Kaboom! Canucks blow Avs up.

You've got to be kidding me! The Vancouver Canucks completely destroyed the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night 8-2, putting all of the Northwest Division on notice. A solid Luongo outing, Henrik Sedin's first career hat trick, and four third period goals dropped the snow ball on those Colorado jokers. Positives far outweigh the negatives tonight, as we blasted our losing streak with authority:

1) It has to be Henrik. H-Bomb Sedin came out with his best offensive game in his career. Too bad Daniel wasn't on the ice to celebrate with him (well, he probably would have stolen a couple of those goals!). Hank scored at 1:57 and 7:09 of the first period (with Mason helping out on both), and then brought the cheap hats from the fans at 12:53 of the third on the power play (again, with help from Ma$e) to seal the deal. He dominated tonight, scoring his 3 goals on just 4 shots, despite winning just 44.4% of his face offs. Nicely done, my boy.

2) Roberto Luongo. We knew that we needed the real return of El Roberto to pull us out of this recent slump, and we got it tonight. Despite being handed a gigantic lead (4-0 after 40 minutes), Roberto held strong, allowing just 2 goals on 32 shots (94.1% saved) to earn the huge win against the division leaders. He looked sketchy between the pipes since coming back from his injury, at best, but was unbelievable tonight. The best offense in the division couldn't do much against him, and he deserves the 6 goal win.

3) +3s abound. I remember posting a recent story where the Canucks didn't have a single player with better than a 0 +/- rating. Tonight, there wasn't a single player in the negative. Special love goes out to the +3s on the night: Christian Ehrhoff, Jannik Hansen, and Ryan Johnson. Talk about an underrated group of guys from the Orca. I can't really think of 3 more underrated players on the team. Very solid.

4) How does Mason Raymond not get hooked up as the 3rd star? Raymond had 3 assists, a +2 rating, and 2 shots on goal in his 16:39 of ice time. He seemed to always be around when Henrik was working his magical hat trick, and he was pretty unheralded by the media after this gigantic win. Of course, again pointing to the fact that Ryan Johnson is underrated, RJ also had 3 assists (and 1 of his patented blocked shots). In the game, there were 13 Vannies with at least a point.

You can't underestimate a huge blowout win against the best team in your division, but let's not let this big win make us too proud. We're still in the middle of a tough stretch, and we still have some negatives to look at before we get Colorado again in 6 days:

1) Too many men on the ice. Remember last season when this was a call we got nailed for all the time? Well, we have finally reached our first too many men call here in the 09/10 campaign. I hate when we get called for this. It is nothing but slacking and poor focus that gets you this penalty. And why does Kyle Wellwood always end up getting to sit in the sin bin when we do it?

2) This is a pretty miniscule gripe, but we still led the game in giveaways (6-5). It didn't really bite us at all tonight, winning by 6 and all, but crisp passing and solid puck handing needs to be the focus for this squad.

The win will take the pressure off of my boys for a least a little bit (at least the next 6 days). At 11-10-0 (22 points) we now trail the Avs (12-5-3) by just 5 points and the Flamers (12-4-2) by just 4. Edmonton (18) and Minnie (15) are still bringing up the rear. After a work week off, the Canucks will get pumped up to go against the Avs at the Garage with a chance to go up 3-1 in the season series, and pull even closer to first place in the division. Colorado, meanwhile, has 2 games to play (on the road against Calgary and Edmonton) before meeting up in Vancouver on Friday. Seems to me like we should have the heavy advantage on 11/20. We'll be well rested and focused, and if the rest of the Northwest can beat up on the Avs during the week, we'll be primed to take our third of the year from them.

Big win. Good stuff. Go Canucks Go.

Canucks fight, but lose third straight.

The bit of losing is starting to wear on me. I'm thinking, if we can't handle this tiny little road trip (although, our second longest of the year), how are we going to handle this monster coming up with the Olympics in view? This latest in this little losing streak is a 1-3 loss at the hands of the Red Wings. The loss has dropped us back down to .500 puck, and makes a home in home series against the Colorado Avalanche more important that you can even fathom. But, before we get ahead of our selves, let's focus on the positives from last night's loss:

1) Mason Raymond's big goal. I'm not quite sure how Raymond got the puck in the net on this one, just squeezing it between the pads and the post, but it was our lone goal, and it was huge. It was the 8th goal on the year for Ma$e, a power play goal, and it was the only offensive glory we grabbed at the Joe on Thursday night. I love Ma$e, I love the goal.

