Bette Midler
Because she had a song lyric that said she could fly higher than an eagle? And the Canucks flew by the Wings? Am I reaching too hard here? Probably. But how often do you get a chance to use a Bette Midler picture on your hockey blog. Not often enough I say.
Random Stuff Before I Break Down the Game:
OK so this is the part where I ramble before I get to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the game. But before I get to that, I will first talk about the direction I will be taking the post-game posts I will be doing on my blog. The game previews, that is pretty easy, I ramble on about the team we are playing, add in some personal stories, some past history, and voila, off I go. If you are looking for tiny statistical details in your game preview ("Did you know that when Raffi Torres has 2 coffees in the morning, one with 2 sugars, one without, and he wears black socks, and eats frozen orange juice straight from the can, that he scores at a 2 point per game clip? Oh but ONLY if we're playing in the Eastern time zone and we've JUST come out of the Pacific time zone within the last 24 hours.") well then I leave that in the capable hands of all those number crunchers out there. While I like stats, I don't enjoy looking them up myself, nor do I like basing an outcome of a game on such stats. Why you ask? Because stats don't account for the Hockey Gods. And if there is one thing I know in life, it's that the Hockey Gods hate Vancouver with a passion. The basketball gods, well they gave us Big Country, so obviously it isn't just a one sport thing in this town.
Yep. This was the franchise center for the Grizzlies. I don't even need a joke here. Sigh.
So yes, the game day preview, I have that down pat. But what to do about the post-game stuff? Since this blog is for dedicated Canuck fans, and fans who sometimes don't have time to watch the game, I have a delicate balancing act to perform. On one hand, hardcore Canuck fans have already read everything there is to read about last night's win, they have read the papers, the online forums, they have cut their neighbours goat and looked through its entrails to further see what the future holds for the Canucks....they have basically engorged themselves on anything Canuck related.
On the other hand, I have the Canuck fans who had to meet a friend, or had a party to go to, or had something...what are they called? Life responsibilities? Apparently those responsibilities supersede hockey to some people. Crazy. Anyways, these people don't have time or the desire to go through every Canuck medium out there to look over information and break down the Canucks games into the minute detail that I, and others will ("Do you think Bieksa's new jock strap affected his game? I swear his stride was .02 seconds off its usual pace. Here, let me break it down frame by frame....See how he grimaces there? I think that's the new jockstrap digging into Bieksa's 'little general'").
So I have to decide what to write about to make both sides happy, all 13 of you. So I have decided to break down the post-game reviews into the usual Good, Bad, and Ugly, and then have the "Game Highlights" section where I will post YouTube clips, describe major events of the game, or toss up what the papers are talking about, just so you are in the loop. I will also have the "MSN Game Winning Goal" picture, which is an idea I have gleefully stolen from some messageboard, from back in the day (Possibly HF Boards? I have no idea. Regardless, the idea is awesome, so I am taking it.)
I will strive to not go into too much detail so you regardless of which fan you are, you can have a nice quick read about your Canucks, and then tell all your friends to read my blog. Or shake your head and tell yourself "I always told Wyatt he should have taken a trade skills course". Either or is fine with me.
And don't worry, it will be chock full of pictures. YAY!
Game Highlights
Why did I post a picture of Andrew Alberts dressed like videogame anti-hero Codename:47, the silent assassin? Because of this.
Or if you prefer the American commentary:
(I enjoy the American commentary on big hits. They are far more taken aback and shocked by them then Canadian announcers and plus they make funny comments like "He zigged when he should have zagged")
For those of you not paying attention, at some point during the summer Andrew Alberts turned into a good defenceman, one who is very very solid in the number 5 spot, but is currently playing in our top 4, and shockingly, playing alongside Bieksa (Yes, the Bieberts pairing) has managed to play pretty damn good.
So yes, last nights game was more of the same as Alberts has decided to light people up in anticipation of christmas, as he is laying people out at least once a game, which makes me very very giddy. Other highlights of the game included:
-Jimmy Howard vs Roberto Luongo trying to decide who could play worse. Howard won this game.
