Game two of the Stanley Cup opening round went even better than game one for my boys in Blue & Green. The Canucks got some exciting offense, some simply perfect goaltending, and cruised their way to a 3-0 game win and a 2-0 series lead against the St. Louis Blues.
I'll start off by registering my complaint with the people at the Versus network. The 4:00 game between Philly and Pitt went into overtime, and Versus provided absolutely no sort of information about the Canucks/Blues game. At least during the baseball playoffs, TBS will reroute the second game to another station if the first game runs long. In the situation tonight, there was no such luck. Evidently, the game was switched in British Columbia at the drop of the puck, but everyone else had to suffer through the "who cares" OT of the Eastern Conference battle. Following the box score on ESPN provided another problem. With about 10:40 to go in the first, ESPN (and Canucks.com as a second opinion) reported that Andy McDonald scored for the Blues to open things up. Once Versus joined coverage of the game, with about 7:40 to go in the first period, the score was 0-0 and there was no mention of any controversy. What the hell? Another quick complaint about Versus was that after the goal was finally scored by the Pengiuns, they decided to provide analysis to that game before even switching to the more important game (to me) already in progress. It was on a TV in the background while they were talking, which I guess was as good as it would get, and then they had the guts to go to commercial before connecting us with the Western Conference game. Again, what the hell? Better luck next time Versus. At least the Canucks are traveling to St. Louis to get the early game on Sunday.
As you can guess, I don't have much to say about the opening 20 minutes of the game. There was only one penalty (a charge on Mattie Ohlund by Dan Hinote), the goalies were both on point (Mason stopping 5, Luongo stopping 7), and Andy McDonald may or may not have almost scored a goal that may or may not have been reviewed and overturned (I'm going to lean toward him almost scoring a goal, as he earned the #3 star of the game with no goals and no assists on the night, for some strange reason). The second period, however, would see the excitement factor pick up a tad. Shane O'Brien was back up to his old tricks, getting called for holding at 3:39 and slashing at 9:36 (although, they seemed much closer than that when I was watching the game). Vancouver was able to kill both off, despite pre-series reports of the Blues "amazing power play abilities." The Blues handed things back to the Orca, with penalties at 10:53 and 13:16, but nothing doing. Mason was stopping the shots coming his way, and Bobby Lu was just getting warmed up with his pretty glove and blocked routine. Then, at 18:04, something glorious happened. Ryan Kesler passed the puck to Po Po Demitra, Po Po hucked the puck toward the net, Mats Sundin deflected the puck in mid air, Steve Mason stopped the puck initially, and the puck slowly slid through his five hole toward the red line, with Mason diving back just a little too late. The puck was going back so slowly and beautifully that it gave everyone time to stand up and admire the tally. By the time Mason reached the puck with his outstretched glove, it was too late. The red light was on, our favorite Bromma, Sweden native answered the call of his BC fans, and the Vannies were out to a 1-0 lead. Through two period, Bobby Lu had seen and stopped 16 shots to help his squad out big time. The best saves were yet to come. At 6:56 of the third, my boy Alex Burrows got called on a weak tripping penalty. His mates killed the thing with some ease, and AB hopped out of the box looking to make up for going to the sin bin. Did he ever. At 9:46, AB took a pass behind the net from Daniel Sedin, spun around, and banked the puck into the net off of Mason's leg, who was sprawling back to try and make the save. Burrows took a wicked elbow from a Blues defender as he started to celebrate and fell to the ice. But with the towel power (which was started in a 1982 playoff series against the Blackhawks, by the way) going crazy, AB hopped right back up to play his air guitar as his squad was rolling at 2-0 with half of a period to go. With about 1:45 or so to go, St. Louis got crazy and pulled their keeper. It didn't take long for Henrik "H-Bomb" Sedin to bury a mid ice shot that buried the game. After the final horn sounded (for the second time, actually, because the horn randomly sounded with like 1:55 to go in the game), the score was 3-0 in favor of the good guys, Roberto Luongo made saves on all 30 shots send his way, and a "Rumble on Robson" ensued. The Blues coach was pounded on the glass that separates the benches, screaming something like, "You f-cking as-holes!" The players were going at each other, with B.J. Crombeen fighting Kevin "X-Man" Bieksa, Barret Jackman fighting Stevie "Karen's Boy" Bernier, and Rick "Ryp the Ryper" Rypien just jumping anyone he could get his hand on. A total of 26 penalty minutes were handed out in the 20th minute, all while Coachie V was holding Mason Raymond back from jumping onto the ice to get involved in fisticuffs for himself. I just kept thinking, "Who cares? We win!"
It didn't take long for Viggy to give Lu the props he deserves for his recent unconscious goaltending, "The last four or five games, he's been in the zone. He found his 'A' game, and that's what we need." Keys to the game? How about we start with the amazing fans at the Garage? NHL.com is reporting that the decibel level peaked at about 103 during the game, which is 8 decibels higher than the level causing hearing loss in prolonged situations. Clearly, Luongo was the main key, and we don't need to talk about that, but how about the dudes in front of him laying down to take pucks to the body? How many times did we see the Orca players dropping to block slappers from the Blues offense? I can tell you, actually? Former Blue Ryan Johnson led the Canucks with 4 blocked shots on his own. He was followed by Ryan Kesler's three blocks, and Sami Salo and Rick Rypien with two each. That is some serious nonsense right there. Vancouver had a total of 15 blocked shots in front of our team captain, and that shows that this clean sheet was a team effort. I'm so proud!
The media's three stars were 1) Roberto Luongo (duh), 2) Daniel Sedin (ESPN reports he had 1 goal and 1 assist, but they're confused, it was Hank that scored the goal. Nintendo DS finished with 2 assists), and 3) Andy McDonald (for his phantom goal?). The LSF underrated three stars of the game will keep the media's top two, and then sub in Thunder Bay, ON native Ryan Johnson as star #3 (RJ had 4 blocked shots, as was mentioned, and won 50% of his face offs).
Up 2-0 on St. Louis (please don't bring up the 2002 2-0 lead to the Red Wings, please), the Canucks travel to America's Most Dangerous City for what could be the concluding two games of the opening round, the way the Blues have been playing. Sunday night at 4:00 pm, local Vancouver time, Roberto and his teammates will strap it on and try to earn that all important third win of the test. While 53% of EPSN's Sports Nation is picking the Canucks to win the series (along with all of the humble ESPN experts), I'm feeling pretty confident about my boys earning the right to play in the conference semifinals. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves yet. We need to follow the cliche, focus on Sunday, and get that all important third win.
You know how we love to make fun of people who pick the wrong teams to win things? Well, evidently, so does Canucks.com. Here's a fun little article that I think you'll enjoy.
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