2) We had 6 less penalty minutes that the Wings! This is pretty huge for my Vannies. One of our major faults this season has been our multiple penalties, especially in the first period. This time around, we just had a goalie interference from Alex Burrows and a well earned 5 minutes for fighting where Rick Rypien completely destroyed Brad May. Why does May always want to fight us? Oh yeah.

3) Ryan Kesler was a born leader. Kes played a hard game, finishing with 1 assist, 4 shots on goal, 2 blocked shots, and 50% of face offs won. Ryan stepped it up when he needed to, and played a solid game at the center position.

Obviously, there were many more negatives, if I can think of them:

1) B Lu. Now let's keep in mind that Roberto gave up 2 goals on 28 shots (the third goal was scored on a crazy empty netter where the puck bounced off the boards and into the open twine). That's a 92.9% save mark, and not too bad. However, we have been without the Amazin' Roberto for quite a while, and we have needed him to return with the kind of game that blows the NHL On The Fly announcers away. We need this homey to show up against Colorado, and put a couple of doughnuts on the board.

2) The literal negative. We didn't have a single player on the ice with a positive rating in this game. The biggest offenders were Kevin Bieksa (-2), Ryan Kesler (-2, which I obviously left out above), Mason Raymond (-2), and Henrik Sedin (-1). For the first three, they were all on the ice when the Vannies scored their only goal, so to have a -2 means they were also on the ice for all three Detroit goals. Rough time, baby.

3) Dub Dub didn't work his magic in the circle. Welly is usually a face off master for the Canucks, but last night he went 5 for 18 (27.8%), which made it hard for his wingers (including Samuelsson) to get going. It all starts with the draw fools.

4) Speaking of Samuelsson, he was a ghost. I made a big deal in my last post about how he needed to step up against his former team to make us wicked proud. His line? 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 +/-, 2 missed shots, 1 blocked shot, and 3 giveaways. Awful. Just plain awful. MS better get back to rolling like he was earlier in the campaign.

The next two games are possibly first half of the year defining kinds of games. The Canucks travel to Colorado on Saturday to take on the red hot Avs and then have a long break before hosting the Avs next Friday (that's a lot of days without hockey!). At 10-10-0 (20 points, and still racist against OTLs), the Orca are trailing the first place Avs (12-4-3) by 7 points. Within the division, we have Calgary (23) above, and Edmonton (18)/Minnie (15) below. If my boys don't start winning, though, they're going to find themselves living in the basement. So far this season, the Canucks and Avs have split 3-0 decisions. Colorado blanked the Vannies in the second game of the season, and then my boys returned the favor with Andrew Raycroft's best performance of the year on November 1. In the most recent edition of the season series, the Canucks got goals from Ma$e, Kesler, and Tanner Glass (his 1st NHL goal), including an amazing 18 save effort from out qualified backup. What will the final be this time around? God, I hope it's a win.

Lu gets in, 'Nucks get smashed.

When I lost 0-8 to Montreal in NHL 2K10, Karen said, "Sometimes you get blown out. No biggie." I guess that's my message to Orca Nation today, after the Vannies got stoned by St. Louis (who definitely had a grudge) 1-6. Luongo was the backup goalie due to flu like symptoms, but had to make an appearance after Everyday Ray Ray allowed 4 goals on 9 shots (I recored NHL On The Fly just to see this???), and couldn't stop the blue bleeding. We've got some positive and negatives to look at after this disappointing road loss.

1) Roberto is back! I know, I know, he allowed 2 goals on 17 shots (.882 SV%) in his limited return, but he wasn't expecting to be back, and he was getting into a groove before his injury. With him back on the ice, most likely starting on Thursday against the Wings, we are a much better team. I'm glad to have him back.