-Our PP continues to be a huge weapon in our arsenal, as even the 2nd PP unit is getting into the act now
-Edler and Ehrhoff continue to be our most important d-men on the year as they both logged 24 minutes plus on the night. Thank you Patrick White, thank you.
-Malholtra had 3 points on the night (2 goals and an assist, one of the goals was a shorthanded breakaway) and Torres and Hansen also chipped in a point a piece. This line has been our 2nd line on the season, as Kesler, Raymond and Samuelsson continue to struggle
-The 3rd period was probably the best period of Canucks hockey I have seen all year. For those of you who missed it, you missed playoff style excitement. The crowd was really into it.
-As for the papers, if you want to save your time reading them, this is what they are all talking about
"Good teams take over in the 3rd period"
"Canucks would have lost a game like this last year"
"Canucks showing maturity"
etc etc etc. Basically the same thing we say every year where we win a game against Detroit, then we go on to lose in the playoffs.
So yes, those were the highlights of the game. Basically the 3rd period was kick ass hockey that saw the Canucks lay the smack down on the tired Wings in the 3rd period.
MSN Game Winning Goal
As you can see, Edler scored the game on a point shot on the powerplay. As my drawing shows, Ryan Kesler provided the moral support Edler need to score the game winning goal, Daniel Sedin provided the screen, while Henrik Sedin cheered on from afar. Jimmy Howard, looking unusually concerned about the goal, had little chance on the shot. I have no idea what is going on with the Wings players face who is covering Kesler.
So. Good.
The Good
- The 3rd perod was a sight to behold. Actual entertaining hockey, who knew the Canucks had it in them? Sure glad I sold my tickets to this one. Sigh.
-Manny Malholtra had a huge game. TSN of course chose to run the headline 'Manny Being Manny', so congrats lasting all of one good Malholtra game before going to that one TSN. Malholtra has come a long way since being a failed first rounder who was supposed to bring immense offence, got his butt kicked by Hitchcock for a couple of years, and found his niche as a top end 3rd line center. If Manny can continue to add offence to his game, then his contract suddenly becomes a bargain
-Edler/Ehrhoff contine to play solid solid defence. Should be interesting to see what happens when Hamhuis comes back and where he slots in the lineup. Edler and Ehrhoff, I like them playing together, and Bieberts is playing well together, that would mean Hamhuis and Ballard could play together, but that would mean Ballard getting more than 12 minutes a game. I assume Hamhuis/Edler, Ehrhoff/Ballard, then Bieberts stays together, or if they really want, Ballard and Alberts play while Bieksa goes back to top 4 minutes.
So bad. So very very very bad. Painfully bad. Dan Cloutier bad.
The Bad
-Ballard. 12 minutes a game. Want him in game shape. Want him killing people. Want good Ballard.
-2nd line continues to be 'meh'. Glad Sammy got a goal but overall this line has been been pretty poor. Kesler looks good on the PP, but STILL cannot get in sync with Raymond and Sammy.
-Desbiens. I just wanted to mention his name.
-Luongo wasn't terrible, but he wasn't good and he wasn't ugly. So he gets put in the bad category. Still, a wins a win, but he did look awfully slow at times tonight. The goal that was off of a shot that bounced off the backboards and out in front, holy lord, if I had a 90 year old grandma I would use her in a joke to explain how slow Luongo looked on that play.
Really? 3D? Can this series just die already?
The Ugly
-Our 4th line. It feels like I should have a template ready to use for these post game breakdowns, they always stay the same....Once again our 4th line was on the ice for a goal against and shockingly they had no goals for. This 4th line needs to be fixed, they are statistically worse than last years 4th line, which I never thought was possible
-Our 4th line. Yes, it bears repeating!
-Our goal song. Holiday by Green Day? Surely we can do better than that.
-There wasn't a whole lot of ugly about this game to be honest, well, not enough ugly for me to go on a rant about, so that's about it.
Until next time!
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