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Vancouver Canucks Game Day: January 5 at Anaheim; California Nightmare |
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Saturday January 4: Los Angeles Kings 3 Vancouver Canucks 1
If you missed Saturday's loss to Los Angeles, Roberto Luongo put on a show. Here are your highlights:
Luongo faced a whopping 48 shots while his team gave him just one goal to work with. Result? A 3-1 loss in a game where the Canucks were once again thoroughly outplayed by the Los Angeles Kings. The Canucks may have beaten Boston and Chicago in December, but this game didn't get me any closer to thinking that Vancouver is ready to compete with the big gunners in the Pacific Division.
Luongo returned to action after missing nearly two weeks with a groin strain. His counterpart Jonathan Quick also played his first game since suffering a groin injury of his own seven weeks ago. As the two potential Olympians faced off, both were solid but Luongo was the more spectacular. He was perfect through two periods, facing 35 shots with an efficient confidence that we haven't seen in awhile.
I hope that mojo wasn't spoiled when Dustin Brown added injury to insult by rolling over Luongo after scoring the game-tying goal 1:07 into the third period. Luongo stayed down for an alarmingly long time, but stayed in the game and says he's okay:
The winning goal was a snipe by Jeff Carter after Dwight King outmuscled Jason Garrison for a puck along the boards with eight minutes to go, then Carter added his 15th of the year into an empty net to seal the win for his team. Carter does damage every time the Kings play the Canucks—why isn't he a lock for the Canadian Olympic team?
Despite coming into Saturday's contest on a five-game losing streak, the Kings were the better team by a mile. They carried the play, outshooting Vancouver 49-28. They had the puck a lot because they won most of the key faceoffs—59 percent in total. Jarret Stoll was the killer, going 13-4 on the dot, while Henrik Sedin was 6-10 and Ryan Kesler was just 4-12. The Kings outhit Vancouver 30-21, though it felt like more. I guess those times they ran Luongo don't count?
The one number that played in Vancouver's favour was giveaways. The Canucks had just six in the game, while Los Angeles coughed up the puck 21 times—with Drew Doughty leading the way with five. Why weren't the Canucks able to make something happen with any of those gifts?
The new-look power play did score, but didn't present quite the way we'd been promised. Instead of seeing Kesler out at the left point, we saw Daniel Sedin. That worked on the team's first opportunity, where Kesler was able to roof a puck past Jonathan Quick from the right circle to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead 12:27 into the first period.
The team had three more man-advantage opportunities through the game, but squandered them. Torts thinks the wasted opportunity on Dustin Brown's second-period slashing minor changed the momentum of the game:
Torts also seems pretty clear that the Canucks will need to step up their game if they want to win some of these Pacific Division games in January. For now, the question is whether we'll see an improved effort tonight against Anaheim and, if so, if it'll be enough to grab two points?
Sunday January 5 - Vancouver Canucks at Anaheim Ducks - 5:00 pm - Sportsnet Pacific, Prime Ticket
Vancouver Canucks 23-13-7 53 points fourth in Pacific Division
Anaheim Ducks 30-8-5 65 points first in Pacific Division
The Anaheim Ducks are proving that their regular-season success in 2012-13 was no fluke. They're off to their best start in franchise history this year and are 9-1-0 in their last 10 games, sitting just one point behind Chicago in the Presidents' Trophy race. And they're STILL undefeated in regulation on home ice: their record is a stunning 16-0-2 at the Honda Center so far this year.
Top-10 NHL scorers Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry get all the attention, but the Ducks' hot line over the past few games has been the Saku Koivu-Andrew Cogliano-Danniel Winnik combination. They've combined for 7 goals and 7 assists—and a plus-18 rating—over the last five games. The Ducks have been home since New Year's Eve and should be well rested—they beat Edmonton handily by a 5-2 score in their last outing on Friday.
As this year's 24/7 series draws to its conclusion with a bit of a whimper on Sunday, the Canucks/Ducks game matches up two of the stars of past seasons, coaches Bruce Boudreau from Season 1 and John Tortorella from Season 2. Well familiar with each other from the past rivalry between their Capitals and Rangers, some of those old feelings are bound to bubble to the surface on Sunday.
This is just the second meeting of the year for Vancouver and Anaheim. The Ducks beat the Canucks 3-1 in Anaheim back on November 10, with Frederik Andersen in goal. Jonas Hiller has been carrying the load of late, and was named the NHL's third star in December.
No word yet on a starting goalie for the Canucks tonight, but today is Eddie Lack's 26th birthday. It would make sense to give him the start after all the rubber Luongo faced on Saturday night.
Quick Hit:
Team Canada's World Junior Championship ended with a whimper as they fell 2-1 to the Russians in the bronze medal game, finishing outside the top three for the second year in a row. The effort was better than Saturday's loss to Finland, but still not enough to salvage a consolation prize. This is the first time since 1981 that Canada has failed to medal in back-to-back years. Depending on what happens at the Olympics, we could see some big changes at Hockey Canada in the not-too-distant future.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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