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Canucks Downed by Predators in a Sloppy One |
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Last night the Canucks hosted the Predators in an entertaining 6-5 game. The game was not played anything close to prefect by either team. At times both teams looked sloppy and had shaky goaltending. Both teams left players wide open to feast on their goaltenders, and both teams did not stick to their system at all. All in all, this was an entertaining game of pond hockey that at times reminded me of the all star game. If wide open, run and gun hockey is the new trend between these two teams, maybe next game they play, people won't be giving their tickets away.
Both Schneider and Luongo were iffy at best, but the lack of a back check was more to blame for the goals. The first one was shot from a bad angle that Schneider should have stopped, but other than that goal, the rest were a result of team breakdowns and bad luck. The second goal was tipped off Bieksa's stick and snuck in over Schneider. While you hope Schneider stops that one, that goal was just bad luck.
The third goal was poor coverage of the point on the power play. How a guy with the hardest shot in the league is left that wide open I don't know. If I'm drawing up the PK, I put one guy right next to Weber and play 3-on-4 with the rest of the team. Weber is the main weapon on the power-play and if you take him away the Pred's PP becomes very regular. You have to make someone else beat you.
On the fourth goal, Wilson was allowed to skate past three Canucks untouched, and roof it over Lu who was in his usual belly flopped position. The team has to make it harder to get to the net than that. The fifth Goal, Tootoo was left wide open in the circle while two Canucks watched him fire a shot past Luongo. And the final nail in the coffin was one of the best skaters on the team, Hansen, not being able to skate with Fisher, leaving Fisher open for an easy tap in.
We can blame the goalies if we want for last night loss, but the reality is this was a team lose. The team left players wide open. The team didn't back check the whole night. The team was fairly easy to play against in their own end. The team lost focus at times. While it would have been nice to have a few big saves by Schneider and Lu, the Canucks lost as a team last night.
The Defence was pretty decent last night. They limited the Predators to just 20 shots, that's the good news. The bad news is 6 of those went in, and at the end of the day that's not good. I thought other than the Wilson goal, all six D played OK. They kept the Predators to the outside and limited their chances. They made good first passes and didn't turn the puck over. The problem occurred because the forwards didn't have the same level of commitment to the defensive side of the game as the defence did last night.
The forwards also played a decent game too. The reason I say they were decent is because they were great in the offensive end, but fairly poor on the defensive side of things. The five goals they scored were well earned and well executed, but the six goals against were mostly a direct result of a forward blowing coverage somewhere.
The first goal, Cody Hodgson worked a great give and go with Higgins and put the Canucks on the board, a nice goal by two players who always seem to play well together. The second goal was perfect example as to why you always shoot from anywhere, as Daniel banked a nice one in from a bad angle. The Third goal was a great job by the whole fourth line to pin the Predators deep and out work them. Aaron Volpatti grabbed the loose puck in the slot and buried it to tie the game. See guys, Volpatti can finish. The fourth Canucks goal was a highlight of the night candidate, as Hank delivered a beautiful no look pass to Burrows and he made it 4-3 Canucks. The last Canucks goal was also nice, as Hansen raced to the puck and hammered one by Rinne. The goal song on that goal should have been "U Can't Touch This" because it was hammer time.
The five goals the forwards had were all great, but now on to something the forwards didn't do great, and that was back check. During the their recent five game win streak I thought the Canucks played as one, last night it looked as though they played as 12 forwards, 6 D and a goalie (or two as the case was last night). The D and goalie played in one end and the forwards played at the other. You can't win in the NHL by playing only 100 feet. You can only win when everyone buys in, and plays all 200 feet. While no one player was to blame for last night's lose, the forwards as a group were terrible in their own end and had a lot to do with the lose.
I'm a firm believer that you win as a team and you lose, and last night the Canucks loss was a team effort. No one player should be signalled out for it because every player was equally average. Every player made mistakes, and every player made nice plays. We need to put this game behind us and look forward to beating up on the Flames on Sunday instead of dwelling on the one that got away.
Volpatti
For player who wasn't supposed to play last night, Aaron Volpatti was great. He did everything that is asked of his role on this team and more. He was physical and put Tootoo on notice early that he was not going to run around and hit guys, and while he had five hits, none of them were big. Volpatti worked hard the whole night and earned every bit of the 9 minutes he got, and even potted his first goal. I'm curouis to see who sits next game when Raymond comes back because in my opinion, Volpatti was a whole lot better than Weise last night. I hope AV sticks with the hot hand and keeps 54 in against the Flames. He's earned it.
P.S. The Volpatti Kool-Aid tastes like Grape "Punch" if anyone is interested.
Vancouver Province’s Article
A couple of days ago, Jason Botchford, from the Vancouver province wrote a great article on Mason Raymond’s return. I thought Botchford did a great job of capturing Raymond’s emotion, and telling just how tough it has been to come back. He dug deep with Raymond and got Raymond to open up and show just how much Raymond has suffered, and that he will never be the same. For that part of the article, I applaud him. It was a wonderful piece of journalistic work.
The part of the article that bugged me was that he felt the need to point out that the Canucks don’t hit. The reason I did not like that part is because it’s false. The Canucks hit plenty. They are actually 12th in the NHL in total hits, and even ahead of the “Big Bad Bruins” and the "Truculent Maple Leafs" by a few. To take it one step further, I would even argue that the Canucks sit in the middle of the league in of hits because they usually have the puck, and it’s pretty hard to hit guys when you have the puck.
While I do think it would be nice to have a big scary guy in our top 6 who can crush guys, I don’t think we absolutely need one. This team has toughness and this team does hit. This team is capable of finishing checks and playing close game. It’s time the Vancouver media, and the fans realized this team is plenty tough and can hold it’s own in a physical game.
Hitting isn’t what this team needs, because they already do that. What this team needs is to focus every game and not get pulled off their game by the other team. When the Canucks play their game, teams can hit them 100 times and it won’t make a difference if they play their system. It’s when the Canucks get caught not playing their system they lose, and that has nothing to do with whether they hit enough.
Here’s the link to the article. If you haven’t seen it it’s a good read other than the toughness comment.
http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Raymond+return+will+speed+toughness/5792918/story.html
Question of the Day
Do you think the Canucks hit enough?
Thanks for reading
Enjoy your day
Ian
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Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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