the loss and it appears that Burrows’ claims may be valid.  Following the loss, Burrows who scored twice said:

“It was personal. It started in warm-up, before the anthem,” Burrows said of Auger’s penalty calling. “(Augers) came over to me and he said I made him look bad in Nashville on the (Jerred) Smithson hit and he said he was going to get me back tonight.”

“He did his job in the third, I think. He got me on a diving call I didn’t think was diving. He got me on an interference call that I had no idea how he could call that. It changed the game. It sucks right now for teammates who are battling 60 minutes to win a hockey game because every two points are so huge, are so important. And because of a guy’s ego, it just blows everything out of proportion and the refs – they’re making bad calls and the fans are paying for it and we’re paying for it.

Burrows has legitimate gripes when it comes to the penalties.  Both the diving penalty and the interference penalty seemed to come of nowhere.  In fact there was a delay by the official to call the dive in the first place.  It’s almost as if he checked to see who it was and then put his arm up.  The interference penalty was a total phantom call.  Auger’s partner, Dennis LaRue had sent a Predator off for hooking with less than 5 minutes to go.  Cue Auger who called Burrows for interference when Joel Ward went tumbling to the ice.  There was clearly no pick on the play and it was simply two guys getting tied up.

The circumstantial evidence here is the pre-game confrontation between the referee and Burrows.  I was at the game and i watched the whole pre-game discussion between the two and Burrows looked visibly upset at whatever was being said. I didn’t think too much of it at the time other than it being unusual. It’s not often you sees refs talking to guys pre-game that isn’t a coach or captain.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions too quickly because I have a hard time believing that a referee of 10 years would ruin his career on something like that or to put himself in a position where he would be liable to get called out in public by a player but at the same time it appears as if all the evidence is supporting Burrows right now.  It’s not as if Burrows would go around trying to blacklist himself with an accusation that wasn’t true.  I’m sure the NHL will investigate and we’ll see what happens in a day or two.

For the record Auger also had a run in with Burrows in Montreal when Auger kicked Burrows out of the game for a penalty that should have been two minutes at worst.  Auger and LaRue were also part of the Wings-Stars game and the inexcusable no goal although that was mostly on LaRue because he was the one who blew the whistle.  Still looking for video of the Smithson hit for reference.  Anyone have a link?

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Posted by Simon

Eh O’ Canada NO!

January 6, 2010

John Carlson wins the 2010 World Juniors for U.S.A in OT

I took some time to try and come down off all the emotional highs and lows from watching the game so that I write this blog as honestly as possible.  When John Carlson scored the winning goal in overtime my immediate reaction was surprisingly acceptance.  I knew Canada didn’t really deserve to win the game, and for the second straight time they played the Americans, they decided that they would only play the last ten minutes of the third period or so.  Obviously that’s not good enough if you’re trying to win gold medal in a major international event.  It wasn’t until the American’s were halfway through their celebration that the disappointment of what could have been finally set in.  It’s weird that no matter how many times you watch your team or country win, you always feel that sense of disappointment when they don’t come out on top.

Perhaps my Canadianism took a few minutes to set in before I truly realized the significance of what happened when the United States took the gold medal away from Canada for the first time since 2004.  No other country completely immerses itself in coverage of the World Juniors like Canada does so it’s always a tough pill to swallow then they aren’t accepting gold medals at the end of it.  We’re rabid hockey fans that tie our immediate self worth to how well we play hockey a little too often.   But this isn’t supposed to be a sob story because this year the better team won and the United States fully deserved to beat Canada this time around.  In the past, when Canada had a better team and didn’t execute like they should I might have been furious that they lost but not so much this time.  Its just disappointing rather than a let down.

As for the game itself, I wasn’t one of the people who thought the New Year’s Eve meeting THE best junior game ever.  I mean it was a great game and drama at its best, but I think these two teams had played better games against each other, such as the 07 Semi-finals.  But that’s beside the point.   This game met all expectations as far as the rematch went.