2) Hank Sedin. It may have been a meaningless goal, when you're down 0-5 in the third, but H-Bomb scored the Canucks first goal of the game just 1:02 into the third period, giving us dreams of a stellar comeback, on an assist from Ryan Kesler. It was Henrik's ninth of the year, team leading, and it at least helped us avoid the goose egg. Hank is ranked 7th in the West in goals, 6th in points.

3) Ryan Kelser was a saving grace. He was one of only two players with a positive +/- rating (joining Ma$on Raymond) and earned the lone assist in the game. He threw two shots in goal, and despite only winning 58% of his face offs, he had a nice game.

When you lose 1-6, you are bound to have some negatives:

1) Where's the defense? Honestly, two of the four goals allowed by Raycroft weren't his fault. The blame should be placed on the defensive players who were just standing there while the Blues made their move in on net. How about these +/- ratings for our defense: Alex Edler (-2), Willie Mitchell (-1), and Sami Salo (-3). You aren't going to win games with those kind of numbers (and let's not allow Steve "Karen's Fav" Bernier's -3 or Alex "Tommy's Fav" Burrows' -3 go unnoticed).

2) Shots on goal in the third. The Vannies put 11 and 10 on goal in the first two periods, but then when they were down 0-5 in the third, with their mighty captain back on the ice, they only shot twice. 2 shots in the entire third period! Are you kidding me? I mean, they did have a 50% shot percentage, but still, give me a break. How are you going to make your fans feel like you never give up if you only shoot twice in the third period while trailing?

3) Penalties. Now, I've been harping on the Canucks for their stupid penalties all season. They have been the least disciplined Vannie team to come around in recent memory, and it isn't all just Shane O'Brien. Keep in mind there was a ton of fighting in tonight's game, but still, the Canucks got called for 68 penalty minutes in the game on 16 calls (STL got called for 44 minutes in the sin bin). On a grip of the fights, we got called for instigators (Bieksa and Hordichuk), sloppy slashes, and just all around bad play. Over-penalized is the theme of the year thus far.

4) Mikael Samuelsson was dead silent. It has seemed that with Mikey doesn't get involved, the Canucks don't win. He has 14 points in 18 games this season (8-6-14), and has been a big part of our offense, with a grip of veteran Vancouverites on the IR. We need him to maintain his consistency, and try and get around 82 points on the season. Hopefully playing against Detroit will get him pumped.

So, at 10-9-0 (20 points) the Canucks aren't having too hot of a time here. With Colorado (26) leading the division, Calgary (23) is also up on us, with Edmonton (18) giving chase, and even Minnie (14) picking it up a little. The point total puts us at 9th in the West, almost a quarter of the way through the season. Game #20 comes tomorrow evening against the Detroit Red Wings (7-5-3, 17 points). Somehow, the Red Wings have been off to a mediocre start here in 2009/2010, and hopefully the Canucks can take advantage of them. Last time around (10/27) my boys lost 4-5, but will look to turn around our recent rough patch (2 straight losses) live in Detroit. Fingers crossed that we beat these commie bastards!!

Weekly football post #60.

Can you believe that it has been 60 weeks of football posts? Incredibly boring. This one is going to suck.

The Fountain Valley Barons put there undefeated streak on the line against their most bitter rivals, and probably their most difficult challenge, and came out smelling like a pile of dog crap. Edison met with my boys at OCC and won the Bell with a 0-24 blowout that left FVHS students and alumni reeling. The Chargers scored in every quarter (6-7-8-3), and stopped Kyle Middlebrooks and the Barons every inch of the way. Middie finished with a season low 83 yards on the ground, and a horrible -3 yards through the air. Dominic Ragland tossed for just 24 yards in the loss, and the Register picture of the Chargers celebrating with the bell made me sick to my stomach. Damnit! The dream of the CIF Championship isn't over though, just on hold. At 8-1-0, the Barons will try to maintain their solid season against Los Alamitos next Friday. A rebound game after the blowout will put us at 9-1 in the regular season, and really make us proud overall.

