Canucks & Beyond
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Game #2 Anaheim vs Vancouver
by Alanah McGinley on 04/27/07 at 10:50 AM ET
Comments (13)
Anaheim vs Vancouver
7 pm CBC
I see the Yankee Canuck is calling for atomic warfare and Waiting for Stanley is opting for video game violence. (God, Canucks bloggers make me so proud some days...)
Anyway, onto my own pre-game blather…
Problems:
Goaltending
Defense
Offense
Special Teams
Jerseys
Solutions (presented in the order of simplicity):
Jerseys
Do we not own vintage road jerseys? Can we please wear them? I don’t know the exact stats, but our numbers are much better in those things—hell, we just won Game #7 in those jerseys.
We’ve got two colors; one of ‘em should work. Please don’t blow off such a valid superstition when us fans have shamelessly embraced some truly insane ones, all to help this team.
Goaltending
Luongod’s record against Anaheim might give one pause—he’s never beaten them. One national sports writer—taking a break from his horse racing, rodeo and golf coverage—even produced an article yesterday declaring what sounded like The End of the Luongo Legend. (Rubbish, which I briefly countered here on KK yesterday).
Luongo figures out teams with repetition, having produced better stats against every team he’s played, at every outing. Granted, this team is taking more repetition than most, but he’s getting to see them every other day now. He made some brilliant saves in Game #1, despite his more mortal looking play otherwise. He’ll get much better.
More important than that however, is that he’ll guide (threaten?) his defense better. New defensive pairings combined with losing two of the best that play in front of him in Salo and Bieksa last game, made for too many screened shots. If he can see the shot, he usually stops it. (Which brings us to the ‘defense’ problem, which I’ll get to in a moment.)
Offense
No disrespect to J.S. Giguere—he’s gone further in the playoffs than the Canucks ever have, that’s for sure—but he’s one hell of a lot more beatable than Marty Turco. He gave up two (that I recall) wide open nets to Canucks standing in front of him with the pucks on their sticks. Unfortunately for us, those same Canucks were like deer-in-headlights at the prospect of an easy goal that night, so the weakness wasn’t exposed. But Giguere frequently seemed slow moving side to side throughout the game—it’s a potential bright spot.
On the Dark Side, we have Pronger and Niedermayer, two guys better seen after being run over by a bus, unless they play for your team. But the scoring opportunities were there in spite of them. Keep fighting through the defense, get pucks on net and STAY in front of the net to pick up rebounds.
P.S. Jannik Hansen is expected to be back. I think that’s for the best. Not sure why he was left out on Wednesday, frankly.
Defense
Luongo’s mantra all season long has been “Clear the assholes in front of me, including yourselves, and I’ll stop the damn puck.” In Game #1, the Canucks forgot this First Rule of Luongo. Here’s hoping they’ve tightened up their defensive play tonight. With new players having to blend into the lineup, this is a coaching issue as much as anything else.
It doesn’t hurt that Sami Salo might be coming back, too. His bout of influenza… errrr… back spasms… seem to be receding. He skated yesterday and that previous link suggest they were hoping to see today how his body responded to that workout. The AP reported that he skated “gingerly” in his Thursday skate; the CP report sounded more optimistic, noting that he skated 20 minutes by himself and also for part of the team practice. Wait and see time.
One way or another, the situation is what it is. If they make changes to how they play the puck in front of Luongo, and even better, create turnovers in the neutral zone before Kunitz, McDonald & Co. turn the Canucks into lunch meat, it can only be an improvement.
Special Teams
PK: Stop taking retarded penalties. Cowan’s goal on Wednesday was followed 27 seconds later by a too-many-men call against Vancouver, where the Ducks promptly tied the game. Wtf?
PP: Not as awful looking as for the majority of the Dallas series, but they seem irrationally intimidated by Giguere. I just don’t get that. Shoot the puck more and good things might happen.
Conclusion
The work ethic is everything with this team. Without a play-or-die effort, the Canucks won’t have success given the odds against them. But after a day of rest and regrouping, I bet we’ll see noticeable improvements in their game tonight.
Regardless, it’s bound to be stressful to watch. For fans, I recommend yoga breathing exercises, or booze. You know which one I’m going with.
Go Canucks!
Filed in: playoff hockey, vancouver canucks | Canucks and Beyond | Permalink
Comments
LOL. Apparently the drinking’s started early this morning.
Posted by Earl Sleek from Los Angeles, CA on 04/27/07 at 10:14 AM ET
No, just didn’t start the coffee early enough. Good GOD! It’s gonna be a long day…
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 04/27/07 at 10:15 AM ET
I am not calling for atomic warfare...I am simply pointing out that a mushroom cloud MAY provide enough distraction for the Canucks to score. I would never actively advocate the destruction of a place like LA or Anaheim...maybe the deep south, but certainly where they have nice beaches! 
