It’s been said that the first game back from a road trip is really better considered the last game of the road trip, that it’s not a true home game if you still spend time on a plane the day prior. There was certainly evidence to this theory Monday night, as the Canucks’ first contest in Rogers Arena since the second of February bore an eerie resemblance to the games they played abroad during the 10 days between.
Sure, they were in their home blues, they went home to their own beds, and they were the team surrendering the late, game-tying goal, but everything else about the song remained the same — tight game, sloppy defensive zone breakouts, the absence of Sedinery and, for the fifth time in six outings, a shootout. By now, we’re beginning to wonder if the Canucks are addicted to shootouts. Do they get irritable after regulation victories? Is there a patch or a gum to help ease the cravings? These are the questions I was left with after I watched this game.
Canucks 2 -1 Coyotes (SO)
- How slow was this game? The Canucks had 4 shots in the first period, and they arguably controlled the run of play in that period. It was an exceedingly quiet opening twenty minutes. At one point, the referee stopped play because Alex Burrows started steeping white tea and handing out individually wrapped pieces of biscotti.
- Speaking of Burrows, he registered the Sedin line’s lone shot in this game. It came just over two minutes into overtime. I think it’s safe to say that, if the typically beastly Sedin line can’t muster a single shot in regulation, something is wrong. Why so unbeastly, Sedins? Are you sick? Having recently watched Jurassic Park, I’m afraid the only way to know for sure is to check their poop.
- David Booth scored the Canucks’ lone goal in this game, and it was exactly the sort of goal he was acquired to score in games like this. When the Canucks find themselves up against a team playing a defensive structure so smothering that the Sedins completely disappear, they need guys like Booth who won’t busy themselves trying to break it down — they’re just going to the net as hard as they possibly can. That’s exactly what Booth did, pouncing on a puck mishandled by Keith Yandle at the Coyotes blueline, and charging it to the goal like the goal was a Mastercard.
- Byron Bitz had two unfortunate moments in this game: the first was when he coughed a puck up at the blueline to Keith Yandle, who fired it on goal and surprised Roberto Luongo to tie the game late. Unfortunate indeed, but not as unfortunate as the second moment: when John Garrett described the big winger’s hooking penalty by saying “Bitz gave him the reach around.” That’s dangerously worded. Mispronounce “Bitz” in that instance and you’re a pimp.
- For the record, while most blamed Bitz for that goal (Bitz included), he’s not the guy I’d point a finger at. It’s not even Luongo, although that goal was Downy soft. Rather, I’d argue that one’s on Manny Malhotra. See, the puck doesn’t even end up in Bitz’s stick if Malhotra wins that defensive zone draw. And he doesn’t even have to take that defensive zone draw if he doesn’t turn the puck over at the blueline before, leading to a scramble in the Vancouver end and an eventual icing call. We’ve gone on about Malhotra being a “win faceoffs and clear the zone” type of guy, and it was his inability to do either in this instance that indirectly led to the tying goal.
- Taylor Pyatt remains terrible in close and beautiful up close. If the big forward could put half the softness of his baby blue eyes into his touch around the goal, he’d be a fifty-goal scorer. But he can’t, so he just stands around glistening, like women in Michael Bay movies.
- Lots of people dislike Aaron Rome, primarily because his playing style is so unspectacular. But let me tell you what I can’t stand about his game: when it comes to hitting, the guy has no timing. Rome is a big hitter, capable of laying a guy flat, but he’s always a split-second too soon or too late. We all remember what happened in the Stanley Cup Final, of course, but there were three solid examples from Monday’s affair as well. He missed a hipcheck that led to a scoring chance in the second, knocked Pyatt from the game with a questionable hit from behind, and mistimed another big hit in the third that led to some zone pressure. If Ja Rule and Ashanti were coaching this team, Rome would have been waived by now.
- I was beyond pleased to see Alain Vigneault — who is coaching this team — swap Mason Raymond for Cody Hodgson on the second line in the third period. Raymond remains a remarkable backchecker, but he’d spend half as much time backchecking remarkably if he was smarter with it back when it was his. Raymond is like the male lead in a romcom and the puck is his female co-star. Sure, he winds up with it in the end, but if he had just been true to it from the beginning, he could have spared everyone so much heartache.
- Speaking of romance, the most intimate moment in the game came when Kevin Bieksa tried to flip a puck off the glass and catch it behind his back for some reason. As the puck trickled through his gloves, the linesman tried to snag it before it hit the ice, and wound up grabbing a handful of Juicy ass. It makes sense that Bieksa would have chemistry with the linesman: linesmen are considered a part of the playing surface, like stanchions.
