Canucks Open Homestand With Workmanlike 2-0 Win Over Blues

By Nelson Daily Sports

Leigh Ramsden lives in Vancouver and is an avid Canucks fan, having been a partial season ticket holder for over 10 years. He's old enough to have witnessed all three Stanley Cup losses, as such, his prime goal is to remove those scars by seeing a Cup brought to Vancouver. Leigh is Fighting For Stanley's (www.fightingforstanley.ca/vancouver) west coast correspondent, and will also blog after all Canuck games for The Nelson Daily.

The Vancouver Canucks returned home to begin a seven game homestand by facing the surprising St. Louis Blues on Thursday night at Rogers Arena, with the regulation winner taking first overall in the NHL.  The Canucks eventually overcame the ludicrously defensive Blues, winning 2-0.  Roberto Luongo recorded the shutout for Vancouver.

This is the fourth game in a row that has featured the Canucks struggling to score.  St. Louis came out well in the first period, jumping on the tired Canuck team and outshooting them 12-2 in the first 12 minutes of the game.  Once they got their legs under them, the Canucks were able to bring the game more consistently to St. Louis, and they were able to even the shot count out somewhat by the end of the period as St. Louis wound up with a 13-8 edge after one.

The second period was relatively even but featured a dearth of scoring chances.  About midway through the period, however, the game’s intensity shot up a bit with a few after-whistle scrums.  Regardless, the officials saw fit to call only four minor penalties in the game.  After Blues forward David Perron took an interference penalty at 14:42 of the middle frame, the referees put their whistles in their pockets.

The third period was played with more intensity by both sides.  The Canucks opened the scoring at 4:17 of the third, as Alex Burrows was in the right place at the right time to lift the puck over Blues goaltender Brian Elliott after a Dan Hamhius point shot ricocheted off the end boards.  That goal proved to be enough for Vancouver, who added a Chris Higgins empty-netter in the final minute to deliver the Canucks the victory.  Shots at the end of the game favoured the Blues 29-24.

I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but not a whole bunch happened in this game tonight.  There were not a lot of scoring chances either way.  The Canucks have been playing this way for a few games now, going back to the road game against New Jersey last week.  They are proving that they can win any way – against a lock-down defensive team like St. Louis, against a physical team like Nashville, or against another skill team like Detroit.

That said, the NHL needs to look itself in the mirror to figure out why scoring is down.  The increased application of the game’s obstruction fouls after the lockout has virtually disappeared.  This standard of refereeing is returning to the game to a new “dead puck era”. 

There’s absolutely no room to skate out on the ice, and teams like St. Louis and Phoenix are well coached and can completely restrict their opponent’s path to the net.  There were a number of calls not made tonight, going both ways.  It makes the game less entertaining for the fans.  I have to wonder if this has gone on to prevent further head injuries, by slowing up forwards as they bear down on the defensemen. 

I wouldn’t put anything past the regime that is currently in charge of this rinky-dink league.