Speaking of upsetting losses, Notre Dame got beat 21-23 by Navy this weekend, getting spanked right out of their chances for a thrilling season. Navy completely owned the game, despite only winning by two, as the Irish defense had no answer for the triple option (or the fake handoff to pass to wide open TE that they have the option of every game according to Brandon). In the end a 14 point fourth quarter (really only 7 when Navy was trying) would not be enough for all the mistakes ND made in the game. The Irish were in the red zone three times (one interception, one fumble, and one failure on fourth and goal). Add two missed field goals to that mess, and you are going to lose the game, your season, and your chances of finishing anywhere near being ranked. Bollocks. On the good news side, Michael Floyd was back in style (10 catches for 141 yards and a TD, despite dropping one that could have changed the game) to add to the amazing Golden "I play everywhere on the field" Tate (9 catches for 132 and a sweet onside kick recovery). Jimmy "Please Go Pro" Clausen went 37/51 for 452, 2 TDs and 1 INT, but just wasn't able to step it up when it really mattered. Meanwhile, this fool Dobbs from Navy only made 3 passing attempts (2 completed, 1 being a TD), but ran for 102. I mean, the triple option works in the video game for me, and it worked for Navy in real like on Saturday. Now at 6-3, the Irish have completely lost all hope for a great bowl game, and may lose everything with their season ending against Pitt on the road (the #12 team in the Nation), UConn at home (sneaky good), and Stanford on the road (who just beat Orgeon). This "cake walk" to the end of the season is actually going to be pretty hard. Remember, I predicted 9-3 this year, and it is still in reach. But it won't be easy. Rematch against Navy in the Texas Bowl??

The 1-7 Rams had a bye week!!! Don't worry, we'll get beat by the Saints next week.

BC (8-10) got killed by Edmonton over the weekend in CFL action, 13-45, but still snuck into the playoffs and will open up against Hamilton (9-9) in the opening round. T Cat fans are thinking about rolling through this game, but wouldn't it be cool if BC could shock the CFL world? We don't have a QB, but maybe Martell Mallett could carry us to a shocker. We'll see, as the game gets underway November 15.

Celtic and Falkirk had a thrilling 3-3 game over the weekend, and it was a battle all the way until the end. Caldwell took us out to the lead early in the second half, but the Kirks came marching back to a 61st minute penalty (BS) and a 64th minute goal against Zaluska that gave the jerks the lead. My boy Scottie Mac got back to back goals to thrill the crowd in the 72nd and 79th, and we all thought that the Highlighters had the game in their hands. However, an 83rd minute Falkirk goal cancelled out the excitement of the Aussie's double, and my boys had to settle with just a point. What every happened to the Holy Goalie? We could use him back!! At 7-1-3 (24 points in 11 games), my boys lead the Protties from Rangers by 2 pointsheading into next weekend's matchup with Dundee (5-1-4). We'll need a big win against the Crocs to keep the top of the table.

Meanwhile, Newcastle also posted three goals, in their 3-1 win over Peterborough United. I love playing in the Championship Division. Of course, I know I'm not actually playing, but I feel like I am as a part of Magpie Nation. Jonas Gutierrez, Andy Carroll, and D-Man Danny Simpson carried our boys to victory, with Steven Harper really continuing to come into his own between the pipe. It was a 3-0 lead until Pete scored in the 79th, but obviously that wouldn't be enough. Goals in the 15th, 18th, and 52nd were too much for those boneheads to handle, and the Barcodes wiped the pitch with them. At 10-3-3 (33 points in 16 games), 'Castle are up 2 points on West Brom for ownership of the top of the table. Honestly, we're going to get promoted, right? Next up, after quite a break, is a Monday Night match on 11/23 against Preston (6-4-6). It won't be as much of a lock as the Pete game this weekend, but it should still be 3 for my boys.

A late penalty kick for the Galaxy knocked my Chivas USA squad out of the playoffs tonight. After the 2-2 first leg last weekend, the Galaxy earned a golden goal from Landon "Swine Flu" Donovan in the 73 minutes of tonight's game to seal the fate of my formerly Mighty Goats. Chivas couldn't score a goal against LA, and Zach Thorton did his very best to try and keep us in. You can't keep out a penalty, so it's not his fault, but it is hard to watch the Red & White bow out after such a promising start to their season. They did kind of flounder in the second half of the season, but we still hoped for much better than another 1st round bow out, especially against the Galaxy. Ah well, the MLS season is officially over, and I think despite the final result, all of Goat Nation can be proud of our boys attempt at a run all the way. Here's to 2010.