- But if you ask me, it was the second best Bieksa moment in this game. Just as the horn sounded, Bieksa got into it with Rusty Klesla, and the two dropped their gloves. With the game over, the referees stepped between the two defenders, but not before Bieksa gave Klesla a quick jab in the side of the head, then smirked at his cleverness as he was escorted to the bench.
- Finally, if you want to smile, check out Manny Malhotra’s appreciating David Booth’s sick shootout goal at 8:18 of this clip. He looks like he’s eating a really good piece of chocolate cake.
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Josh
February 14, 2012The linesman grabbing Bieksa wasn’t as funny as John and John’s commentary about it.
“Well, it is almost February 14th.”
I love Shorty.
stathead
February 14, 2012And just before that, I can’t remember the exact words but it was something like “And the linesman tried to help Bieksa out there.” “Yes, he sure did.”
Josh
February 14, 2012I knew I forgot part of it! Slayed me, though.
Sleepy Lewis
February 14, 2012Some of us don’t watch the game…like little ol’ me that lives in Toronto and Canuck games are past my bedtime (argh!). For us, you should probably make sure to include things…like the score at the beginning of the article so that I know who won and don’t have to go to TSN to kill the suspense. Pretty please!
stathead
February 14, 2012And the three star selection would be cool too, please!
Can be surprisingly hard to find.
JDM
February 14, 2012I’m the exact opposite of you, I don’t want to know the score when I miss a game, I’d rather watch the 15 minute highlight package inevitably on youtube and find out that way.
obituary mambo
February 14, 2012The lackluster hockey we’ve been witnessing aside, I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the fact that the Canucks are 7-0-3 in their past ten games, whereas Chicago is 2-7-1 in that same span. The hokey gods have smiled upon us.
stathead
February 14, 2012Some of our wins were certainly hokey wins.
Harrison Mooney
February 14, 2012No, they were HOCKEY wins. You spelled HOCKEY wrong.
obituary mambo
February 14, 2012Ooops! I’m not sure how I missed the ‘c’ out — typing too fast, I guess. *blushes* :”>
Colin Schmidt
February 14, 2012I, for one, was very grateful for that completely boring 1st period. I was out at a BCIT info session, and afterwards I decided to get a really cheap ticket to the game, even though the 1st period was about to end. Glad to hear I didn’t miss anything important, or anything at all.
madwag
February 14, 2012often it is they who are bored who are boring.
jenny wren
February 14, 2012Some cryptic couplets from The Flock
Including one from Chicken Hawk:
Henrik playing five fifty-five:
His iron man streak is still alive!
As we watch Cody split the D,
He’ll not be traded we agree.
A close in shot from Taylor Pyatt -
Luongo’s right there to deny it!
Booth’s truly is a gorgeous goal,
This from your friendly Blackhawk troll.
Just when we think that it is done,
Phoenix ties the game at one.
Though we view Shootouts with distaste,
This one is not anchovy paste!
Warpstone
February 14, 2012Always reassuring to know I’m not the only one who giggles like Beavis whenever he hears the words “reach around.”
Nee
February 14, 2012Nice catch on the Manny clip, PITB. That’s a great little gem.
peanutflower
February 14, 2012Manny slapping Ballard three or four times on the butt when Bieksa tied the Colorado game was still better
. It’s hilarious. It’s a good thing Ballard was wearing the nice fluffy pants, he was hitting him so hard.
J21
February 14, 2012I only saw the last couple minutes and the shootout, but I liked that shootout. Why? Because almost everyone did what they were supposed to do.
Sure, Luongo let in a good number, but they weren’t “Luongo shootout” goals, they were legitimately nice shots, not unlike those that beat Labarbera. Kesler finally quit the dipsy-doodling in close and fired it from a good distance out — just like he should always do, given his skill-set. Vigneault finally started with Cody Hodgson, who did what he would probably do every time given the chance. Vigneault also finally put in David Booth, and not only did he make good on his chance, he looked like he’d been doing it for years. I liked to see Edler scoring again, so that we actually have a guy above 50% on the team.
The only miscue (aside from Raymond not scoring, but he didn’t do anything “wrong” per se) was Alex Burrows, who should really never deviate from Blue Steel, because it essentially *always* works. But deviate he did, and unsurprisingly his old teammate stopped it.
