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DownUndaCanuck

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Everything posted by DownUndaCanuck

  1. Incredible game by everyone but Game 7 back to back is going to be hard on everyone. Unfortunately it favours Vegas as they're much deeper and you know they'll have a huge 3rd period and I'm sure we'll see Fleury who knows how to come up clutch. We need to just carry this momentum right through from top to bottom. Demko needs to stay solid even though I'm sure he'll be gassed. Our defence did a brilliant job of cleaning up 2nd opportunities and you know they're going to have to block more shots, and our forwards will hopefully still be skating the way they did tonight. Petey with some brilliant play away from the puck wins this game for us too. Fatigue is the big opponent now, if we stick to our gameplan of tight defending, elite goaltending and opportunistic or PP scoring we can easily win Game 7. Just got to hope that fatigue doesn't catch up with our skaters.
  2. This has been a mad series, Game 7 is going to be huge but you just know big Mac is going to take the team on his back and score a hat trick. Avs surely win now.
  3. Hell of a game by Demko, hate to say it but Green's learned too late. If we had done as Deboer did in Game 5 and played our backup, we would have won and we'd almost be leading the series 3-2 instead of trailing. We've got a clear edge in goaltending, let's use it. You've got to think Demko starts next game but the team in front need to play miles better if we're to even the series up. Our powerplay just has to come alive again if we're going to force Game 7. I think both teams are going to be hungry in Game 6 and we'll see the best game of the series.
  4. Lack of depth and exhaustion cost this team, Green's got a lot to learn from Deboer. Should have rested Marky but our bottom 6 really need to come through in games like this. Even if we win the next one, it's back to backs again which favour the deeper teams.
  5. This back to back really broke us, smart management by Deboer resting his stars last game, we should have done the same and Marky is clearly tired. As much as we live and die with him, we've got one of the best backups and goalies just can't play back to backs or they make mistakes. That Schmidt goal should have been an easy save. Game over, going to take a miracle to get back into this series now. Green been outcoached plain and simple.
  6. Big game for sure, 3-1 is just about series over but I feel like this Canucks team has more to offer. 4-2 Canucks back into it
  7. This game is going to be interesting, I think the next Game 4 will be more pivotal of course but this is going to be much more even - both teams have shown their hand, felt each other out and made the necessary adjustments. We'll see now how Vegas will counter our latest move of mixing up our top-6 and see if they can shut them down again. Of course I just hope we stick to our gameplan and do exactly what we did in the last game. The PP needs to click a bit more - this is what we need to bust open this series. They have a top-10 PK but our faceoff edge means we start with O-zone pressure every PP which is almost an extra 20-30 seconds of quality time. Let's hope the powerplay can give us an early edge because we're much more comfortable playing with and padding a lead. I was impressed at how well we snuffed out any comeback chance in the last game against the best 3rd period team. Going to expect a much tighter game but let's hope Petey is still possessed and our top-6 continue to roll. 4-3 Canucks in OT
  8. Obviously a must win game by the Avs but their defence and backup goalie just aren't going to be good enough. This series is a fire fight and while the Avs have a better top-6, the Stars have a better defence so they're going to end up winning this.
  9. Game 3 is going to be interesting, DeBoer is going to have some new tactics to try and slow down our top two lines. The good thing is that Green can always switch up Toffoli and Boeser mid-game to surprise them. Their D just couldn't handle our top two lines and that is going to be the story of the series - our top 6 vs their top 4 D and vice versa. Obviously they shredded us in Game 1, we return the favour last night, but hopefully we can continue to win the battle and Toffoli gives us a big edge there. Unfortunately the bottom 6 of both teams is pretty much a write-off but I think these guys will factor in later in the series so hopefully guys like Virt/Motte/Beagle/Sutter can give us an edge as the checking gets tighter. Never seen a Canucks team this resilient before though from top to bottom. Shutting the door against the best 3rd period team in the league was impressive, this is a very winable series now. I think we have an edge in top-6 now, top D men and goalie. They can beat us if they grind us down 5 on 5 though so very similar to the Blues series, I think this series will be a see-saw back and forth affair. These early games are just both teams feeling each other out but now it's going to start getting interesting with all the guys into the game.
  10. Not going to lie, I didn't expect to see Pettersson a playoff warrior so early in his career but this is why JBs drafting has been so good - he doesn't just draft good players, but players who have character and are winners. Same goes for Horvat who was an OHL winner back in the day, and now JB brings in some Cup winners to flesh out the team. He knows how to build a winner and he's doing it with the Canucks. Top line absolutely blitzed Vegas, let's hope we can keep it going and let's hope they don't swap to Fleury just yet.
  11. Big game, we've got to get skating again and try and twist up their sluggish D with speed. Hoping for a big one by our PP and some nice rush goals. 3-2 Canucks.
  12. Didn't expect much tonight, hangover from an intense series going into a team in their prime who had been rested and prepared. Let's just hope we get some rest, get some planning done and come in with a bit more even compete in Game 2 or this series will slip away from us quickly. Quite frankly if we lose the next game I don't see us going 4-2 after. We can, and have, beat this team. They're rolling at the moment but we can stop them and are pretty evenly matched on paper IMO. On the ice they're a solid 4 line, 5 man unit though. We need to start skating more with the puck again to generate PPs that we can put these games away with. On ice we looked shocking but on paper tonight, apart from the goals, not too bad. They play a heavy game like St. Louis but if I remember correctly, Washington beat them by zipping through them with speed and killing them on the PP. We don't quite have Carlson, Ovi and Kuznetsov but we can try and emulate them as best possible. This team can beat this Vegas team if we try not to run and gun them 5 on 5, but get it into a special teams firefight.
  13. Surprised to see the Stars all of a sudden get this good but this is what the playoffs are all about. The Avs have been brilliant at defending all season with Grubauer and you'd expect them to win a shootout with Dallas but all of a sudden the Stars are really taking it to them. Going to be an interesting series. I think the West is now completely up for grabs.
  14. Vegas were dominant in the regular season but not too many points ahead of us and of course we split the season series. They don't have much firepower up front, are very similar to the Blues, and weren't as strong defensively. I know the Knights have been solid in the playoffs so far but matchup wise we might have an advantage again. Their regular season PP was 9th, and again are 9th in the playoffs which is pretty decent. That being said, they're pretty one dimensional on their PP so hopefully we can shutdown their shooter mentality forwards and Theodore. On the PK though they were rubbish in the regular season, bottom-10, but have picked it up a bit in the playoffs. This is where we can really strike - get our PP going again against this team. Hopefully in the second round the refs won't put away their whistles and we can break games open with an extra PP goal here and there. Goaltending wise we have a clear edge. They've been going with Lehner over Fleury and neither have been lights-out so far, but they're behind a pretty solid defensive-minded defence which will be tricky to crack. They play a solid 5 man defensive game so I think guys like Hughes will cause them headaches by moving the play around. Again like against the Blues, they have more depth than us and will probably dominate use 5-on-5 but we know how to win these games now. Minnesota arguably had a better 4th line than us but if we play to our strengths the way we have so far, we'll continue to have success. If we can beat the Blues, we can beat Vegas because they're very similar teams. I only worry about wear and tear on our team compared to the more refreshed Golden Knights. Should be an interesting and close series with lots of twists and turns but again, I'm hoping our goalie and PP can give us the edge here.
  15. Hell of a game by the Canucks from start to end and just a dominant performance in the face of adversity and lots of pressure by the Blues all season. Strong teams put away these elimination games, when you look back at Cup winners, what really decides them is how they perform in elimination games. I was worried the Blues would come out stronger but we absolutely walloped them. Fair to say I think the key to this series was goal tending as it is with most. Last year, Binnington won them the Cup basically by himself. This year, he single handedly lost it. The Blues in the post game interviews were trying to defend him but he was straight up awful and made it easy for us. Yes, some of the goals were A-grade chances, but in the post season you have to be able to stop them. If Allen had started tonight it might have been different but thankfully they played their worst player, who really sunk their team after the Boeser goal. All were straight on shots, made it easy for the Canucks. This was a hard team to beat otherwise, they dominated us most of the time 5 on 5 but our special teams and goalie stole the show and hopefully they can do a number in Vegas. Tonight in particular full marks for our neutral zone play and forecheck which caused chaos and lead directly to goals. I think beating the West's best team is nice but the Blues were struggling at the start. They did eventually arrive and gave us their all and we did bend, but our bounce back was impressive and something I don't think we even saw in 2011. This team's resilience is impressive. Give credit to the coaches, Markstrom and our leaders and veterans on this. While this game was a cake walk, Game 5 down 3-1 was a massive turning point. Whatever was said in that dressing room worked. Going forward, when the Canucks find themselves in trouble against Vegas, they can always look back to the turning points in this series where they literally out-played the best post-season team in the league. Harsh they don't get long to celebrate or much of a break but this is a good confidence boost and momentum to ride off for everyone tonight. In particular I think that Boeser goal really fired him up.
  16. Dodged a big Bullet with Edler, now to see what's the deal with Myers and Toffoli. Even having one of them back for the next game gives us a massive advantage. Hope we don't need a Game 7 but if we do, that's a big time for Toff to shine.
  17. I'd start thinking we should just put Motte out there to check ROR, he's basically our best shutdown forward at the moment. Love Horvat but defensively ROR has the better of him whereas for whatever reason, the smaller Motte just has a step on everyone. His stick-work is getting better and better. Got to think back to guys like Chris Higgins and even Hansen who were massive in the playoffs but comparatively, Motte's been even better. I said it before and I'll say it again, play Motte in our top-6 in a checking/defensive role with Horvat and Pearson and see what happens. Motte can battle in the corners to win puck battles for the other two. Leave the top line skilled, the 2nd line as a grinding scoring line.
