March 30th: Canucks vs. Kings plus Manitoba Moose Update

It's going to be an awesome game tonight. Luongo starting for the Canucks and Quick starting for the Kings. Quick has a .919 save percentage this season and they have Bernier as a backup putting up decent numbers. Kings are in the same situation as the Canucks, two good goalies on the roster gives both of them the option to trade their backup for prospects in the offseason. If the Canucks do move Schneider, I hope they would try and get a second/third liner for him, and not draft picks. We've spent so much time developing Schneider it would be a shame to trade him for draft picks, which means more hardwork developing another player. If we move Schneider we have to fetch an asset that will be able to help us immediately in the 2011-2012 season. There's the possibility of keeping Schneider and having an excellent backup to Luongo, however we all know that Schneider will walk as a UFA at the end of the 2012 season, because god knows Gillis won't be able to afford him.

With Kopitar out, the Kings will be running a top line of Smitty-Lewis Brown. Interesting to note that in the Kings last game, Doughty was on the second PP unit. Not sure if Coach Murray was trying to tell Doughty something. If Doughty is in a power-play slump, there's no better team to come out against than the canucks, who he demolished on the power play last playoffs. It got to the point last year where every time the canucks took a penalty you knew it was going to end up in the back of the net. Thats part of the reason how everyone came to hate Alberts so much, because of the stupid penalties he took against the Kings that led to bad goals.

In other news the Moose beat the lowly Rochester Amerk's in a shootout. Hodgson was a -2 but only because the majority of the Moose goals were scored on the PP. Hodgson also had an assist and a shootout goal. Hodgson is still not dominating the AHL like Vigneault expects him to do before he gets the call up to the Canucks. Schroeder played for the Moose and coughed up the puck while on the PP to Bill Thomas again. It was the second time in two nights that Bill Thomas got a shorthanded goal on the exact same breakaway play. Two nights ago it was Hodgson who coughed the puck up to Bill Thomas while the Moose were on the PP. The Moose are now atop the North Division, but its a close race with a few games left so a lot could change. Yann Sauve scored tonight, coming up big for the moose again tonight. The way Sauve is playing he should be able to make the Canucks next season. If he hadn't got injured at the start of the season its possible that Sauve would be on the Canucks right now instead of Tanev. The other Moose defenseman that has been standing out is Mark Flood. He's outscoring Shirokov and Hodgson over the past couple weeks, all the while doing it as a defenseman! Not sure if the Canucks have the rights to Flood, but they should definitely lock him up because Hodgson has a knack for finding Flood, and Flood has a knack for shooting the puck into the net.

Enjoy the game tonight. And oh yah! Flames are done son!

-HArk

Vancouver Canucks vs. Nashville Predators

Dan Hamhuis will have to enjoy the view from the press box for tonights game. The Star Defenceman is sitting out with his second concussion in 48 games. Samuellson and Glass will also be sitting out with Edler and Alberts.

I am most looking forward to getting Andrew Alberts back from injury. He was playing some really intimidating hockey before he went down with his first injury. He didn't get much time to show off after he got back before getting injured again. Alberts plays a unique style of defence that sees him get in the right lanes to prevent shots from going towards the net. He also plays very physical and is able of laying out some of the best hits on the Canucks on opposing players. He has been playing really smart hockey for the Canucks this season and you couldn't ask for a better defenseman to have in your third pairing. Obviously Edler will bring a lot more to the team offensively and defensively, but Alberts contribution could go a long way especially if he can stay healthy while other Canucks D-men continue to drop like flies (knock on wood).

It will be a good game against the Predators tonight. David Legwand is playing really hot right now so the top pairing will have a tough time shutting him down. Mike Fisher is coming off of a 2 goal night and he also scored his first goal as a Predator against the Canucks. Hopefully his wife is in the stands so we can get some good Carrie Underwood shots

The battle between Luongo and Rinne tonight will involve two goalies who in my opinion will definitely be nominated for the Vezina. The third goalie would be Tim thomas who at this point in the season is probably most likely to win because of his GAA and Save percentage.

Also Shea Weber is bound to have a good game against his home province team. We have to be careful not to take too many stupid penalties because the last thing i want to happen is for Burrows or Kesler to have to block a Shea Weber shot from the point. It's too bad we can't put Torres on the 1st line PK to stand in front of those shots.

All in all it will be a very good game. The Canucks definitely need to win this game so they can have confidence facing Nashville in the playoffs. Currently the Preds lead the season series 2-1. The last thing the Canucks want is for O'brien to have more fuel to jokingly criticize the Canucks about

-Hark

If the canucks didn't suck so much....

So the canucks have had a weeks rest pretty much. They've been struggling at home lately. Its luongo's first game at home in a while. And what happens? The canucks can't play defense. Can you blame a team for poor defense when they are compiled of manitboa moose call ups? Definitely.

The avs were playing their backup goalie and the canucks still couldn't put more than three goals past him in regulation. This should have been the type of game that is a blowout. Instead the canucks trailed the avs until the third when they got a lead. And then blew the lead with three minutes left. Fortunately we got a fluke goal in overtime to prevent luongo from being further humiliated in the shootout.

Its good for the canucks to have to learn to play with all these injuries. They're leading goal scorer from last year (burrows), they're top defenseman (hamhuis), plus their third and fourth defenseman (salo and ballard). When it comes to down the stretch and the playoffs there will be more injuries and the canucks have to learn how to make their depth guys step up. And if there are no injuries you need your third and fourth liners to be able to contribute (like chicago did last year with bolland, ladd, bifugly and versteeg).

For the love of christ canucks you gotta start playing with more dominance. Even with injuries the canucks should be a team that is feared. Unfortunately it does not look that way right now.

-hark

Story of the Game/Story of the Series

The canucks have been able to come out strong early in the game. we have gone up 3-0, 2-0, 3-0 in the first 3 games respectively. blackhawks don't look as strong as us early in the game. they can't skate with us. and when they start playing physical and trying to scare us we have been able to exploit it. if you look at the mason raymond goal, the first one of the game, two blackhaks were laying a hit on kesler beside the net, which left mason raymond wide open streaking in from the point to pop it home. chicago has some sloppy coverage when they try and play physical.

but the amazing thing about chicago is they are always able to break our defensive system. so many teams get turned aside and have to wait for a powerplay in order to get a chance on us. but chicago gets the puck deep and generates chances, even when they're losing 3-0. you've got to give them credit, and they're probably only going to get better as this series goes along.

if the blackhawks do win the stanley cup, they would have to give the conn smythe to bifugly. this guys is definitely their best player. did you see the tsn segment about him where they said he used to be 290 pounds before he lost weight? this guy is a tough goon, of the todd bertuzzi elite power forward school. bifugly is getting time on the top line. he drives to the net and screens luongo, and size wise there is no better player in the league to have as your screen. bifugly even scored a goal on luongo in that 6-3 blowout win. apparently he is getting to luongos head. it definitely looked like lou was frustrated in the loss on saturday. lou was trash talking bifugly in his post game interview, check it out:



-hark

New national Anthem

The CBC has chosen the new theme song for Hockey Night in Canada. The Finalists were a thirteen year old kid and a music teacher. The music teacher won. I wonder how much work the thirteen year old kids parents did for him? Both were pretty good songs nonetheless. I voted for the winning won (it cost me 50 cents via text message). I like the bagpipes in the song.

In other HNIC news, if anyone thought it was impossible to choose a worse hockey analyst than Kelly Hrudey, they have recently been proven wrong. Kelly and Ron are now joined with legendary GM Mike Millbury. Mike Millbury known for such ridiculous signings such as Alexei Yashin to a long ten million dollar contract (which the isles will still be paying out for years to come), trading Bryan McCabe and Todd Bertuzzi for a washed up Trevor Linden, and trading Roberto Luongo and Oli Jokinen for Mark Parrish (Mark who?). Yeah, i really want this genius to analyze the game. At least he makes Kelly Hrudey look a little bit smarter (not much). But i feel sorry for Ron Mclean. He starts the 4 oclock game, and has to work with mean Don Cherry who yells at him. And then at the 7 oclock game, he has to work with 'dumb and dumber' (copyright Battle of Western Canada) and put up with their shinanigans. Ron Mclean is Jesus reincarnate, for not having blown up at the people he has worked with.

-hark

All star Weekend Proposition

username: desilets_marc@hotmail.com
pass:cbc

Just putting up the username and password because i forgot them myself.

My plan to make the all star game entertaining:

Weaknesses with this all star game: big name goalies not showing up, no fancy goals,

Ovechkin's shootout attempt was nice, but i have done way nicer moves with a hockeystick and a red ball. The problem is, you can't score fancy goals when you're up against good goalies.

Bad idea: Put shitty goalies from the AHL and minor leagues in net to make the all star game higher scoring and flashier.

A solution: get all the goalies really drunk. Let them bring alchohol with them in their water bottles. The goals scored will end up being fantastic. And you could probably get Brodeur and Luongo to show up.  I hear Ed Belfour considering coming out of retirement as we speak.  It would even make the weekend more social and lighthearted.  Imagine the beer company that gets the right to say, "The official beer of Roberto Luongo."

Luongo's new dilemna: stay home with family or go get drunk.

Patrick Roy's Backwards solution: cocaine. It only made him better though. It somehow increased his focus. But that's why he didn't go to the 2002 salt lake olympics, is because he couldn't kick coke for a couple weeks to get it out of his blood stream and pass the drug tests. So instead he stayed home and did coke with his family.

Roy's Idealistic Decision: Stay home and do coke with my family, or go get drunk at the all star game.