John Slaney was the hero of the 1991 tournament

Canada, too many times in a row, has pulled games that they were trailing and didn’t really deserve to win out of their ass with some kind of miracle comeback.  Jordan Eberle called it the Canadian will to win or something like that.  I think Eberle was perhaps the only Canadian player who actually had that kind of heart tonight.  Eberle will go down in history with John Slaney as one of the biggest heros in Canadian World Junior history for his game tying goal last year with five seconds left.  This year he solidified his place in Canaidan hearts for almost single-handedly tying the game and sending it to overtime by scoring twice with under four minutes to play.  I can’t help but wonder what kind of reception this guy would have gotten if he someone managed to win the game in overtime or if Canada won at all.  The Edmonton Oilers are getting a heck of a player.

One could debate all night at what the actual turning point in the game was, but for me, the real difference in the game was that the Americans had the guts to pull their starting goaltender, Mike Lee and replace him with 17-year old Jack Campbell.  Canada on the other hand refused to replace the clearly struggling Jake Allen.   When a relatively unscreened shot from the blue line went past Allen early in the third period it was the perfect line for Willie Desjardins to insert Martin Jones, after all, Jones couldn’t possibly do any worse.  Eventually Allen would give up the softest goal of the tournament midway through the third period that gave the U.S. a two-goal lead.  Had he been able to catch the simple dump in, Canada may have won the game in regulation, although that would be unfair conclusion to reach since we have no idea how the game would have shook down after that point, but the general idea is that he definitely made things harder on the team.

If you go back to the first ten minutes of the game, Canada clearly had the United States back on their heels.  The Canadians were doing a great job of neutralizing the Americans’ speed by having three guys back and preventing them from finding holes in the defence.  Then one turnover later and a wrister from the point beats Allen and the momentum went right over to the United States.  It wasn’t long after that Schroeder put the puck over Allen’s shaky glove for a 2-1 American lead.

After the Canadians had battled back to tie the game, and yes I realize they scored equally as garbage goals, Allen killed whatever momentum that Canada had built up.  Now, it probably seems like I’m blaming Allen for the loss, but if you’re going to be a starting goaltender in this tournament and play in the gold medal you better be able to handle yourself a little better than Jake Allen did.  Team Canada for most of the night played average but I just can’t get over how spotty the goaltending was.  Again, the real difference was that the Americans were smart enough to see their goaltender wasn’t getting the job done and made a change.  Even more confusing was that the American’s second choice was a 17-year-old while Canada had a 19-year-old ready to get the team’s confidence back.

Campbell is one of the great stories to come out of this game.  He played in the first meeting between the two teams so he knew something about the pressure of playing in front of the biggest crowd he ever has, but tonight, with the gold medal on the line, the Canadian fans were as hostile as they’re going to get.  The 17-year-old not only coped, but thrived in a major pressure situation.  Once he replaced Lee early in the second period, despite Canada getting a few good scoring chances and rebound opportunities, didn’t allow a goal until the final five minutes of regulation and helped the U.S. build up their two goal lead.  In the preliminary meeting you could argue that Campbell folded under the pressure of the shootout after he gave up the two-goal lead in the third.  No so this time around.  Campbell made an absolutely crucial save on a Canada three-on-two in overtime that allowed the Americans to go three-on-one the other way in win.  When Campbell made that save I pretty much knew for sure that the puck was going back the other way for the win.  Sadly, I was right.

Now to take some of the blame off Allen, Canada’s defence still had too many problems with the American’s speed and transition game.  Ryan Ellis was much better than he was in the New Year’s Eve game but still the Canadians had no answer for the Americans off the rush after the first ten minutes.  It didn’t help that Canada turned the puck over too much at the blue line.  On the second goal Schenn made a horrible read and skated right past the puck and far too often Taylor Hall was knocked off the puck while trying to dangle through the American defence.  There was a lot of selfish plays on the Canadian side when they were trailing as they all wanted to complete the comeback themselves.

Next year, Canada won’t have to go too far to find the inspiration to get back at team U.S.A. for beating them on home ice because the 2011 World Juniors is in Buffalo.  Knowing how well Canadians travel when the tournament is held in America, the 2011 could turn out to be a virtual home tournament for Canada as they try and start another World Junior dynasty.

Tomorrow I’ll get to reviewing the Canucks game from tonight and later in the week I’ll take a look at how all of the Canucks prospects did in the tournament.

