westsideconnect

I have to say the Canucks are doing a lot of positive things here. I mean, don't most successful teams employ the "stretch-pass from your own goal line to the farthest blueline" breakout approach?

Here's a thought Weise, instead of looking so dumbfounded everytime you get called ... stop giving them the chance to call you!

Btw you guys were totally right, look at this huge turnaround after last games "push back".

BINGO! Too many bonehead plays that led to the penalty minutes. This is what most people on here are happy about tonight and that's why I disagree. Their "push back" tactics were idiotic, but when they actually tried to play the game they did play solid and pretty hard-nosed.

The fact that you're relating a player-on-player incident to a player-on-goalie incident ends this conversation right here.

I agree with this actually. For how negative I've been about this game they have shown up to a few games with little or no effort and that's even more frustrating. Have to disagree with this point though. Reminds me of Team USA vs Iceland in the final game of Mighty Ducks 2. Sure, Dwayne can lassoo the guy and Ken Wu can become the 3rd bash brother but they were still down in the game after 2 periods. Maybe the Canucks needed a nice Gordon Bombay speech tonight?

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam. Want to hang out with Blackberries and I?

Yea, those crazy shoves. Causing dimes all over the place. Also, you can't call a charge on a missed hit. I kind of see where you are coming from, but that's just a fact. As an example, I can't remember who it was now (I'm thinking Lupul?) but somebody missed a blatant elbow attempt on a Canuck player. If that makes contact he gets the book thrown at him but you can't call a penalty if he doesn't actually do anything to the guy. Nice one on the edit. There were a lot of things going on in this game, but hooks and interfering plays were few and far between.

I agree again. The penalty kill was obviously great, and once that kill was over they were the better team when it came to making an attempt to win the game. This just makes me wonder even moreso what kind of offense they could have generated in the first 11 minutes had they not been shorthanded. Also, significant other schmignificant schmother.

Please believe me when I say I'm asking this in the nicest way: Aside from missing Dale Weise slew-footing Doughty, where was the terrible reffing you refer to? Examples?

Torts when asked about being shorthanded throughout the first: "It is what it is, we did our job." So obviously that was the message he sent. He's the guy coaching in the NHL with a nice giant ring and I'm posting on CDC ............... for now

If it becomes a rallying point, I'd agree. I'm just not so sure it will be. I don't think this was the right way to do it, in fact I think they could have done it and still won the game and that would have been even more of a rallying point.

One more point, and again you guys might disagree but that's why they have these message boards in the first place. Did anybody else notice that with all of the tough stuff happening tonight the names like Santorelli, Higgins, Hansen and Kesler (minus the fight) seemed to come up a lot less? Now, in order to win games both in the regular season AND playoffs, I believe you have to score more goals than the other team. Typically (and correct me if I'm wrong here CDC) the names of Santorelli/Higgins/Hansen have been relied on to score more goals than the names of Weise/Sestito/Kassian. If you guys are satisfied with a style of play night in and night out that makes Weise/Sestito/Kassian the major players and makes the secondary scoring players like Hansen/Santorelli/Higgins irrelevant, then again I'm not sure how well you expect this team to do.

Seriously, wanna date me?

What do you suggest he get something for?

Ha, that just reminded me how throughout the game I kept thinking "Hey, Willie Mitchell is a left-handed shot. Maybe he should've made Team Canada."

I'm perfectly OK with people thinking I'm in the wrong here. You guys can have your opinion and think this was a moral victory, that's OK. If the Canucks turn around and win 8 of their next 10 and go on to win a couple playoff series with some toughness and grit I'll gladly eat my words. If they miss the playoffs by 1 or 2 points though I'm TOTALLY bringing this game up in April.

There's a happy medium in there somewhere. They just have to be smarter about it is all I'm saying. Clean hits or fights that don't put your team shorthanded are good examples of this stuff.

OK try to get this: The Canucks have now shown that if you run their goalie and their captain they will come back with slew-foots, one-sided fights and dumb interference calls. They have shown they will "push back" and put themselves in the box. Gee, good thing special teams aren't usually much of a factor in the playoffs hey? Oh also, not sure if anybody wants to go back and look at the two losing playoff series they had against Chicago and remind us all how well that went when they "pushed back" against the Hawks. Also, I am a little bit pleased. In fact I was very pleased with the Kesler fight. I was a little pleased with Bieksa vs Quick and Greene.

Completely unrelated but I don't post on here much anymore so I have to show my love for Eddie Lack. The Kings didn't have a lot of shots but a number of them were good chances. I really hope they don't let another great goaltender slip out of their hands.

We don't know what they were saying. For all we know Sestito may have said "Hey's let's fight." Nolan replies with "No I'm not gonna fight you dude" and Sestito figures he'll do it anyways. What could possibly happen if he's the only one who drops his gloves and throws punches right? If they want to stand up to Brown and the Kings that's great, there is just such a smarter way to do it. Kesler for example. Even Bieksa getting in Quick's grill I was alright with. The rest of it was just the worst way to try to prove the point you're a tough team that can win games.

Exactly, and while I've been knocking this team quite a bit for the game they played tonight despite the rest of the people in here praising it I do have to say Kesler did a FANTASTIC job of this at the start of the second. He beat the guy in a fight, both sat for an even 5 minutes and that should've been it.

The other thing people seem to be forgetting is how differently this game could have gone if they hadn't reacted. Yea Nolan took a run at Henrik. What else is new? In one of Kerry Frasers tsn.ca columns he wrote that you can't call a penalty if he misses the guy on a hit, intent or not. He was trying to lay a solid hit and he missed, why are you guys demanding a penalty? On, and you know which captain teams don't generally run right off the hop until he starts it himself? Dustin Brown. It's true the Brown goal didn't come until the 3rd period, but as a fan I have to wonder if the Canucks would've won this game had they not spent the first 11 minutes of it shorthanded.

Why do you figure they came together? Sestito, Kassian and Weise showed uncontrolled emotion in this game and hurt their team in the process. Please tell me how these can be called moral victories and "coming together as a team": 1)Kassian knocking Brown to his butt 9 seconds in and taking a penalty (oooh you sure showed him) 2)Sestito putting his team shorthanded on the ice for 7 minutes and on the bench for the rest of the game. If he had let up after the first couple shoves/punches he would've gotten off so much easier. Oh and Nolan goes back to the bench barely breaking a sweat and without a scar on his face. 3)Daniel and Henrik both taking senseless penalties (although that's a pretty regular occurrence). 4)After being VERY lucky to get away with what he did to Doughty, Weise skates the extra 5 feet to get into Quick's grill (which Bieksa had already done earlier) to put his team shorthanded with 10 minutes to go when they are down a goal. Oh and who got the game winning goal by the way, just wondering? EDIT: Also I've played team sports and hockey my whole life. I still play in fact. I can tell you one thing, when you win a game like this I won't deny that it can bring a team together. Make no mistake though regardless of what these guys say in the scrums afterwards, the Canucks went into that dressing room deflated and pissed off all at the same time.

They took a whackload of penalty minutes and lost the game. Anybody who says this was a good game for the Canucks in any way (other than MAYBE the Kesler fight) has no idea what they're talking about when it comes to hockey.