It's always a danger of clinching with a handful to go, getting jacked up along the way prior to the second season because of complacency. It seems to be happening to Vancouver, and their coaches, as Luongo played both sides of a losing back-to-back, most recently the 1-4 loss to the pitiful Avalanche. I'm sad that I even wasted space on my DVR for the "On The Fly" highlights. Or should I say "low-lights!" Oh!
Who the hell is this T.J. Galiardi guy? Where did he come from? This Calgary, AB native had one career goal as a rookie prior to coming into the game against the Canucks last night, and it was against the Canucks. He decided to continue his domination against the Orca, notching two more to increase his career total to 3, all against Vancouver. T.J. scored the front end (1st period, 7:32) and the back end (3rd period, 12:04) of Colorado's scoring with Ben Guite and Milan Hejduk scoring in the middle to earn their four goals. The goal by Milan Hejduk was the ultimate low-light, as Alex Edler tried to clear a puck while standing in front of his own net. Hejduk was standing right there, stopped the puck, and shot it right passed Luongo. Pavol Demitra earned a scramble garbage goal at 15:22 of the final period, but it was a meaningless tally in the three goal loss at the Garage. Maybe I shouldn't have made my predictions of Vancouver finishing their final 5 with a 4-1 record. Luongo stepped it up to apologize to the fans, "There's no excuses tonight. It was a game we needed to have and we all need to give a but more, starting with myself. We're not a team that's going to make excuses. There's no reason to use that as an excuse. If anything, you want to play hockey for Taylor and get a win for the guy." Luongo, of course, is responding to questions about the Canucks bad play being caused by Taylor Pyatt's recent loss. His fiance died in a car crash in Jamaica earlier in the week, leading to Taylor leaving the team. The loss was extremely tragic for Taylor, as well as the entire Canucks Nation, but Luongo is right that it should be a rallying point for our boys.
Not a single Canucks player graced the three stars, and I'd say that is a good call by the humbled Vancouver media. 18,630 7th Canucks, including millions at home were just simply shocked by the lack of hard work in this one. Don't forget, it is all about the power play, and Vancouver went 0 for 4 in the overall lackluster effort in Sunday night's game. With this being a back to back, however, the ultimate boner that caused this loss was starting Luongo on back to back nights instead of getting LaBarbera in there to give El Roberto a little rest before the big game against Calgary. Hello? Coachie V? Are you in there?
Thank goodness the Flames aren't hot right now either. At 42-27-10 (94 points), Vancouver are deadlocked with Calgary in the point totals, but behind in the table (the Flamers have a game in hand). The way the picture looks right now, we have #3 Calgary (94), #4 Chicago (97), #5 Vancouver (94), #6 Columbus (90), #7 Anaheim (88), and #8/9 Nashville/St. Louis (86). A big deciding factor on who will win the Northwest Division will take place on Tuesday evening in British Columbia when my Canucks battle some gay guy's Flamers. With 3 games to go, we've got Calgary and L.A. at home, and then a revenge chance against the Avs on the road before getting things going in the playoffs. Alright, Luongo, let's put this flame out once and for good here in '09.
Does holding the best record in all of baseball for the preseason lead to winning the World Championship? Well, we do have a spring training type starting rotation to kick things off, so I'd guess yes. But, we'll start to find out tonight.
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