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Canucks Turning It Around On the Road

January 4, 2010

The Canucks celebrate Daniel Sedin's goal in Dallas

With Saturday afternoon’s road victory in Dallas the Canucks concluded their four-game road trip with a respectable 3-0-1 record.  The only blemish on the trip was a 3-2 shootout loss to the Coyotes.  Lets be honest here though, the effort in St. Louis wasn’t that good and the team was lucky to walk out of town with a 4-3 overtime win after falling behind 3-0.  In the end, however, is the fact that the Canucks play on the road is finally starting to yield some results.

The goal for most teams at the start of the season is to finish .500 on the road and play well enough at home to make up the rest of the points to make the playoffs.  Thanks to the latest surge by Vancouver they are just one game under .500 on the road.  As a result of one of the best home record in the NHL they are just above the playoff bar.

The real encouraging thing about the Canucks improved play on the road is that their NHL record 14 consecutive games on the road is not that far away.  The team will play 9 of the next 11 games at GM Place before they take on the Leafs on January 30th and won’t play another home game until March 13th.  Factor in the Olympic break and that’s a mind boggling 44 days between home games.  What’s the point of all this?  If the Canucks are going to have any shot at tracking down the Calgary Flames and Colorado Avalanche they’re going to have to show similar results to the latest road trip rather than the results from earlier in the season.  I won’t go as far as saying that this series of games will make or break the season, but the team will need to get on a roll if they’re going to compete for home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.  The next eleven games before the historic road trip will tell us the real importance that the Canucks road record will hold.

So why have the Canucks suddenly started to play so well on the road?  The first thing that sticks out is the play of Roberto Luongo.  Luongo has really seemed to get into his grove over the last month or so.  If it wasn’t for his play in the early part of the game in St. Louis the Canucks would have had absolutely no chance to come back.  You could argue that he stole the game in Dallas as well.  His save off Mike Modano is exactly the kind of save the team has come to rely on from him and the kind of plays he’ll have to continue to make if he has any real shot of playing in the big games during the Olympics.

I think it would be fair to say that the Sedins haven’t been playing their best hockey in the last few games even though they have still been putting up points.  Points are ultimately what’s important, but I haven’t seen them dominating shifts like they normally do.  The best line in the last couple games in my book has been the Samuelsson-Kesler-Raymond line.  I’ve been so critical of Samuelsson all season and while I still don’t love the way he plays, scoring two big goals on the road trip certainly helps me tolerate him.  Ryan Kesler and Mason Raymond have also been key players in the road turnaround.  Raymond, of course, scored his first career hat trick just a week ago in Calgary, while Kesler has done a great job on the forecheck and drawing penalties by taking multiple sticks to the face.  Whatever works, right?  Don’t forget that Kesler also scored the all important first goal in Dallas on Saturday.  He had points in three of the four games on the trip.

Kyle Wellwood has also stepped up his game lately.  Much like Samuelsson, I had grown tired of his lack of production, but he tip in goal in Phoenix was absolutely clutch.  If only he could play like that more frequently.  Wellwood is potentially playing for him job right now as Demitra is due back within a month and since Wellwood has been a scratch more than once this season, he could find himself in the press box if his game doesn’t improve.  So far so good for Wellwood.

Hordichuk goes hard to the net after Samuelsson opens the scoring for Vancouver in Phoenix

Even guys on the fourth line have improved their play lately.  Darcy Hordichuk had been pretty useless this season until about five or six games ago but he seems to have found his game.  He has been skating with a lot more speed and purpose which has allowed him to get in on the forecheck more frequently and create a few scoring chances.  Obviously when you’re a fourth line player you’re not going to get a lot of chances to play so you have to do those kind of things as often as you can.  For most of the season it wasn’t happening but now it appears Vigneault won’t be so quick to scratch him.

The defence has also been much improved.  The St. Louis game aside, the team has been able to hold the opposition to two goals or less.  A lot of that has to do with Luongo but the defence has done a great job at holding the opponents top players off the scoresheet.  Even on the road where the team doesn’t have the ability to get Willie Mitchell out in a shutdown role every shift, the team has done a great job containing the other team’s best players.  The loss of Kevin Bieksa will hurt but Christian Ehrhoff will help pick up the slack.  Ehrhoff of course has the best plus-minus in the league at +21.  He doesn’t usually play against the top players on the other team at home but on the road he certainly does.