JDM
February 14, 2012To be fair, Whitney’s shot was stoppable and that would likely have been the shootout right there. And while Boedker makes a great move, Luo had two opportunities to follow up Canuck goals with saves to give his team the advantage and couldn’t pull it out. At least until he was faced with the offensive force that is Boyd Gordon. He wasn’t terrible, but he didn’t make a big save, either.
Good enough to win is good enough to win, so I’m not complaining, but the shooters deserve the credit for this one. The problem is that they aren’t consistently that good. I’m wondering what our record in shootouts is when Burrows gets stopped – I figured that was the death knell.
peanutflower
February 14, 2012I may be wrong and I’m too lazy/busy to look it up, but didn’t Vancouver lead the NHL in regulation wins last year? Like, no overtimes and no shootouts? or few? I’d like to see a return to that form…
J21
February 14, 2012An interesting comment from Jason LaBarbera (who just seems like an eminently likable guy all around), for those who missed it [all from the Globe and Mail writeup]:
“LaBarbera, who is from the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, played nine games for the Canucks in 2008-09 and saluted the twins. He said every team in the league would love to have them.
‘It always blows my mind how people around here [Vancouver] criticize them,’ he said after morning practice.”
It seems the Canucks had nice things to say about him, too:
“The Canucks were impressed with LaBarbera.
‘He’d be a starter on most teams,’ said Kesler after the second period.”
(For the record, I’m pretty sure that that’s not true by definition, since he’d be relatively easy to acquire and it appears that there’s no bidding war happening, but he’s certainly always been solid and I loved the work he put in for the Canucks in 2008-09).
Andre
February 14, 2012It’s not just in this game that the Sedin line was anemic, it’s the past dozen. Could it be that other teams have figured out what works so well during the playoffs? If so, this does not bode well for us.
Chris
February 14, 2012Funny how anyone’s thinking the Canucks are hot right now, because I see 4 real wins and 6 shoulda-been ties, and two of those wins still gave an extra point to a western conference rival. If it weren’t for this silly contrived skills competition they use to artificially inflate point totals, this last stretch would be treated as a very prolonged bout of mediocrity.
I only got home in time to watch the third period of this game, so I did not “watch this game” in the strictest sense, but from that period, I really can’t think the Canucks deserved more than one point. I don’t remember a single good scoring chance in that frame.
J21
February 14, 2012To be fair, absolutely everyone who follows the team is indeed treating it as a prolonged bout of mediocrity. The only people who aren’t, possibly, are mathematically generated power rankings and such.
SteveB
February 14, 2012In the last 5 minutes of Da Turd, I was praying for another goal, but every time the Coyotes crossed the Blue Line I was worried about the Snack Goal.
Sure enough, at 17:54 Yandle helped himself to a tasty snack.
J21
February 14, 2012It’s not technically a snack goal if it ties the game, though. Only if it’s a meaningless goal that breaks a shutout. Because the Canucks certainly wouldn’t throw victory away and go to OT just to keep a team not-too-hungry…!
Nick
February 14, 2012Chain reaction of errors on the Phoenix goal. Manny’s bungle starts it off, and his plus/minus is now a team-worst -10.
Shade of Blue
February 14, 2012The Canucks need to get the power play back on track.
It feels churlish to complain about the league’s number one ranked power play. After all, I remember watching the Canucks during the 1980s, an era when the Canucks’ power play was an endless fog of god-awfulness punctuated by flashes of mediocrity. Having grown up with such trauma, I get a little frisson of joy every time the Canucks head to the man advantage and their rank (1st!) is posted on screen below the score.
And while I’m heaping praise on the power play, I’d like to give a little respect to assistant coach Newell Brown, who doesn’t get nearly enough recognition for his work role in shaping the league’s best power play.
Nonetheless, they are in a funk and I believe it is the root of much of the recent woes. (Oh, that the hockey gods have blessed us with a team talented enough that a 7-0-3 stretch is cause for worry!)
The power play is still ranked #1 overall, but is something like 25th over the past 10 games or so. I think the key difference during this recent stretch has been the sudden lack of production from the power play — first because of fewer chances, and more recently, failure to capitalize when chances occur. The Canucks missed several opportunities to put the Coyotes away with man advantage. They used their power play to bail themselves out during their November run when scoring dried up 5-on-5, and all of their scoring came on the power play in Boston.