GAME OBSERVATIONS

• Zach Kassian, Sami Pahlsson, and Marc-Andre Gragnani all made their home Canuck debuts tonight.  Kassian again played on the fourth line with Lapierre and Malhotra and played well in only 11 minutes of icetime, getting a few hits in.  He wasn’t quite as noticeable as he was against Phoenix.
• Pahlsson, after a disappointing effort against Phoenix, played a bit better tonight.  He was pretty invisible on most of his shifts, however, he did make a few very good defensive plays and his line, along with Chris Higgins and Jannik Hansen, had a couple of scoring chances.
• On the other hand, Gragnani was less impressive.  He has a great stride, he seems to get up to full speed in only a couple of strides.  I think coach Alain Vigneault told him to feel free to get involved in the offense – but he’ll need to better learn when to go, and when not to.  On one shift, he went so far into the offensive zone he left Daniel Sedin manning the point, which led to an inevitable 2 on 1 against.
• Gragnani also didn’t look good on the breakout on the team’s power play, but neither did anyone else.  After being able to get the puck up the ice with ease earlier this season, tonight was a low point from that perspective.  Assistant coach Newell Brown needs to come up with something, and fast.  The power play was again held off the scoresheet, 0 for 2.  The Canucks were decent on their first PP, but only recorded one shot on net.
• Early returns show that the addition of Pahlsson and Kassian hasn’t taken much pressure of Kesler’s second line.  Vigneault is giving his third and fourth lines virtually identical amounts of icetime as he did previously (except for an additional few minutes afforded the fourth line in the third period).  I thought this was a key advantage of making those deals?  Hopefully this changes as the new additions come into their own on their new team.
• The Canucks really didn’t start to play their game until the third period.  Coming off a brutal road trip in which they logged a ludicrous 11,000 air miles, they did not have any jump early in the game.  In the third it looked like they came into their own and were able to impose their game on St. Louis.
• Most impressive in the third was the Lapierre/Malhotra/Kassian line.  They had a few dominant shifts in the third, and Vigneault rewarded them with more icetime.  Lapierre was hitting everything in sight, ending up with 10 hits on the night.  Kassian had four hits, but his infectious enthusiasm seems to be rubbing off.  We haven’t seen a physical came like this from Lapierre since the playoffs, it’s good to see he’s still got it in him.  Given the style of games that are being played, he’s going to have to bring this game much more consistently.
• Almost every game at this point is starting to feel like the playoffs, without all the intensity.  So many other teams are clamping down on offense, and the Canucks are having trouble scoring.  I wish we could play the likes of Toronto and Edmonton every time out.  The amount of “clutching and grabbing” is returning to the levels of old.  This is most definitely a major shift in the officiating standard, again without explanation from the league.
• The Canucks really struggled to generate shots in the first period.  When they did get some, Elliott didn’t look great in the net – moving around a lot and losing pucks in his feet – he just looked shaky.  The Canucks should have done everything they could do get pucks on him – but they couldn’t.
• Luongo was full value for the shutout.  He wasn’t forced to make a ton of high-quality stops, but he made everything he had to.  It was Luongo’s third shutout of the year.
• The Canucks lead the NHL with 90 points from 65 games played.  The Rangers are second with 88, but hold three games in hand.  Only the Rangers have fewer regulation losses than do the Canucks, who still only have 16.  Since their early-season malaise, the Canucks have really limited their regulation losses and that’s why they are at the top of the league.  They are actually now one point ahead of their President’s Trophy winning pace from last season.
• The Blues agitator B.J. Crombeen is a first class idiot.  Every faceoff he’s shoving and jockeying, for no purpose, just trying to annoy.  It annoyed me and I was in section 326, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be on the ice.  Luckily he only played nine minutes.
• Blues’ forward Vladimir Sobotka was also a little annoying bug out there.  He’s small but did everything he could to try to get under the skin of the Canucks, including appearing to challenge Henrik Sedin (of all people) to - a fight?  I couldn’t quite tell, but they were jawing at each other well after the puck was down the ice.  Otherwise – Sobotka’s size and skating stride reminded me of deceased ex-Blue and Canuck, Pavol Demitra, who perished in the Russian plane disaster early this season.  Rest in peace.

PARTING SHOTS

In-Arena Observation of the Day:  I’m just going to say it – the Canucks need to take a serious look at their game presentation.  The music that is played just isn’t to my liking – I don’t think that dance music has any place at a hockey game. 

Unfortunately, the crowd seems to enjoy it, which might say more about the makeup of the crowd than anything else.  Frankly, most of the people there would probably be happy with anything, so why not play something that makes more sense? 

Hockey is meant to be a rough, tough game, and how dance music fits into that image is beyond me.  For me, game presentation should enhance what is happening on the ice – not be a complete distraction from it.  Although, with the type of hockey now being played by many teams, maybe a distraction is a good thing.

Looking ahead: The Canucks will face Cody Hodgson and his Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada.