With my wife off to visit her sister in stormy San Diego, it was a guy's night in. My 11 month old son and I picked up some Taco Bell (homemade meatballs and peas for my son, 2 Grilled 'Stuft' Burritos and 2 Chicken Quesadillas for me) and grabbed a seat in front of the TV for Hockey Night in Canada. It was our Vancouver Canucks welcoming Andrew's Toronto Maple Leafs to town, and it couldn't have gone much better. Save a knuckle puck that beat Luongo from the blue line, and you have total domination from the Canucks in the 4-1 win.
The win gave us our 8th straight win against the Leafs, and we did it in grand fashion. In the middle of the first period, down two players because of two delay of game penalties for pucks over the glass, the 'Nucks opened the door for Toronto. Luckily, they didn't make good on the invitation. After making that penalty kill count, the 'Nucks started the scoring with about a minute left, as Alex Burrows swept a puck into a wide open net after a Bieksa shot bounced off of a defensive player.
Despite having four minutes of advantage in the second, the Canucks couldn't convert, but afterward, a Tambers-Kesler-Hansen connection doubled our lead. Six minutes into the third, Henrik Sedin rang a puck off the post that all the fans at the Roger thought went in. After that, the knuckle puck sent in on Lu by Grabovski fooled our beloved goalie and cut the lead in half. All of the sudden we had a game on our hands.
But, the better team pulled away. Christian Ehrhoff buried a screen shot from the blue line (welcome back!) and H-Bomb nailed a sweet empty netter with 30 seconds left. I cheered, and took the final bite of my burrito in celebration.
Can I request that we stop using Green Day's "Holiday" as our goal song? It sucks!
I'll point out that even though Versteeg isn't on the Blackhawks anymore, he's still a total tool. Luongo (27 stops on 28 shots), Kesler (1 assist, +2), and Bieksa (2 assists and a +3) made the top three stars, as presented by Crown Royal. The "LSF Top Star Who Didn't Score A Point" is Aaron Volpatti. Nearly 19,000 fans, including his mother and father, were on hand to enjoy the Revelstoke, BC native's first NHL game, and he finished 4:57 TOI with 1 shot and an even +/-. Here's to a studly career for Volpatti.
Now 18-8-4 (40 points), the 'Nucks are continuing to roll here in December. Unfortunately, the Avs are rolling this month as well. Colorado now leads the division at 42 points, while Minnie trails the Canucks by 8, Calgary trails by 9, and Edmonton trails by 11. In the Conference, we're now 4th (which is surprising, given that we're #2 in the division). We're tied with the #5 Preds, and lead #6 San Jose and #7 Chicago by 1 tiny little point. It's tight in here. The Canucks goal differential is still a nice +21, as we're 11th in goals scored and 4th in goals allowed. We have a SRS of +0.62, which is good enough for the 4th in the NHL, but our strength of schedule is still the 4th weakest in the entire league. It's hard to hear that, but we have to remember it as we move forward and things get harder (?).
Every time I see Manny Malhotra win a face off, I am sure that he is the best pickup we had from the offseason. But, is he? We'll examine Malhotra, Torres, Ballard, and Hamhuis, and decide just who is the most valuable new Canuck 30 games in. We'll compare Adjusted Goals Created (which is the goals created stat extrapolated to an 82 game season) and divide by Average Time on Ice to get a value per minute played in the average game. Come on, you know you love my questionable fake stats!
Malhotra: 0.911 aGC/ATOI
Torres: 1.202 aGC/ATOI
Ballard: 0.259 aGC/ATOI
Hamhuis: 0.356 aGC/ATOI
Now, we can listen to arguments that aGC may slant toward forwards looking better than blue liners, and while I disagree (because the idea of "goals created" is far different than "goals scored"), we can at least look at that. The +/- rating is, in my opinion, the best stat to compare defenders, so let's run these four through that test as well.
Malhotra: +4
Torres: -3
Ballard: +5
Hamhuis: +2
While the aGC/ATOI stat would rank the players as 1) Torres, 2) Malhotra, 3) Hamhuis, and 4) Ballard, the simple +/- rating would rank the players as 1) Ballard, 2) Malhotra, 3) Hamhuis, and 4) Torres. So, to be fair, let's give a value based on their rankings across both stats (4 points for first place, 3 for second, etc) and give a final ranking.
1. Manny Malhotra- 6
2. Raffi Torres- 5
3. Keith Ballard- 5
4. Dan Hamhuis- 4
I find the final ranking very interesting. While my belief in Manny Malhotra being the best new acquisition has been reaffirmed by my crazy stat exploration, I'm kind of surprised that Keith Ballard sits higher than Dan Hamhuis. That's an interesting one for me. It certainly hasn't felt that way when you watch games, but that's the fun thing about stats. Keep up the good work, Manny!
In about 5 minutes, the Canucks get it on with the St. Louis Blue Notes, looking for a little revenge. Over the last 10 games, the only game where the Canucks didn't get at least one point was against these very same Blues. That Alex Steen sucker popped us for two goals, including the winner. Can the Canucks win their fourth straight road game for the first time since 2007? I think Fin would agree that they will.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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