Here’s hoping they turn it around, quick!
itsentertainment
February 14, 2012I didn’t see the game in Minny, so from my view thats two games in a row where the intensity level has been where it needs to be. Its no wonder the timing is a little off for the nucks, they are just not used to playing that hard. And when I say their timing is off, I bring forward the four biggest hits in the Calgary game as evidence. The 4 biggest hits were all Nuck on Nuck.
Anyway the raised intensity level is a very positive sign… So stop biting your towels.
the olde coote
February 14, 2012Sometime check out the scoring race:
There’re two Sedins in the top ten,
Ahead of Toews and Jamie Benn -
That just a fact you have to face
When you’re knocking your Canucks.
They’re in the standings number three,
Which seems awfully good to me!
Mayhap it’s not the team that sucks
But you who choose to criticze.
Already they’ve a playoff spot,
Yet you are in a total knot
Over a half a dozen ties.
It’s far too much that you expect:
Their proven prowess you neglect!
The Olde Coot
Frank Nelissen
February 14, 2012Hey, I think the Canucks are doing their utter best to keep as many teams in the race and thus make the play-offs a bit easier. More teams in race by trade dealing, less trades, fewer stacked up teams. And perhaps even a chance for them Blackhawks to fall out of the contenders…
DaveM
February 14, 2012I’d say this game was as exciting as watching grass grow, but that would be insulting to grass. At least it has that nice green colour.
But this offence-less style did at least help make the shootout more interesting. It was as if the two goalies forgot what a decent scoring chance looked like, and couldn’t stop anything as a result. “Is… is… is that a guy actually SHOOTING A PUCK AT ME?! What the @#$% am I supposed to do?”
Body Schmautz
February 14, 2012Great work again PITB, Aaron Rome character assassination aside. Didn’t agree with “knocked Pyatt from the game with a questionable hit from behind.” Evidence from from the broadcast and the replays showed Pyatt, anticipating Rome’s hit, put his right elbow up at Rome’s head, leaving himself off-balance and vulnerable when receiving the Rome hit. Only thing questionable that might have warranted a call on the play was Pyatt’s elbow. Ref was right there and appropriately made no call on Rome.
Not a huge Rome fan either, but just found the criticism a little over the top and out of character for PITB.
Keep up the good work – PITB rules!
akidd
February 14, 2012i guess i was the only one who enjoyed the game. it seemed pretty intense and fast. sure it was a trap game but i liked the yotes speed and i felt the canucks battled well. i thought that bieksa and hamhuis had some really nice shifts too where they transitioned the puck really well. haven’t seen that for a while.
that plus the flames game and it seems like the canucks are slowly coming out of their doze. the sedins haven’t yet but hopefully that will come soon. i’m predicting an even better effort vs. the avalanche.
madwag
February 14, 2012you are not alone. i too found it an entertaining, and in many ways an intriguing, game, and especially enjoyed the work of bieksa and hamhuis. it’s clear the desert dogs will be a force come playoff time given their consistently hustling shut down type of play. they’re a team i’d cheer for. i also see improvement over the last two games and sense the canucks will peak come the second season.
tom selleck's moustache
February 14, 2012I was actually at this game and the shootout was definitely the most exciting part. It didn’t make for great viewing otherwise. Some notes:
- Really liked Booths goal. His speed and finish were really nice to see. He does seem to have no qualms about trying to take on defenders and dangle his way into the offensive zone, at least much more aggressively than any other Canuck that I’ve noticed.
- It was nice to see the Cody love in person, he had one good rush up the ice where he got around a defender by faking a pass, then following with a deke to get passed him to end up with a good scoring chance that earned a round of applause from the crowd. He also seemed to get the most applause when he scored on his shootout chance.
- For lack of a better way to describe it, the Sedins just seem off to me. They had one nice passing sequence in the second where they were going back and forth, passing around the defenders with really crisp, quick and instinctive passes (I couldn’t believe how quick they were doing it; you could actually here the crowd let out a collective “whoa” while it was happening) that ended up springing Daniel for an ok scoring chance. But that was pretty much it for the rest of the night.
Otherwise, they didn’t generate much of anything; their passing was off, either the speed of the pass was too slow or the needed distance was misjudged, or they misjudged whether a passing lane was clear. It just felt tentative. I don’t know if it’s a confidence thing or if Henrik’s injury is affecting their timing; but it’s no wonder the Canucks play has struggled with the way the Sedins have been off their game.
tj
February 14, 2012Damned allstars. That’s it. No one on the team’s allowed to go next year.