Friday, April 04, 2008
The Canucks Are Out, Life Goes On
by Jes
It was a good thing that the Canucks/Flames game was on Pay-Per-View, since I didn't have to witness the Canucks choking away another must-win game by failing to score more than a single goal against a weaker team.
It's also good that I've long been at peace with the fact that the Canucks weren't going anywhere this spring (other than golfing), so I didn't have much of an emotional investment in our city's professional hockey country club.
So, last night's loss booted the Canucks out of the playoff picture, and I barely flinched. Meh, nobody is really surprised, except Dave "No Action" Nonis.
Given my heavy workload with my CMA and actual day job, I haven't had time to worry so much about what the Canucks should do this off-season. There will be time for that, later.
In the meantime, we are lucky enough to have the Giants to cheer for, and I can always leap onto the Penguins/Crosby bandwagon. Wouldn't it be sweet if the Pens and Caps met up in Round 1?
Since I don't feel inspired to write much more on this day of mourning, I figure I'd let my girlfriend, Aurian, have a crack at the blogmike and air out her thoughts on this wasted season
---
Well, looks like it’s about time for the Canucks to put down their hockey sticks and pick up some golf clubs.
Can`t say I am surprised. Last year’s Canucks seemed to specialize in winning game after game at the last minute. This year’s Canucks’ speciality is blowing games and falling apart. Last year, they were buzzed at having a top-tier goaltender in the pipes and played their hearts out. This year, the Luongo buzz is over now and the team obviously expected the goalie to do the work for them.
Sorry, but even Louie can’t score goals.
The defence was decimated by injuries all season long, and did pretty well considering some games we only had 3 regular d-men in the line up.
The forwards? Well, you didn`t really expect Pettinger and Ibister to fix last year’s scoring issues did you? I don`t know why Nonis expected that. Sure, he rolled the dice and got lucky with Pyatt, but c’mon, you can`t expect to get lucky every time. The Sedins? Yeah, you try scoring when the other team knows all they have to do is dog pile two guys and you effectively take away the Canucks’ offense. Its sad when one of your team’s top six scoring leaders is Burrows (no knock on the guy, he`s an awesome find).
I have no idea why Vigneault kept leaving Linden out, given that the team seems to play better when he is in the line up. With all those overtime games lost, if we had Linden, our most reliable clutch guy in the line up on those nights, we might have squeaked into the playoffs.
You know something though? I`m glad they`re out of the playoffs. You heard me right. This team just couldn`t put together any string of wins lately, played stupid and listlessly, couldn`t seem to get any urgency going and I`m glad that they and the fans have been put out of their misery.
This team had some nice building blocks at the beginning of the season, but all Nonis did was sit on his thumbs and hope for the best, despite the clear lack of scoring. I am glad he did not trade away big assets during the trade deadline because by that point I honestly did not think the team had that something that made it appropriate to gamble for a Stanley Cup run. We could have lost Edler, Kesler and other important pieces for a future team in order to rent Brad Richards (bet the Stars love that fat contract now *snark*). The time to get the pieces should have been before the season started. Ibister? Richie? C`mon, it was clear we needed some scoring, dammit!
So the ‘Nucks are out. If Nonis does not do anything to fix the ongoing problem in the offseason, the fans will probably break out the pitchforks and boiling oil. Or being Vancouver, the pointy umbrellas and boiling Starbucks coffee.
It was a good thing that the Canucks/Flames game was on Pay-Per-View, since I didn't have to witness the Canucks choking away another must-win game by failing to score more than a single goal against a weaker team.
It's also good that I've long been at peace with the fact that the Canucks weren't going anywhere this spring (other than golfing), so I didn't have much of an emotional investment in our city's professional hockey country club.
So, last night's loss booted the Canucks out of the playoff picture, and I barely flinched. Meh, nobody is really surprised, except Dave "No Action" Nonis.
Given my heavy workload with my CMA and actual day job, I haven't had time to worry so much about what the Canucks should do this off-season. There will be time for that, later.
In the meantime, we are lucky enough to have the Giants to cheer for, and I can always leap onto the Penguins/Crosby bandwagon. Wouldn't it be sweet if the Pens and Caps met up in Round 1?
Since I don't feel inspired to write much more on this day of mourning, I figure I'd let my girlfriend, Aurian, have a crack at the blogmike and air out her thoughts on this wasted season
---
Well, looks like it’s about time for the Canucks to put down their hockey sticks and pick up some golf clubs.
Can`t say I am surprised. Last year’s Canucks seemed to specialize in winning game after game at the last minute. This year’s Canucks’ speciality is blowing games and falling apart. Last year, they were buzzed at having a top-tier goaltender in the pipes and played their hearts out. This year, the Luongo buzz is over now and the team obviously expected the goalie to do the work for them.
Sorry, but even Louie can’t score goals.
The defence was decimated by injuries all season long, and did pretty well considering some games we only had 3 regular d-men in the line up.
The forwards? Well, you didn`t really expect Pettinger and Ibister to fix last year’s scoring issues did you? I don`t know why Nonis expected that. Sure, he rolled the dice and got lucky with Pyatt, but c’mon, you can`t expect to get lucky every time. The Sedins? Yeah, you try scoring when the other team knows all they have to do is dog pile two guys and you effectively take away the Canucks’ offense. Its sad when one of your team’s top six scoring leaders is Burrows (no knock on the guy, he`s an awesome find).
I have no idea why Vigneault kept leaving Linden out, given that the team seems to play better when he is in the line up. With all those overtime games lost, if we had Linden, our most reliable clutch guy in the line up on those nights, we might have squeaked into the playoffs.
You know something though? I`m glad they`re out of the playoffs. You heard me right. This team just couldn`t put together any string of wins lately, played stupid and listlessly, couldn`t seem to get any urgency going and I`m glad that they and the fans have been put out of their misery.
This team had some nice building blocks at the beginning of the season, but all Nonis did was sit on his thumbs and hope for the best, despite the clear lack of scoring. I am glad he did not trade away big assets during the trade deadline because by that point I honestly did not think the team had that something that made it appropriate to gamble for a Stanley Cup run. We could have lost Edler, Kesler and other important pieces for a future team in order to rent Brad Richards (bet the Stars love that fat contract now *snark*). The time to get the pieces should have been before the season started. Ibister? Richie? C`mon, it was clear we needed some scoring, dammit!
So the ‘Nucks are out. If Nonis does not do anything to fix the ongoing problem in the offseason, the fans will probably break out the pitchforks and boiling oil. Or being Vancouver, the pointy umbrellas and boiling Starbucks coffee.
Labels: Aurian, Canucks, rants
Comments:
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The first step in fixing the Canucks is to trade one, or both Sedins...they play a game of "We play together, rest of the team doesn't count"; teams with uber-selfish players rarely go far; just ask the Flyers how many championships they got with Eric Lindros as Captain!
# posted by 
: 4:35 pm
: 4:35 pm
Huh? The Sedins are two very good players who mesh well together. They never really got a winger who was at their level (Naslund struggled most of the year, Pyatt didn`t really use his body well, Linden isn`t a top 6 scorer anymore, etc, etc, etc).
Really, you want to trade your racehorse because he doesn`t run well with cart horses?
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Really, you want to trade your racehorse because he doesn`t run well with cart horses?
# posted by : 11:16 am
: 11:16 am << Home