In brief, Chivas de Guada softened the MLS blow with a huge 4-1 win against Atlas this weekend. Goals from Omarcito Bravor (he's back, in the 1st minute), my main man Balcazar (3rd and 41st), and Aaron Galindo (25th) was enough of a first half impact to bust Atlas hard. Still, it is a 5-7-4 start to the season, and we trail Toluca by 13 points. In Ireland, Sligo was able to really take care of business against Drogheda, as they should have, and improved to #6 in the table, well clear of relegation. Who knew, especially based on where we were at a month ago, that we would be so clear of getting dropped? The Bit O Red go up against Sporting Fingal in their cup final in a fortnight. Nice! Lastly, Lazio dropped another to AC Milan 1-2 tonight, despite 26 shots (6 on goal). Are you kidding me? Damn, Dida was on for Milan. Lazio's only goal was an own goal! Nothing from the Blue! 2-5-5 is not a sweet start, as we march toward the Serie A relegation zone. Hopefully Pope B-16 will be praying for us on the 22nd against Napoli (5-4-3).

It has been 117 days since Brandon, Jon, or Andrew has dropped a post. Bastards.

Orca open with win on the road.

We are survivors! The Canucks opened up their second lengthiest road trip of the year (behind only the unfair Olympic roadie) with a nice and easy 5-2 win against the Wild. Everyone says that you have to play your best against the best, but many overlook the importance of taking care of business against teams that you are supposed to beat. The Vannies did that tonight, beating up on the last place Wild for their third straight win, and improved to 4-1 since the injury to Roberto Luongo.

Let's start with tonight's positives:

1) Goals from the unexpected...again. I've covered how much the Canucks role players have had to come through with the rash of injuries we've experienced. Tonight, they continued to do just that. The game opening goal at 3:49 of the opening frame came from Darcy Hordichuk's stick, his first of the year. Hordie straight stole a puck from the Wild at the blue line and waltzed in to score against Backstrom. How about recent signing, and returner to the team, Matt Pettinger. MP came up with a shot from the most ridiculous angle of the season. A wrist shot from straight along the goal line somehow bounced in to score the 4th goal of the game. It was his first this time around, and it helped take the pressure of Raycroft and the regulars.

2) H-Bomb must read this blog. In the last post I banged on Henrik Sedin for not getting enough action going in the last win. This time around, he answered the call with a shorthanded goal in the second period, assisted by Alex Burrows, and added a roughing penalty to show that he is right where he wants to be. It was Hank's 8th goal of the year, and it was very, very welcomed.

3) Ray Ray continues to shine. The rumors are the Luongo should be back between the pipes any day now, but with Raycroft carrying the squad to a 4-1 mark with Lu on the DL, I wonder about why we shouldn't ride our backup until he craps out. Everyday Ray stopped 28 of 30 shots in the game, not really amazing, but did enough to just be the stopper on our end of the ice. Raycroft made a sweet stop on a breakaway at one point that showed he can do the splits with the best of them. He has been one giant positive, outside of the massacre in Anaheim last week.

5) Tonight, Ryan Johnson earned his official "stud on the team" mark. RJ came back today after getting jacked up into the boards last week and missing several games. And, after getting so severely injured that he had to be taken to the hospital, what does he do in his first game back? He seriously leads the team in blocked shots with 5. 5 blocked shots in his first game back from injury? Johnson is a complete mad man, and I love it.

I'd like to also give love to my main man Alex Burrows for getting an assist and an empty net goal. Also, we finally had less giveaways than our opponent tonight. Again, they must be reading the blog. How about negatives in this win?

1) We have usually won the shot battle this season, even in our losses, but tonight this wasn't the case. The Canucks lost the shot on goal battle in the third period 5-15. That is a big difference, and it may have given the Wild hope that they could get back into the game, if it wasn't for Raycroft. Let's get back to putting more shots on goal!

