Some of you may have noticed my absence from the blog lately, and it's because there's something very exciting in the works. I'm organizing an event called Five Hole for Food. I'm driving from Montreal to Vancouver playing road hockey in the two aforementioned cities as well as Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Victoria, raising food for local food banks.
The trip spans nine cities in eleven days and sees us start in Montreal on June 29th and ending in Vancouver on Jul
This weekend was a big weekend for the Canucks, their fans, the record books and King Henrik himself. Henrik's play has been phenomenal this season. Even when "slumping" on the road he managed to pull things together on the tail end of the trip and end up at a point per game pace. His assault on the record books this year has been nothing short of impressive and here's a break down of what he's done.
Canucks All Time Assists Leader: On Saturday Henrik tied Trevor Linden's all time assists re
The Sedins have been mired in some sort of a slump by many from a few games before the Olympics, until recently. With that being said there's still the thought that Daniel's slumping because he isn't scoring any goals. What's interesting is Daniel's started racking up just as many assists as Henrik on most nights. While Daniel's not scoring that's really not a concern, or at least it shouldn't be.
The fact both Sedins are racking up the helpers is a sign that they're making the offense click
I'm not Hordichuk's biggest fan but one thing that's been noticeable is how his presence, or lack thereof I should say, hasn't been missed in the Canucks lineup. In fact the addition of Alberts has proven that the Canucks really don't need Hordichuk's skillset in order to get by. There was a time when the Canucks all around grit was lacking and there was the need for an enforcer. However as the team has evolved, Kesler's grit factor has gone through the roof, Burrows retained his super pest attr
When the Canucks got Andrew Alberts at the deadline he was in now way a replacement for Willie Mitchell, but as a depth guy he's got to step up and fill the void. In the Canucks' last game Alberts got a little lost and followed the wrong object down the ice after the puck drop.
Now I've noticed for a guy that's only been around for 3 or 4 games he's unfortunately been in the wrong place one too many times and it looks like he's been the one at fault on a handful of goals thus far. Unlike othe
With most teams in the NHL you can point to one player on the team who is the face of the franchise. The Capitals belong to Ovechkin, the Penguins belong to Malkin, the Islanders are Tavares' and the Kings are Kopitar's. The list goes on but the point is most teams have one face, one super star that either makes or breaks the team based on how they play. With that concept in mind, these Canucks once were Luongos. The face of the 2006-07 franchise-record-49-Win Canucks, was Luongo. He won his fir
Edler's had an off year. There's no hiding it, in the words of one Todd Bertuzzi - "It is what it is". For the number of people that have thrown him under the bus, I don't think a lot of people realize just why he's having the slump this year. Edler can thank all that he was last year, and all that he's going to be in the future to one player, Mattias Ohlund.
Ohlund's departure from the team left a huge hole on the blue line that was bigger than just one player as his influence on Edler is cl
The comeback kids have done it again. The Canucks now lead the league with their 10th 3rd period come from behind win after Samuelsson's 2nd period hat trick helped them stage a 6-4 win in a big NW division tilt. It's reached a stage where the Canucks level of confidence is so high that they can give up the first goal in nearly every game, they can give up a multi goal lead, and still fight back.
The first time around you could argue that maybe it's a fluke, and while I'm not suggesting that
The Canucks head into the windy city having not done half bad on this road trip. With a win tonight they can finish no worse than .500 on the road trip. When you consider who we've played and the length of the trip I'd say that's not half bad. Come to think of it, we really should be well above .500, but when you run into goalies like Halak who are just blind on nights there's not much you can do. The Canucks losses haven't been bad losses and I think that's something to reflect upon once this r
Where to start with this guy. I for one was his biggest fan to start the season, and still would gladly get a Johnson #10 jersey but the man's stock has been falling and on a bottom six that is under the microscope of every arm chair GM and Canucks fan his play has stood out even more, for the wrong reasons. Granted due to his shot blocking antics he has missed games due to injury, there's something else up with RyJo this season.
