What's the point of all these early season games being televised for the Southern California Canuck fan, if we're just going to hand a horrible team like the Ducks a win? Honestly, if we played that way against the Blackhawks (not to give Jon a big head), we would have lost 7-3, rather than 4-3. We had the game firmly in our graspe, and played some horrible defense to allow the Ducks not only to get back in, but to win. How many 3 on 1 situations did the Ducks have on Luongo while the Vannie defense kind of stood around out of position? How many chances did we have on Hiller that we just didn't finish off? Why did we make these Quakers look better than they actually are? It was a frustrating game to watch on the ol' DVR after my roller hockey team cruised to victory against the second best squad in the league (behind us).
After the game, our mighty captain explained the whole thing, "I don't think we played good enough in the third. We had a lot of chances to score, but they came back and scored twice on turnovers. We should have been up by more than one goal, that's how we felt." Well put. After Getzlaf opened the scoring early on the 5-on-3 power play, the 'Nucks came storming back. Henrik and Daniel worked their cycling magic to score a power play goal just over a minute later, and then 17 seconds later Dan Hamhuis kind of threw a puck at the net from the blue line only to have it redirected home by newbie Raffi Torres. His first goal as a Canuck silenced the crowd, and seemed to move us forward. A Teemu Selanne power play goal tied things up in the closing minutes of the second period, scoring while being left all alone in front of the net. The goal was on a 5 on 3 (again), and the first penalty to Keith Ballard for holding was a complete joke. He was taken down by Blake, and he got called for holding after Blake was holding HIM down. The second penalty, a slash on Bieksa, was pretty clear (he broke Perry's stick), and stupid to take. 5 minutes into the final frame, it was German Boy Christian Ehrhoff blasting a slapper home after it deflected off of the stick of a defender and past Hiller into the net. We were looking good, but only for the next 3 and a half minutes or so. Perry scored the game tying goal on a bang bang 3 on 1 play, and was followed up 10 minutes later by another first line goal by Ryan in another 3 on 1. What was Luongo to do?
It's going to be hard not to pick on the defense in this game, and especially hard not to pick on Hamhuis and Edler. Both defenders finished a -1 on the game. First off, how to we choke and go down 3-on-5 so many times in the game? Secondly, how did we have poor defense and huge mistakes on each of the four goals? The first goal saw three Ducks in on goal, with only Alex Edler standing in between them and Lu. The second goal saw three Ducks in front of Luongo, and our only defender got completely knocked down, overpowered, and out of the play. The game tying goal saw another 3-on-1, with only Dan Hamhuis standing in between the Ducks and our goalie (but he took the shooter, as I guess he had to, and the one time goal was easy pickings for Anaheim). Finally, the game winning goal saw the Canucks making a horrible line change that led to a 3-on-1 break because everyone was too busy changing at the bench. Really poor timing.
So, I'm starting to wonder if this actually is the Canucks. 5 HUGE giveaways, tons of chances for the bad guys with very little defensive assistance, and a reliance on Luongo to save the day so people don't realize how bad we played. But, Roberto can't stop 40 of 41 every night, and last night he surely didn't. Preventing just 28 of 32 from tickling the twine, Luongo couldn't keep us all from seeing the poor play by standing on his head. Please be sure to understand that I think ALL of the Ducks goals were defensive problems and had nothing to do with Lu (he couldn't stop any of them), but boy, the Canucks players were sure hoping that Bobby could have kept it all quiet. On the other end, Hiller stopped 36 of 39 Vannie shots.
Let's not overlook that we outpenalized the Ducks 25-11. Fun-da-mentals. DS was the lone Vannie in the top 3 stars, which means it's time for my "Top Star Who Didn't Score A Point!" After last night's laugher, I've got to go with Peter Schaefer. He had 2 shots on goal, 2 penalty minutes, and even spent some time out on the ice with the Sedins. I, for one, didn't think he still had anything in the tank, but he proved me wrong, and I'm proud of him.
Granted, that's a lot of negativity when you're just 1-1-1 on the three game season. But, I'm a Canucks fan, so what do you expect? We now trail both Edmonton (+1) and Colorado (+1) in the division and lead Calgary (+1), and Minnesota (+2). Overall in the West, if you're into that kind of thing this early, we're tied with the Sharks and the Blackhawks for the 8 spot. I guess it's pretty good company. Tomorrow night we continue this wild ride known as the 82 game NHL season, as we invade Staples Center to have an early season rematch with the Kings. The shootout loss to the Kings after a late collapse was tough to take, but hopefully our boys are set to rebound on the road after last night's game. The 2-1-0 Kings will be coming into the game with 3 days rest after a game where they scored 3 third period goals to beat Atlanta 3-1 in their home opener (the 3s are wild). Quick was again a save machine, gathering 31/32, and Smyth had 2 goals and an assist in the match. We've seen them before, so hopefully we can find a way to get the win with some quality play.
While the Canucks SOS (Strength of Schedule) has slightly improved since the last time we checked in, elevating to -0.36 (22nd of 30 teams, with 0 being average), our SRS (Simple Rating System, which is a stat where 0 is average, and the stat is developed by combining goal differential and strength of schedule) has worsened to -0.69 (25th out of 30). Looking for a bright spot in team stats? Well, at least our PP% is 37.5%, which is 20.5% above the current league average. That's pretty huge.
I know it's early on, but I figured we could dig into the debate over which Sedin has been better so far. They've both been carrying the offense, as expected, but who is off to the best start after three games? Let's look at some stats and decide.
+Daniel has tallied 3 goals, 2 assists, and a -1 +/- rating. His S% (shooting percentage) is a whopping 30%. He currently ranks 4th in the NHL in goals, and 5th in points. He also ranked sixth in GC (goals created, which is a stat that adds goals to 0.5 times assists, multiplying by team goals divded by team goals plus 0.5 times team assists; complicated, but it attempts to show all goals "created" by a player), and tenth in GC/game (0.67 vs 1 actual goal/game).
+Henrik, meanwhile, has 4 assists (no goals) and a -1 rating as well. Obviously, his S% is 0% after his 7 shots with no goals. He's currently ranked 2nd in the NHL in assists, 10th in points, and 7th in assists per game. He currently has a mark of 0.33 GC/game, and has two more penalty minutes than his brother.
So, what do we take away from that Swedish smorgasbörg of statistics? I think we have to agree that Daniel is off to the hotter start. While H-Bomb is ripping it up with assists (as usual), I turn to goals created per game to discover how they are comparing against each other right now (Daniel is at 0.67 with Henrik at 0.33). They're both studs, and I only hope that they both stay healthy throughout the season so we can have their deadly combination of skills for the full 82, unlike last year.
Alright, let's dethrone the Kings.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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