Alex Edler was inconsistent at the start of the season but really appears to have turned it around since coming back from his injury.  His one brutal giveaway on Saturday notwithstanding, the Swede has been solid on the backend.  Perhaps Edler and Samuelsson have become more motivated after being left off the Swedish Olympic team.  Shane O’Brien has been much more consistent lately as well which bodes well for the team since he is likely to have his minutes increased with Bieksa out.  Aaron Rome wasn’t very noticeable against Dallas which is obviously good news.  Brad Lukowich is likely to be rotated in for Rome on some nights now that he has cleared through waivers.

Samuelsson pulls the Canucks within one in St. Louis

So, with all this praise for their improve results on the road, what needs to improve?  For starters the power play has been pretty dismal.  A strength for most of the season, the Canucks power play was 3 for 25 on the road trip.  Luckily for Vancouver, even though the power play has been terrible they have still scored at the right time.  Ehrhoff scored on a slapper in overtime in St. Louis and Daniel Sedin scored the winner early in the third in Dallas off the defencemans skate.

Falling behind could also become a problem.  I think the poor start in St. Louis has been well covered now, but lets not forget that Iginla and the Flames opened the scoring last Sunday in Calgary before the Canucks scored the next five.  They also needed a third period goal to grab themselves their first loser point of the season in Phoenix.  Getting out ahead like they did in Dallas will make things much easier for themselves, where they were able to play an ideal road game rather than playing catchup.

Tomorrow the Canucks are at home to Columbus.  The Blue Jackets have just one win in their last ten games and after a hot start which included beating the Canucks in their home opener they’ve fallen to fourteenth place in the Western Conference with just 39 points.

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Canucks Place Lukowich on Re-Entry Waiver; Kesler Selected to U.S. Olympic Team

January 2, 2010

Brad Lukowich with the San Jose Sharks

After deciding to permanently part ways with Mathieu Schneider, the Canucks have placed Brad Lukowich on re-entry waivers with the intention of calling him up to the Canucks.  Lukowich would serve as the Canucks seventh defenseman behind the newly promoted Aaron Rome, after Kevin Bieksa was cut above the ankle and will miss the significant amount of time.  There is an outside chance that Lukowich could be claimed for half price by another team before the 24 hour claim period is over, but in all likelihood, Lukowich will be joining the Canucks on their road trip.  If Lukowich does indeed clear, he won’t have far to go to meet up with the Canucks as he’s been playing for the AHL’s Texas Stars this season.  In 29 games this season, Lukowich has 3 goals, 15 assists and 10 penalty minutes for the AHL’s Stars.

It seems like quite a while ago now, but for those with a short memory, Lukowich played fairly well in the pre-season for the Canucks this year.  He didn’t exactly set the world on fire offensively because that’s not his game, but he was a solid and physical presence on the blue line.  In my opinion he played well enough in September to be an NHL player but unfortunately for Lukowich, guys like Aaron Rome slightly outplayed him.  Rome has since come back to reality and played fairly inconsistent when he’s been inserted into the line-up.  In all honesty though, it is difficult to play well on a consistent basis when you’re only playing a few games a month.

Brad Lukowich in the 2009 Preseason with Vancouver

Brad Lukowich in the 2009 Preseason with Vancouver

The rumours in the Schneider situation appear to be picking up by the day.  I always saw Schneider as a team guy and I was really surprised that he walked out on the team.  What’s even weirder is that Mike Gillis has refused to comment on the situation which only allows more and more rumours to go around.

Tony Gallagher was on the Team1040 prior to Thursday’s game in St. Louis.  He speculated that Schneider was saying things around the dressing room out of frustration to his diminished role in the line-up and pissed off the wrong person.  Whether that was a coach or a player from the leadership group like Luongo is anyone’s guess.  There is also some suggestion that Schneider wasn’t ready to play when he was called upon by Vigneault.  That would certainly be understandable since he was far from impressive when he did get into the line-up.  He wasn’t helping the power play at all which is basically the entire reason he was brought in.  Then there was also the speculation that he misrepresented his health to the Canucks regarding his off-season shoulder surgery.  That might explain why Mike Gillis is hesitant to comment on the situation.  The bottom line, however, is that Schneider is not welcome back to the team at things currently stand.

