6-4? 6-4!? Where has this offense been all my life? That's 17 goals in the last 3 games for my Vancouver Canucks, and that is no freaking joke. Can you imagine that the Orca have struck so hard this last week? It continued with a ton of offense against the bottom of the barrel St. Louis Blues tonight with a blessed 6-4 victory that improved the February winning streak to all 3 games.
It certainly didn't start well, with Steve Wagner (18:27) and Brad Boyes (power play at 19:56) getting the Blues off to a 2-0 lead on our boys, but Mats Sundin turned the second period into "The Mr. Torontonian Show" to get the Blue & Green back in the game, and it was a third period explosion that sealed the deal. Master Mats scored his fifth of the season, on the power play, at 3:48 of the middle frame after getting the rebound from a Po Po post shot, and would strike again less than 5 minutes later (after actually hustling to beat the St. Louis defender to the puck) from Kevin Bieksa and Ryan Kesler to pull the Canucks within a single goal (2-3 at the end of the second period) after All-Star Keith Tkachuk scored a power play goal in between the two Mats' netters. Something possessed the 'Nucks in the final period, with Livonia, MI native Ryan Kesler striking gold again at 7:58 on yet another power play. Kesler now has 15. While Andy McDonald got the Blues the lead against just 1:30 later, it would only be temporary. Alex Burrows continued his career season with his 13th goal, and was followed up by former line mate Jannik "Great Dane" Hansen at 15:18. Po Po Demitra got the easy pickins' on the unassisted empty netter to finish things off at 6-4. Luongo held strong enough, despite only stopping 24 of 28 shots (85.714%), and Mats Sundin (deservedly?) earned another first star marker for his big 2 goals.
So where the hell are the Canucks coming from? Well, the true key to their offensive outburst over the last three games has been the recently nuts power play. The nailed 2 power play goals in tonight's amazing win, 4 power play goals against Chicago in the previous win, and one more for good measure in the win against the 'Canes on my birthday. It is really surprising for a team that holds just an 18.7% power play percentage (#7 out of the 15 Western squads). The other reason for the recent winning streak and scoring outbursts really belongs to two forwards (who, surprisingly have shifted to the same line, with Pavol Demitra rounding out the forwards on the new line). Mats Sundin (and, for some reason, I don't really like to admit it) has started to come on like a drunk guy at Club 634. Mats has four goals in his last three games, and has produced six goals and ten total points over his total 12 games with the Orca on his chest. The second guy responsible for the good stuff is the only forward with a better recent run than Mats, Ryan Kesler. Kes now has six goals in his last four games for Vancouver, and has been first star quality for each of those games. He bring the heat in the interviews when losing teams don't want to talk, and he makes all of us Americans proud with his United States heritage (do I hear Vancouver 2010 for the Red/White/Blue?). Really impressive offense. Good line changes by Coachie V, which is some respect I don't usually dole out.
The win against the Central's worst team boosts the Canucks to 25-20-8 (58 points) and back into the second spot in the Northwest. The Blue & Green are 8 back on division leading Calgary, just 1 up on Minnie, just 2 up on Edmonton, and a comfortable 7 up on the last place Avs. As we get to this part of the season, though, it is all about checking the ranking in the Top 8, eh? So, the win against the Blues has Van-ca-tesh sitting in the #7 spot in the playoff chase. We've got Minnie in 8th (57 points), Columbus in 9th (also, 57 points), and the Oilers in 10th (56 points). The Kings are also getting closer to the playoffs, with 55 points in the 11 hole, in case your interested. Up above in the table, we're chasing #6 Anaheim (+1 on Vancouver), #5 Dallas (also just +1 on Vancouver), and the hated #4 Blackhawks (+8 on my boys, even after getting blown up last weekend).
My puck buddies hop a flight to Phoenix for a battle with the Great One and the Coyotes this Thursday in another big battle in the war for the playoffs. Phoenix is 24-25-5, the 13th out of 15 teams in the Western Conference in terms of points, and they have been pretty bad recently with 6 straight losses and 7 in their last 8 games. However, outside of their Saturday night game against Carolina (2-7), the haven't been getting blown out (the five losses prior to that go: 4-5, 1-2, 0-2, 0-2, and 3-7...I guess that last one is pretty bad). The squad, with former Orca Ed "Jovo Cop" Jovanovski, would be considered a possible dangerous team for Vancouver to play, but they will be playing the second game of a back to back when the meet the Canucks (after a Wednesday night tilt with Dallas), and the 'Nucks should be able to keep the winning going thanks to their upcoming rest.
As we get down to the last two months of the season, things are really getting pretty fun. I say that, now that Vancouver is winning, obviously.
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