2) Kesler and Samuelsson had rough outings, both finishing at a surprisingly bad -2 rating for the game. Only one Wild play did worse, and it was kind of odd for our offensive players to come away with a rating like that. Kes also only won 39% of his faceoffs, capping off a rough game for both of the usually solid scorers.

This recent string of success has the Vannies at 10-7-0 on the year (why are we so racist against overtime losses?), and their 20 points has put my boys almost within stirking position. The Avs (24) lead the Northwest, with Calgary (19), Edmonton (15), and Minnie (still, 10) all trailing. Things are close with the top three, but hopefully we can keep pushing things to the top. With the fact that we are playing on back to back nights signal Lu's return to rest Raycroft? We'll find out as the Canucks match up with the Stars in Dallas tomorrow evening. Dallas is 6-3-6 this season, really getting blasted in overtime this year, and most recently losing to the Flames on Wednesday 2-3. Will it be Brad Richards night to shine for the bad guys? Or, will Henrik Sedin continue to find his scoring touch, leading the good guys onward to victory?

I'll go with #2.

'Nucks swallow Rangers whole.

I figured the picture went perfectly with the title, eh? It was a family affair last night, as Tommy's Canucks went head to head with his cousin Daniel's Rangers. A thrilling rematch of the 1994 Stanley Cup. A chance for continued revenge for that heartbreaking series. And, a chance to prove that we can continue to win with Andrew Raycroft between the pipes and Roberto Luongo on the. I'd say that a 4-1 Canuck win took care of all of that. In this post, we'll explore the many positives and nit-picky negatives of this beautiful Vancouver victory.

As usual, we'll start with the pluses:

1) Ryan "Effing" Kesler! Are you kidding me? This guy had such a solid game, that he had the announcers on NHL On The Fly suggesting that he be named our captain! Um, we already have a studly captain. Don't forget him just because he's hurt. Of course, Kes really did show up in this game. Ryan Kesler assisted on the first three Orca goals in the game, including a really nice pass to Mikael Samelsson in the first period, to cap off his #1 start night. It's always nice to have our #2 center coming through like he did last nice. I'm not sure, however, why he finished just a +1 in the ESPN box score. By my count, the worst he could have gotten was +2. Way to try and bring the NHL 2K10 commercial star down, you bastards.

2) Andrew "Everyday" Ray Ray. I know everyone is only pumped about this because of the last two games, where the Vannies have outscored opponents 7-1, but damn has he looked good. This time around, he had to be even better than when he blanked the Avs. Ray Ray stopped 22 of 23 shots on goal, allowing just a Chris Higgins goal in the third period. Raycroft and his fellow defensive mates were able to manage the big stars from New York all night, and keep things looking pretty good since Lu went down. Remember, when Lu went down I said that I just wanted Ray Ray to keep things .500 while our captain is out. Since the injury, he's 3-1. Give him the respect he deserves.

3) Mikael Samuelsson continues to dominate. He has been so much fun to watch, just seeming to be at the right place at the right time, and his two goals in this game were sweet. The Mariefred native now has 8 goals on 6 assists as the new right wing force for the Canucks, and has 8 points over his last 10 games. He's also been a +5 during that time, showing that he was a solid pick up because he's been picking up our offense since he put on the uniform.

4) Big blocked shots, despite Ryan Johnson being off with injury. We are a banged up team, and one of our most banged up players, Ryan Johnson, take a bunch of blocked shots to the IR with him. Amazingly, we've found some studs to pick it up for him. Christian Ehrhoff and Matt Schneider had 4 blocked shots EACH in this game against the Rangers. Talk about taking one for the team. It has been a wicked increase in defensive skills that has really allowed Raycroft to play over his head as far as stats are concerned, and we are really going to need that defense to stay strong (even once Luongo returns).