Posted by Mike on 04/27/07 at 10:42 AM ET
I don’t think a mushroom cloud is necessarily such a bad idea. What the heck is the point of having tactical nukes if you never bother using them? Besides, some of them are pretty old--they need to be “tested” to make sure they work.
Posted by Baroque on 04/27/07 at 12:05 PM ET
Well, I’m all for nuking Disneyland off the map, but I don’t buy the theory that it will provide enough distraction for the Canucks to score. It would just be one more distraction to them, preventing opportunities.
Naslund: Holy crap! What was that *bang*?
Sedin: Pretty colors! And look at the sparkly lights!
Pyatt: Fu#k. It’s the end of MySpace.
etc.
And frankly, I don’t think much of anything distracts Andy McDonald from scoring. Perhaps some hot Canucks fan in California could sit topless behind Luongo for the entire game? Just a thought.
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 04/27/07 at 12:16 PM ET
My brother missed that game, so I emailed him my own wrap-up:
Luongo played only a little better than the score indicates. He gave up 3 in the first period. 2 were beautiful backhanders, and on the replays I could not even find any Canuck defense. They must have been trying out a new system (codename: ‘NONE’), as they left Luongo so naked in the crease, I thought it was Tim Cheveldae. Giguere did not have to play great, only adequate, as the sluggish ‘Canucks never really challenged him. Vancouver looked very tired, a little confused. My guess it was the long Dallas series, but they possibly tried to make too many adjustments from their scouting reports. Beaten badly on the boards, all night. If last night was any indication--could be a short series. Not just on the boards, Ducks speed (or Van lack of) led to a lot of penalties.
Posted by Gramps from hockeytown on 04/27/07 at 12:54 PM ET
I’m in complete agreement about the vintage whites. Sometimes you just gotta try whatever works. Also the first rule of Luongo.
I was gonna write up a list of stuff I thought they needed to do to get it done tonight, but, you’ve brilliantly covered pretty much everything that’s been running through my head since Wednesday night. Guess the only thing left to do is post my prediction if they do everything right. 
Posted by Rod from Vancouver on 04/27/07 at 01:06 PM ET
Gramps -- Thanks for the analysis, and I agree with it all. One thing you mentioned - that I neglected to - was speed. A serious issue, given the propane jet fuel that the Ducks’ forwards seem to be running on.
No question, the Canucks aren’t as fast as Disney, even on their best day. They’ll have to beat them by playing a Canucks-style game, hopefully making good defensive plays in the neutral zone. But I will say the Canucks are a much faster team than Game #1 would indicate as well. As you said, they were sluggish. I hope (and expect) tonight will show a big improvement in that respect.
Rod -- Always glad to have the support about the superstitious stuff. Whatever works, indeed! (And thanks for using the word “brilliant” in a comment. You can imagine, I don’t hear THAT everyday!)
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 04/27/07 at 02:12 PM ET
One thing I noticed in person that was killer: the Ducks have this amazing breakout play, where they fire it up the middle, much harder than anyone could accept, to a guy standing near center. That guy is misdirection, as he then tips it to a winger flying down the side boards.
It was crazy effective and I hope the Canucks figure out a way to stop it. Did they talk about it on the broadcast?
Posted by Jeff on 04/27/07 at 03:42 PM ET
If they did talk about it on the broadcast, I missed it. But the Ducks are very clean at doing that pass, and it’s an effective way to gain the zone unmolested.
The only (??) way I can see the Canucks stopping the Ducks from getting in so cleanly all the time is to drop back a forward and focus their energies even more heavily on defense. If they can cause a turnover on that play, they kill a regular scoring chance the Ducks seem to get.
I’m not as worried about offense as most people seem to be. Giguere is beatable, and opportunities will arise. The main thing is keeping the goals-against down and stay patient for their scoring chances.
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 04/27/07 at 04:17 PM ET
“but he’s one hell of a lot more beatable than Marty Turco.”
Amen, sister!
I hear Salo has the ‘lower-body flu.’
Posted by Zanstorm from Smithers on 04/27/07 at 04:41 PM ET
Giggy wanted me to pass along this message:
More beatable than me? I took a team to the finals that was even worse than this Canucks team.
Big difference between this game one and last round’s game one was that Superman still made 72 saves whereas in Wednesday’s game his sv% was .8-something.
Maybe it’s the Kryptonite in the ice but if your one great player doesn’t make up for your only other two passable players’ disappearance (who are these Sedin twins you speak of?) then it’s going to be a short series.
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Posted by PPP on 04/27/07 at 05:58 PM ET
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About Canucks & Beyond
Alanah McGinley has been blogging hockey since 2003, sharing opinions, rants and not-so-deep thoughts with anyone who will listen. In addition to writing Canucks & Beyond and helping manage Kukla’s Korner, Alanah is one of the founders and co-hosts of The Crazy Canucks Podcast, as featured at Canucks.com.
She has contributed pieces to FoxSports.com and the New York Times Slapshot blog, as well as other stray destinations in cyberspace.
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