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.
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