2010 Winter Classic

Just to make a note on the Winter Classic, I was thinking to myself when it was 1-0 heading into the late stages of the third period that it wasn’t looking like the game would be much of a classic.  While the game wasn’t really that entertaining all the way through, the ending did provide quite a bit of drama.  Mark Recchi’s tip in was a perfect veteran play when the Bruins needed it the most.  It was so important for the home crowd to finally get something to cheer about.  If he hadn’t scored, the Bruins losing on Tim Thomas’ blunder, while trying to get back at Scott Hartnell for bumping him, would have been a terrible way to lose.

Marco Sturm scores the winner in OT of the 2010 Winter Classic

Marco Sturm scores the OT winner in the 2010 Winter Classic

The overtime was equally dramatic as both team had quite a few chances to win the game.  The Flyers had quite a few chances to put the game away in both regulation and overtime before Sturm made a sweet tip in to win it.  The celebration will go down in the Winter Classic archives along with Sidney Crosby scoring the shootout winner.  People are calling for this year’s Winter Classic as the best one yet, but I don’t think it quite beats out the original from Buffalo three years ago.

Kesler Selected for Team USA

One of the other things I was looking forward to during the broadcast was to see the U.S. Olympic team announced just so I could see Ryan Kesler get his due.  He was really a lock so there was no surprise that he was selected but to make it official was nice.  The United States are really going with a young roster this time through.  I can’t see them winning a medal over the likes of Canada, Russia and Sweden but they’ll get plenty of valuable experience if the NHL goes to Russia in 2014.

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Posted by Simon

No Excuses This Time

November 10, 2009

 

perron

David Perron scored twice on Andrew Raycroft in the first period and later finished off the hat trick in the third.

 

Coming into Dallas the Canucks had the built in excuse of playing on back-to-back nights on the road.  Tonight in St. Louis there was absolutely no reason for the Canucks to come out and lose the game in the first seven minutes to a team that came into the night in 14th place in the West.  I actually thought coming into the game that the Canucks had a pretty good chance of picking up a win considering they allowed 46 shots on goal but still only lost 2-1 in Dallas.  A couple of days off to rest and practice would lead conventional wisdom to assume that Vancouver should be in good shape, but that clearly wasn’t the case.  Perhaps having so many players playing out of their normal role is starting to catch up with the team but whatever the reason is, losing 6-1 to the Blues certainly isn’t acceptable.

A multitude of mistakes by a variety of players ultimately killed any chance the Canucks had to get points from the game.  Alex Edler was horribly out of position on the first goal.  Hell, he wasn’t even facing the right direction to have a positive impact on the play.  That of course was after Steve Bernier made a sad little one-handed attempt to chip the puck off the boards after Henrik Sedin won the faceoff.

The second goal wasn’t very pretty either and while it might have been slightly tipped, in that situation Raycroft has got to come up with the save.  The first goal was one that Raycroft probably could have stopped as well.  A shot from not that close in that went over his blocker.  It wasn’t a rocket top corner or anything, it just appeared as if Raycroft misread it, but I won’t blame the goal on him since so many other people made mistakes on the play.  When you’re playing on the road where it’s especially hard to come back, the second goal is one that he really needs to stop to keep his team in the game.  It’s a save that top tier goaltenders like Roberto Luongo typically make.

You obviously can’t blame Raycroft for the second goal as Matt Pettinger accidently tipped the puck into his own net with his skate and then Henrik Sedin blew coverage on the fourth goal and Perron’s second in less than two minutes.

Something that really bothered me about the starting lineup was having Darcy Hordichuk starting on the third line with Wellwood and Glass.  The Canucks were coming off a game in Dallas in which they couldn’t score more than a goal and they have a creative player like Wellwood so why would you put the most offensively challenged player on the third line with him?  Wellwood’s point total is obviously not where the Canucks need it to me, just 1 point this year, but I think that has a lot to do with the players he’s been stuck playing with so far.  A lot of checkers and grinders have played by his side this year.  No offense to Bernier but he’s not exactly a scoring juggernaut.   Instead of having someone who barely belongs in the lineup playing the wing for Wellwood it would have been much smarter to have someone with some talent like Rypien or Pettinger playing with Wellwood.  Obviously that doesn’t fix the problem of having scrubs on his line to help raise his point total but at least it gives him a boarderline chance to make something happen.

