Every team has ups and downs, but lately, the highs and lows for Canuck fans have been a little drastic. After beating the Preds 2-1 last night, with all the goals being scored in the third period, the brief highs continued, after not seeming to be able to buy a win after our amazing streak ended 4 games or so ago. After Nashville's Shea Weber scored in a mad scramble where Keith Ballard was, for some reason, playing goalie, the Canucks turned it on. My boy Alex Burrows backhanded a rebound home after The Hammer sent in a slapper to tie things up. Then, with about 7:30 to go, Daniel Sedin stole a puck at the blue line, selflessly passed to a streaking Lee Sweatt, and the 25 year old Colorado College alumni scored the game winning goal in his NHL debut. How Sweatt it was.
Thanks to the Sweatt goal, Roberto Luongo's impressive performance went largely unnoticed. He stopped 26 shots, including easily the save of the NHL night, an God-man-like toe stop on a Joel Ward shot with 26 seconds left in the game. Bobby Lu hasn't lost in regulation since December 5. He's 11-0-5 over that time. Meanwhile, though, Sweatt is the hero in Vancouver for at least one day. Of course, with every high comes another low.
Lee Sweatt only got to play because Alex Edler was suffering back spasms. No biggie. Except, today we've come to find out that Edler is now set to have back surgery, and is out indefinitely (for the season, obviously). Another defensive player out for the count. Are you kidding me? How did we find ourselves in this situation yet again? I thought this was why we focused on the blue line in the offseason. Well, at least Sami Salo is on the verge of coming back, right? Wrong. GM Mike Gillis said today that Sami's rehab has hit a plateu and that he is fighting hard to make even incremental gains. It doesn't seem that he's any closer than March as it looks now.
And how about injured blue liners Aaron Rome and Andrew Alberts? They are our "B" option to begin with, and they're still set to be out for about a week after the All Star break. Sure Chris Tanev and now Lee Sweatt have played well as callups from Manitoba, but this is exactly the situation we were supposed to avoid this year. Trying to play at a Championship level with an AHL cast on defense is an all too familiar story.
Speaking of our defenders, I was disappointed in Keith Ballard last night. I've been talking him up lately, and then he went and speared a Preds player with a stick to the face after he fell down in the Vannie crease. There was no excuse for that. That's not something that a good guy does. Pure garbage. And, by the way, Christian Ehrhoff was also sent off for an injury last night. He came back out on the ice, but as thin as we are, this is getting scary. We are one small injury to a blue liner away from a complete collapse.
So just remember: just because it looks like Vancouver is having the best season in franchise history doesn't mean that we aren't nervous as all get out. We are on the verge of being in a lot of trouble with arguably our top defender being sent off for the season thanks to a bad back, and we now have the serious question of how long we can survive with a patchwork Moose defense (I'm guessing probably until the second round of the playoffs, in Chicago).
Thank God for the All Star break!
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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