I think simply put RyJo has lost some of his mojo. I'm not sur
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Now that the Canucks last home game before the Olympics is done it's time to look forward to those 45 days away from GM Place that includes a 14 game road trip interrupted by the Olympics for two weeks. The Canucks leave GM Place in the hands of VANOC and embark on a 14 game road trip which has a lot of fans worried because going into this road trip they currently own th
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">When I see highlight reel goals night in and night out from the Sedins it's hard to find a place to start when trying to talk about them, but if you start by looking at the most recent highlight reel treat did anything stand out to you? To me it was the fact that the absolutely beautiful between-the-legs-no-look-feed was by Daniel and not Henrik. This season the twins have d
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">For Canucks fans online, most in the last week have seen the blog written by Edmonton's Dan Tencer following an Oilers loss. It reeks of the bitterness and frustration that Oilers Nation echoes, and after reading some of the responses to his blog like the one by Brian over at Canucks Corner I feel Tencer's missing one other perspective. What frustrates me is that Dan Tencer
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Off the bat if it's not clear yet I'll let it out, I'm one of the biggest proponents to getting Kovalchuk at the deadline as a rental for this team. Heck I'd be over the moon if we could trade for him and get something of it, but there are several complications that come up and over the past week in talking to <a href="http://opiatedsherpa.com">The Opiated Sherpa&l
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<p>When you look at Burrows numbers there's no denying that he's been a huge success because of the Sedins. One can't argue though that he's not been partially responsible in helping get up the Sedins numbers to point per game averages that are the highest of their career. Burrows has been through a lot to get where he is and after working his way up through the Ca
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">With Demitra factoring back into the equation it looks like as far as forwards go we're back at square one. The same problem we were going to have to deal with in game one of the season had we not been hit with that ridiculous number of simultaneous injuries. The interesting thing is now that we're half way through the season the players have formed this chemistry that I for
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">Henrik's been atop the points race for at least a week now and he's hardly been noticed, talked about, or praised by anyone other than Canuck Nation. In fact, whenever Ovechkin and Crosby are up there they get all the spot light. Heck, even when Kopitar was up there he was the NHL's golden boy and everyone was all over him. "Kopitar this" and "Kopitar that". Where's Kopitar
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed"> Last night I had the chance to watch the Moose play as they came to town to take on the Calgary Flames affiliate the Abbotsford Heat. One thing I was looking forward to seeing was Sergei Shirokov play. I was all over the kid in the pre-season, and foolish enough to think he was ready to play on the Canucks roster this season. <a href="http://canuckscorner.com">Brian f
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">In light of this Burrows/Auger incident, upon reviewing it all, I think you'd be hard pressed to find Burrows wrong. The video evidence of what Auger did before the game and the blatantly weak calls as well as a history of very poor officiating makes this yet another controversy the Canucks find themselves in the thick of. Now homer bias aside, I think the overwhelming respo
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">It's no surprise that O'Brien's been in the hot seat for most of his time in Vancouver. Be it for taking bad penalties, own goals or glaring errors that cost the Canucks. He's probably the only person that gets more flak for going to the penalty box than Mats Sundin. That and the fact we had Schneider just sitting ready to go lead to O'Brien's timeout in the press box.
W
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">This team is not big, it's not tough. It's turned into a skilled team that needs to out skate and out work it's opponents to win versus out thugging them. We don't have a lot of grit but the grit we have does the job, which is why I can't for the life of me figure out why Kesler's game as of late has changed. If anyone's noticed Kesler lately his play's turned from skilled p
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">Darcy Hordichuk was brought to the Canucks for one reason and one reason only. To be a brute, to crush not just hit, and to chuck knuckles raining fists of fury. He was brought on to either to spark some energy via taking down, or at least taking on the other team's heavyweight. He was brought on as our heavyweight and was expected to use his grit as retribution for a bad hi
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">Through all the ups and downs this season there haven't been very many constants. We've had a mismatch of players, we've been short staffed on forwards, blue liners, goaltenders. We've had a hot power play, a cold penalty kill. We've signed ECHLers, played with the waiver wire, and the only thing that's remained constant in the first 33 games of the season is Alain Vigneault
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">Edler was under fire at the start of the season for lack of production and after going through a slump which I attribute to him missing Ohlund, he's found his groove again and gone back to playing like we've come to expect of the native Swede. Edler who was taking bad shots, missing outlet passes and blowing routine blue line saves struggled to find his game early on and a v
<img src="http://cdn.nhl.com/canucks/images/upload/2009/11/nov1709_chbsmall_smallt.jpg" class="imageFloatLeftFramed">After last night's display of near perfection in New Jersey the Canucks look to have finally gelled and found that team chemistry they have been looking for all season. The Canucks managed to stay afloat while battered and bruised, but it looks like all the hype from the off season is finally coming true. The Canucks are playing as a team and all facets of the team are opera