The Kevin Bieksa incident in the first was also unfortunate.  I get why Bieksa jumped in to try and prevent Kesler from fighting Crombeen because you really don’t want one of your best players fighting and knowing Kesler, he’s not going to back down from Crombeen.  But on the other side the Canucks don’t just lose Bieksa for 5 minutes for simply fighting but they had to do without him for 17 for being the third guy in.  Losing a defenseman for a whole period is a big deal and coincidently the Canucks have finally gone back to dressing just 6 of them in this game.  It’s also unfortunate because Crombeen instigated the whole thing which the referees gave him a penalty for but they had no choice but to give Bieksa the misconduct as well.

He’s to hoping the Canucks have a better effort in Detroit on Thursday, especially since I’m probably going to get stuck buying the Pay-per-view.

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Canucks vs Flames Preview – 6:00pm RSN

October 16, 2009
canucksflamespile

Canucks and Flames battle it out

After a far too long hiatus, I’m back with all the Canucks analysis that you could ever want.    Now to tonight’s game…

Usually when facing Calgary, after the Flames have lost three straight including one where they threw away a 5-0 lead in Chicago, I’d be more confident, but for some reason it feels as if this one could go horribly wrong.  Although I felt pretty great before the opener and we all know how that one turned out.  Perhaps I’m still reeling from hearing that Daniel Sedin is out for at least a month.  I guess that’s my fault for buying his jersey a few weeks ago.

Michael Grabner joins the top line with Henrik and Burrows for the first time tonight.  It should be an interesting look compared to Steve Bernier.  No offense to Bernier, but he’s far too much of a grinder to be filing in for Daniel on the top line.  Grabner, obviously a much more skilled forward than Bernier, will have opportunities to get himself involved early and often, especially with Henrik setting him up.

Ryan Johnson also steps up to the third line tonight while Tanner Glass steps down to the fourth line.  Johnson will play on the wing while Wellwood continues as center.  It will be an interesting look when you consider that Hordichuk-Johnson-Rypien have been a fixture for quite some time.  Moving Johnson off the fourth line and onto the wing removes a valuable face-off man from a couple of draws a night when hes on the fourth line, but he should still be taking his normal quota on the penalty kill.

Aaron Rome will make his Canucks regular season debut tonight.  He fills in for the again injured, Sami Salo.  Salo will be out four to six weeks, the same timetable as Daniel Sedin.  Rome impressed Canucks coaching staff enough in the pre-season to stick around on the opening roster and has patiently waited for him chance to get into the lineup.  Unless another injury occurs, his time here could be limited with Mattieu Schnieder ready to come off the IR in roughly a week.

For one final note, which is always relevant when these two teams meet, is Luogno vs Kiprusoff,  Both goalies seem to be going in the opposite direction at the moment.  Luongo is coming off back-to-back wins.  He was great when he had to be against Montreal and solid against Dallas.  Kiprusoff on the other hand is coming off the game where he helped allow six straight goals in Chicago and a game in Columbus where he allowed only two goals but couldn’t come up with the big saves to help steal a win.

Tonight’s Lineup for Vancouver

Grabner-Sedin-Burrows

Raymond-Kesler-Samuelsson

Bernier-Wellwood-Johnson

Hordichuk-Rypien-Glass

Mitchell-Bieksa

O’Brien-Ehrhoff

Rome-Edler

Luongo

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Posted by Simon

Dan Cloutier To Play for Red Wings Tonight!

September 21, 2009

Cloutier will be playing the second and third period for the Red Wings tonight at MSG.  Be sure to watch!

Thanks to Kyle at Babcock’s Death Stare for the info.

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Wings Near Cloutier Decision

September 16, 2009
cloutier01

What will the Red Wings do with Dan Cloutier?

Considering the name of my blog, updates on Dan Cloutier are pretty much required.  Ken Holland, the general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, discussed possible scenarios about what he would do with Cloutier.  Holland has been in contact with Cloutier’s agent about what it would take to get the former first round draft choice signed.  Holland was clear that Cloutier would have to accept a two-way contract and that he has no chance to start the season in Detroit.  Obviously that is not all that surprising considering where he is at in his career.

Holland did leave the door open to the possibility of signing Cloutier and placing him in the minors for depth and the opportunity to get his career back on track.  If nothing else, the Wings would be giving him a stage to prove to other teams that he can be a serviceable goaltender in the NHL again.  Holland did not say which way that the Wings were leaning but did say that the team would decide if they want to get him into and a pre-season game by Thursday and if they decided against playing him, he would be released for his try-out.

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