Love Our Canucks

There is a line in a Bruce Springsteen song that seems to sum up the early round 1 exit of the Canucks. “We’re livin’ in the future, and none of this has happened yet”. Was there anybody who ever thought this could happen, the Presidents Trophy Winning Canucks getting punted out of the playoffs by the eighth seed LA Kings? Well, it happened tonight as the Kings beat the Canucks in OT to win 2-1, and send the Canucks home early. Way too early in this year’s playoff race.

Why, and who’s fault is it that the Canucks are out? In a nutshell, it was nobody’s fault but yet it was everybody’s fault, but mostly it was Duncan Keith’s fault for taking Daniel Sedin out of the Canucks lineup for just long enough to throw the Canucks game into kaos. The reason the Canucks lost is easy, and that is the scoring dried up. The offense sputtered and the defense collapsed, not just in this game, but for the last 4 as well. This loss, as well as the others cannot be pinned on Luongo or Schneider, but rather the entire team. It’s a known fact that you can have the best goal tending in the league, but if you can’t put the puck in the opposition’s net, you are not going to win. And that is exactly what happened to the Canucks. Their ability to score dried up, and it cost them the 2012 season.

Luongo played well, as did Schneider. Henrik did the best he could with brother Daniel out of the lineup. Kesler went cold and struggled the entire series. Burrows and Lapierre’s effectiveness wasn’t as good as their chirping between whistles. Bieksa…well Bieksa continued to struggle on the blue line for the Canucks. Higgins and Hansen forgot to show up most nights. The list goes long if you are looking to lay blame for the Canucks early exit, but the bottom line is the Canucks win as a team, and they lose as a team. Bottom line.

If there is any God in Hockey heaven, the Washington Capitals will end the Bruins hope of going to the second round, and the Coyotes will dispatch the Blackhawks dreams as well. If those two things happen, then the sting of the Canucks early exit won’t be as hard to take knowing those two teams are done as well!

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The Canucks got their Spark Plug back and look ready to get on a roll again.

What a difference a Sedin makes! With Daniel Sedin making his debut since being knocked out of the lineup by Blackhawks Duncan Keith last month, he provided the spark that the Canucks offense had been missing, and t propelled them to a 3-1 win in LA, staving off elimination. For the most part the Canucks have been stuck in second gear since this series started, and it looked like they were going to end their season in the same gear for the first twenty minutes of tonight’s game, especially after the Kings went up 1-0 midway in the first after a feeble checking attempt by Mason Raymond on Anze Kopitar allowed him to get a clean shot on Schneider. But the lead didn’t last long for the Kings.

As the Canucks continued to struggle in the first period, desperately trying to find their game, starting goalie Cory Schneider lived up to his nick-name by keeping the Canucks in the game by stopping 13 shots to keep the Kings at bay. As Schneider was performing miracles between the pipes fir the Canucks, another miracle happened at 4:07 of the second period which instantly gave the Canucks life again, and that was the resurgence of their power play as Alexander Edler beat Jonathan Quick with a wrist shot to tie the game at 1. The Canucks were alive!
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With his team stinking up their playoff run, does Coach V have any solutions?

This series could easily be referred to as the Tale of Two Teams. LA Kings fans are surely asking themselves, “where was this team during the regular season,” as the 8th place LA Kings once again put on an impressive performance for the fans at Rogers Arena tonight. The same cannot be said for the Vancouver Canucks as their fans are scratching their heads and wondering, “where is the Canucks team that dominated during the regular season?”

Suffice it to say the “regular season” Canucks are done, finito, kaput, they’ve left the building, and if the “playoffs” version of the Canucks can’t get it together in LA and at least win one game on the road, they will be done…like dinner. But truthfully, if the past two games are any indication of what the Canucks bring to the table in this series, they are in trouble because the Kings are not only in control of the series, leading 2-0 but they are also in control of the Canucks fate, seemingly playing them like a marionette for 60 minutes at a time.
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