Breakdown of the 4 Games this year between SJ and Nux

November 26- Blowout in favour of the canucks. Tambo had a goal back when Tambo still looked like he was capable of playing in the top 6. Nowadays, Tambo has been a healthy scratch 95 percent of these playoffs. Ballard had a goal too this game, unfortunately he has found himself out of the lineup this playoffs too. Hopefully the good play of these two players in the regular season against the sharks helps them draw into the canucks lineup this playoffs.

January 3. Cory Schneider played and helped backstop the canucks to a 4-3 win. The Canucks had an early lead but blew it in the second. sharks held the lead for 3:14 before hansen tied it up.

January 20. sharks win 2-1 in a shootout Canucks opened the scoring but couldn't do anything else. Joe Pavelski scored in the shootout. Luongo played but his performance was overshadowed by an even stronger game by Niemi. The Sharks never held lead once in the only game they won against the canucks all season.

March 11. Canucks win 5-4 in a SO and Schneider was in net. Cory made 44 saves and played strong but you have to assume that Luongo would have been even stronger. Niemi played for san jose. At no point in the game did san jose have a lead, but canucks blew three separate leads to keep San Jose hanging around.

In a total 250 minutes played against the canucks this season, the San Jose Sharks were only capable of holding the lead for a combined 3 minutes and 14 seconds.

-hark

Burrows 4 Conn Smythe

It was an ironic title. Lets not get ahead of ourselves, we could barely get by the first round.

That being said, the Canucks did win game seven with a roller coaster of a story for burrows. First he scores 2 minutes into the game. Then he misses a penalty shot early in the third.... thats when his tide started to turn. Then late in the game, shorthanded, he coughs the puck up to toews who eventually inserts it into the back of the net, to tie it up for the Hawks. Then in overtime he puts the canucks shorthanded, forcing luongo to make the most important save of his career. Following that, he shoots it top corner over crawford. It's still unclear whether Campoli tipped the shot, or if it went straight in off of burrows stick. Either way, Alex Burrows is starting to look a whole lot like Pavel Bure.

-hark

Burrows post game:

Bifugly vs. Bobby Poo

In one of the most anticipated matchups on the canucks calendar for 2011 (not as a benchmark but as a chance for revenge) the canucks will get to play Bifuglien. Since Bifugly has become a defender, the canucks will not see him in the crease challenging Luongo. Instead they will see him from the point taking big shots.

Byfuglien is an interesting character. since signing his contract in mid february he has scored 7 points. Before that he had 43 points and was talked about as a Norris candidate. Big Buff is so streaky and the Thrashers really should be given their heads a shake for signing Fugs to such a ridiculous contract. Its done now and now they will have to move on. whats likely to happen is that Quebec city or Winnipeg will have to deal with the contract in a few years.

for now, Bifugly is gonna put on his best face and try and score some goals, and maybe be half the man he was at the start of the season. It will be a good game against the Canucks. Prediction: Its going to be a blowout. the canucks will shit kick the thrash.

Malholtra, Torres, Raymond and Samuelson will pick it up in Dallas

Dallas goalie kari lehtonen is 6-0-1 in his last seven starts. This is the perfect opponent for the Canucks who remember the bitter pain of having their undefeated streak ended. It will be the first game since that loss that the Canucks have played against a top caliber opponent. Dallas is leader of the pacific Division in the NW and will likely be competing with Vancouver for leaders in the Western Conference for the rest of the season.

The droughts go on for all the Canucks forwards besides the sedins and kesler. Remember that game that mason Raymond came back from injury and on the fourth line he scored a goal? Why has he gotten comfortable on the first line and thinks he doesn't need to score on a consistent basis. And Raffi Torres who has been traded the past few trade deadlines, is playing the same streaky hockey that he has become known for. Malholtra you can cut a little bit of slack because he does such a great job on the pk; but at the same time he has been taking some stupid penalties lately. The same goes with burrows whose stupid penalties havent cost the canucks too badly this season but its just a ticking time bomb. samuelson is by far the worst for stupid penalties. he cost us dearly against st. louis back in december.

all in all its shaping up to be a good game. with luongo vs. lehtonen it could be a low scoring affair. even if just one of torres, sameullson, raymond, malholtra or tambellini can find the net juswt once, it might be enough to let the sedins and kesler do the rest.

-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

Who was the Best Goalie at the All Star Game?

If you look at the number for save percentage, it would seem like Tim Thomas was the best goalie. He was the only goalie to maintain a save percentage over the .8 threshold (which would be considered quite a low target in a regular season game). Price, Luongo and Backstrom were all tied for second place. However these numbers are highly skewed because they do not take into account the fact that Roberto Luongo had to play the third period with a microphone and Jim Hughson kept pestering him with questions even while the puck was in his own zone. Taking this into account and extrapolating the date on a scale of 0-4 with the new x-axis variable being greatness, this is how the date tends:

Injured groin maybe,
but play by play will not sway,
lou's talent away