Who would have saw that coming? A fast paced back and forth game slowly went the way of the Orca and resulted in a dramatic series opening 5-1 win for my Vancouver Canucks over Jon's Chicago Blackhawks. How can you not give Roberto Luongo the #1 star for his crazy game, media? Second star?? Luongo put last season's playoff exit behind him, making 36 stops on 37 shots for his best performance of the playoffs thus far. And it couldn't have come at a better time. As for the offense, as my wife says, "Can't we save some of these goals for next time?" In the opening frame, Christian Ehrhoff scored on a long wrister with Burrows screening and Mason Raymond got a lucky bounce that came right to his stick (and he knew what to do with it). In the middle brick, it was Henrik from an impossible angle, Welly scoring while his face crashed into the crossbar on the power play, and Grabner getting in on the action (quite an experience for the Moose standout) to seal the deal. Chicago was completely silent. The whole city. It was 5-0, I was buzzing on Newcastle (beer, not my footie squad), and my chicken fajita bowl from Chipotle with our organic homemade salsa was sitting pretty in my belly. It was a perfect Saturday night. Now, since I'm the only one who posts lately, I get the opportunity to make the LSF 100% Canuck-ville. Face! Besides the thrill of the blowout, though, were their things that we saw that make me confident in a series win?
1. Luongo was on point. Look out Hawks, because Lu seems to be heating up at the right time. If I know out captain, and I do (not personally, of course), Roberto doesn't really heat up for one game and then fade. Bobby Lu is all or nothing for like a week in a row. He's feast or famine, and it rolls along for a little while. Therefore, 7th Canucks around both nations are buzzing with some confidence in their keeper.
2. Spreading it out. During the season, the Canucks had like 32 20+ goal scorers, right? You can tell we're doing well if we're spreading the points around. In game one, 11 different Canucks scored points. 11! That is spreading it around like pros. Even the fourth line stepped it up (Grabner from Ryp and Great Dane), which is cool because Chicago's talented 3rd and 4th lines were what we heard about going into the game. Keep spreading the love, keep winning the games.
3. Andrew Alberts has another nice game. What is that, 3 in a row? With Willie long gone to injury, we've been jockeying our sixth defensivemen for a while. It wasn't really a high point in the LA series. However, after closing out the quarterfinals with some solid play, Andrew Alberts played out of his mind on Saturday night against the Hawks. He found a new gear none of us knew he had, and was throwing his body around like he's Kevin Bieksa or something. Keep up the great play from our 6th man, and you get a lot of relief for our better blue liners.
4. Lack of fighting. Personally, I thought this game was fast paced and fairly physical. There was loads of good hits, despite what the Versus Hockey Central intermission reports would have you believe. However, there weren't any glove dropping fights. This is highly unusual for a Nucks/Hawks game of any kind, especially a playoff battle, and I think it played into the Orca's favor. Fighting would seem to pump Chicago up, and that's the last thing we need. Watch for the Hawks to try and start ish tonight, but hopefully we can avoid it as much as possible.
Keep in mind that we won game one last season against these jokers, and it didn't end well. Don't get cocky with a 4 goal win, because a win is just a win in the playoffs. We were coming into Chi Town looking for a split to take back to Vancouver, but now we're focused on taking two and the huge advantage. The Hawks are going to come out hard, though, and the key will be matching that intensity. A special thank you, again, to DirecTV for working out their issues with Versus.
Alright, it's game two time. Let's keep the pressure on these Indians, Go Canucks Go.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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