Before I get to the negatives, I wanted to say that I really enjoyed Tanner Glass stepping up and beating the hell out of Dane Byers with 1:10 left in the game. The "mele" between the two teams earlier in the period didn't result in as much as the media made it seem, but Glass stepped it up as a rookie by punching the lights out of Byers. Be assured that I was quick to email the You Tube video to my cousin immediately. Okay, negatives:

1) We still led in giveaways. Didn't Coachie V read my last post? I clearly stated that we needed to fix the problem of having too many giveaways. In that game, they lost 8. Last night, the gave away 9. What the heck? Honestly, the highlights showed plenty of Ray Ray saves on giveaways that turned into mild odd man rushes, and we're not going to be living well if we keep that up. Hang on to the puck!

2) Henrik Sedin only had one shot in the game. H-Bomb has been coming up big with his brother on the injured list, but he was completely absent in this game. Yes, he had a goal at the end of the game, but it was an empty netter and he only had one other shot besides that. More pressure, please.

The win has pushed us to 9-7-0 on the season (18 points), and they now trail first place Colorado by just 6. We're coming for you, Avs. Calgary (17), Edmonton (15), and Minnie (still 10) are trailing our boys in the division. It's a tight one, boys. Tomorrow, the Canucks go to Minnesota (5-9-0) to try to steal a win from the division's worst. The rumor train is that Luongo may be back in net, as he traveled to Minnie with the game, but no word yet from the Canuck staff. Fingers crossed!

To be the best, you need to beat the best.

What a rebound game! My Orca came through at home against the first place Avalanche with a thrilling 3-0 shutout win. It was quite a shift from the big loss against the Ducks, from solid offense throughout to Andrew Raycroft's best game in a Canucks uniform. Is there anything better than beating the first place team?

There were plenty of positives from this game:

1) Andrew "Everyday" Ray Ray stepped up with 18 saves on 18 shots to keep the Avs out of the net. I'm not sure how the Avs are so good this year, but with that in mind, it was totally impressive the way that Raycroft played. Of course, props have to be given to the defense as well for holding Colorado to just 18 shots, making it easy on our mighty backup.

2) Everyone gets in on the action. The goals were scored by Mason Raymond (5), Ryan Kesler (5), and rookie Tanner Glass (1). When the team is all injured throughout the front line, including the recent injury to rookie Michael Grabner, we need to have plenty of support from a bunch of offensive players. The supporting cast came through tonight and backed us up all the way to victory.

3) Edler & Salo go big. Each loyal defender went +2 on the game and earned an assist to help our defense get in on the action. With Salo coming back from injury, it was nice to have him contribute, and it is always nice to have the Ostersund, Sweden native (Edler) give us some (7 assists on the year). Bieksa may not have done much to correct my complaint last time, but his boys picked him up.

Of course, as with every game, there were some negatives to look at:

1) First period penalties is something that we haven't been able to take care off. From the very first game of the season, the Canucks have had issues with allowing opposing power plays in the opening frame. This time around, the offenders were Bieksa (cross check and roughing) and Shane O'Brien (surprise, surprise; high sticking). The X-Man's penalty was a stupid reaction call that he shouldn't have participated in, and SOB was just doing the inevitable. It obviously didn't hurt us this time around, but come on Coachie V, pull your guys together.

2) 8 giveaways. You have to make crisp passes and keep possession of the puck if you want to be an elite team. We had 8 giveaways, which allowed the Avs to get some chances. We were lucky to have Ray Ray coming through in a major way, but the Canucks are going to be made to pay if they continue to giveaway the puck. Hold onto it!

Let's make sure that we realize how big of a win this was. At 8-7-0 (16 points), the Blue & Green have climbed all the way up to the #2 spot in the division, and now trail the first place Avs by just 6 points. Meanwhile, Calgary and Edmonton are -1 of the Canucks, and the Wild continue to be down and out, back by 6. Tomorrow night, the Orca go head to head with the hated New York Rangers. A rematch of the dreaded 1994 Stanley Cup Finals. It was the season that I became a fan of the Canucks, encouraged by my cousin (a die hard Rangers fan). Since then, I've been suffering with my boys, constantly looking to return to the Cup after bowing out in Game 7 that heartbreaking year. Tomorrow, in a small way, I look to have my revenge. The Rangers are solid this year at 9-5-1, most recently earning a 1-0 win against the Boston Bruins. However, the Vannies are going good right now and I like our chances. Should be fun.

You're going down, Daniel!