Prior to the game, Roberto Luongo joked about how he was starting against the Avs in order to give Cory Schneider the night off. Not only was it a hilarious pre-game quote, but it also showed our former captain is taking this "rough" start in stride. Last night, his offense did just enough to help steal the show in British Columbia, as the 'Nucks beat Colorado in OT, 4-3.
I guess that Avs fans are making the excuse that Craig Anderson's pre-game injury led directly to the loss. It was crazy, because you see him warming up, and then he just collapses on the ice. It is reported as a knee injury, which is no good, but Budaj is a completely capable backup, as evidenced by last night.
It was a wide open game between the division rivals, and it started 4:28 in after David Jones got a semi-breakaway where his shot was initially saved and trickled past Luongo to get it started. Amazingly, Jeff "Tambers" Tambellini got involved to even the score less than 5 minutes later. Moved up to the top line, Tambs got a pass from "the Sedins," after they created a quick play after a turnover, and bashed a hard shot home.
The second period was pretty similar, with lots of scoring chances and an equal numbers of goals. The Avs opened up with a Winnik goal just under 5 in, but less than three minutes later we were back into it. Ryan Kesler, standing in front of the net, saw a rebound come right to his feet as an Avs defensiveman skated away unaware, and he blasted the puck into the open side of the net. It was an exciting one, slammed home with authority.
In the third, Peter Schaefer connected for not only his first goal of the year, but his first goal since 2008. It was on a pass from Christian Ehrhoff, who picked up his second assist. The Avs charged back hard at the end, not only getting the game tying goal with 1:33 left with the extra attacker on the ice (I thought that never worked!), but also ringing the puck off the post with 30 seconds left. Safe.
Now, I know we all think that OT means an automatic shootout these days, but not so this time around. It ended on a harmless faceoff in the Avs zone. Kesler lost the draw, but Mason Raymond poke checked the Avs defender, and the puck came loose and went into the net. It was a surprise ending on a seemingly harmless play, and we reaped the benefits. As Ma$e said after the game, "You take them any way you can get them."
This win all came without Hamhuis (now out for his fourth game), Ballard (now out for his fifth game), and Andrew Alberts going down to injury as well. The blue line is getting thin out there, Canuckleheads. Parent better step it up!
The "real" three stars featured Luongo (36 saves, 92.3% save percentage, and thus far underrated by me in this post), Milan Hejduk (2 assists), and Raymond (the "lucky" game winner according to ESPN). That, obviously, brings is to "The LSF Top Star Who Didn't Score A Point." I'm going to give that honor to Aaron Rome (a +1 on the night). I think that the role player defensivemen on this squad are severely underrated, as Roberto Luongo (and Cory Schneider to a lesser extent) gets all the love for keeping the puck out of the net, and Romey deserves a little love for his skills last night on defense.
At 4-3-2, we're back over the .500 hump on the year, and that makes me proud as a fan, for now. We're now second in the division, -2 on Calgary, +1 on Colorado, +2 on Minnie, and +5 on Edmonton. Overall in the West, we are now points-wise even with #6 St. Louis, #7 Dallas, and #8 Columbus, and are 1 up on the aforementioned Avs and the formerly Mighty Ducks. The Canucks goal differential is now even, as we rank 12th in the league in goals for and 19th in the league for goals against. Our SRS and SOS are both -0.04, putting us just below league average in both areas, ranking 17th in the league. Our power play (+5.5%) and our penalty kill (+1.1%) are both above league average again, and that is, at least, pretty encouraging.
I think it's worth it to finally take a look at Roberto Luongo's actual start here in the 2010/2011 season. Is it as bad as the picture us fans have painted? I don't know, and that's why we are checking it out. Our three time All-Star is 2-3-2 so far this season with his 2.93 GAA and .907 SV%. If you look closer, you see that he hasn't lost at home and hasn't won on the road. The interesting thing for me is that in wins, Luongo's shots faced/game is 40.5, and in losses his shots faced/game is 26.6. I'm not exactly sure what that means, other than the fact that it suggests that homeboy likes to step it up when he gets hit with tons of shots. Pretty interesting to me. He may not be ranked highly right now among the NHL goaltending leaders, but this lack of healthy blue liners could lead to him taking more shots, and thus getting more wins.
Next up is a battle on Monday (yeah, we get that many days off) against the 2-6-1 New Jersey Devils. Despite signing Ilya Kovalchuk (who leads the team in goals, by the way), the team heavily supported by the character David Putty from Seinfeld just isn't having it in the early going this year. The Devs have lost two in a row and four out of their last five games, including getting bashed up by LSF favorite Buffalo, 6-1 last Saturday. While the Canucks will be getting their unbelievable rest over the next handful of days, New Jersey will have to battle San Jose, Anaheim, and LA all before meeting with us on All Saints Day.
They'll be tired, and we'll reap the benefits.
Go Canucks Go.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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