  18. Hell of a game, this just shows that we have the character and ability to ramp it up a notch. We battled through a lot of adversity in this game so credit to everyone, especially Green and our leadership team. Top line were buzzing tonight, made some great plays throughout. Certainly could have and should have been better, they need to fix the PP as soon as possible, because we should have iced the game with that last one but completely flubbed it. Also JT really should have hit that empty net. Regardless, good game by everyone and especially Boeser who was throwing his body around and winning puck battles everywhere. That's what you need from everyone and we finally saw it tonight - proper playoff hockey. Our 2nd line looked solid, much stronger when Motte was out there, and even Virtanen had some great shifts. This was the best game by our bottom-6 collectively in a long time. Obviously Motte was our best player, he's been IMO the best skater for the Canucks all post-season consistently. Yes our scorers have been good but they've been in and out, whereas Motte has constantly provided great hitting, pressure, defence and now he's finding his scoring touch. Keep him in our top-6, the man is deadly offensively and can shutdown ROR defensively. Speaking of defence, I do hope it's nothing major for Edler, just looked like a cut but who knows. Losing your best defenceman was scary in the 3rd but I have to say, Benn and Fantenberg defended brilliantly. I was happy when JB got the pair of them because they're tough, strong, playoff defencemen. They battled hard down below the red line the way poor Hughes just can't and they won puck battles and even got it out of our zone calmly as opposed to panicking which we've seen plenty of. These guys are warriors and the Blues are perfect opponents for them. Let's just hope we have Edler, Myers or ideally both back for the next game because a whole game without 24 minutes of Edler is going to wear us down. No need to mention Marky, he was once again our best player, dragging this team through this postseason. Next game's going to be interesting to see which Canucks and which Blues team comes out to play. They are going to be motivated with their backs against the walls and I don't know if we can match that intensity so we just have to hope Marky steals us 3/4 of a game and our special teams wins the rest of it. Elimination games are different, the Blues have lots of experience in them but let's hope Green and the leadership team can motivate our guys the way they did today to get them to out-battle and come out on top of the Blues. This series looks so evely matched, it easily could be the only 7 game series, but let's hope they have some rest and come out hard to just win it next game.
  19. I'm interested to see what the Canucks will be like in some must-win games coming up. Sure, the last 2 weren't really essential. The Minny last game was huge and we rose to the occasion. Game 5 coming up is almost like a mini Game 7 so will be interesting to see who rises to the occasion. I do worry these kids are getting battered physically. It's a good gameplan in a long series and quite frankly we haven't hit hard at all, leaving the Blues fresh. No one's hit ROR or any of their top forwards for that matter. I think Fantenberg's the only guy I can remember going out there delivering proper punishing hits whereas the Blues have these guys throughout their lineup. We need our guys hitting. Whether it be a gameplan or player thing, I'm surprised not to see Miller, Bo, Pearson and all of our bottom 6 guys finishing all their checks. I understand it doesn't fit in with our fast forecheck and skill play but if you don't throw the body you're not going to outlast these teams, not in a 7 game series and certainly not through 20+ games. Green's got to learn that's a big difference. We've got the skill play, the goaltending and the PP, but we lack the physicality (whilst I'm sure the players have it in them) and the Blues are giving us a first hand lesson on how to do it. Sad because this is how Boston won the Cup and we're not learning from it - we came out strong in that series too but they grinded our skill players down.
  20. This is what playoff hockey is really all about - momentum swings and changes throughout a series. Berube did a good job swapping a few bottom players and it paid off, but mainly stuck to their game plan. Now Green has to do the same. We don't need any big changes necessarily, just have to mix up our pathetic bottom-6 because they need to contribute. If I were Green I'd probably try this for Game 5: Pettersson - Miller - Pearson Boeser - Horvat - Motte Eriksson - Sutter - Gaudette Zac - Beagle - Virtanen/Roussel More than anything else though, Green and the leadership team need to fire the boys up again. We're playing slow and sluggish compared to the hungrier Blues. We need to play the way we did against Minnesota - for some reason we were more fired up to play and beat them than we have been the last couple of games. These series are all about momentum, we had it for the first two games, now ROR has taken it back and the Blues know how to run with it. It's going to be hard to stop it but we've got the weapons in Marky and the PP. Let's just hope tonight was a back-to-back let off and after a day's rest we're back to our energetic selves. I know there's a weird stat out there somewhere that whoever wins Game 5 usually loses the series but it's a massive game for us, we can't get into a losing streak here, have to win this one to stop the Blues momentum and get back on track.
  21. Now we see what Green is really worth. The Blues matched us, they were rubbish in Game 1, better in Game 2 and by far the better team tonight with a couple of little tweaks. I think we need to do the same now, Green's got to try something new. We're getting slaughtered 5-on-5 and now there's less PPs, we're getting exposed. Top-6 have been decent, Loui was pretty average tonight and I really think Motte with Horvat would work (but will never happen), and Virtanen is never getting a top-6 look now. I think Gaudette would really bring some energy into this team at the expense of say Virtanen or Roussel who's been terrible quite frankly. Defence was surprisingly solid, Stecher just played far too much. I'd play Fantenberg in our top-4 because he's been brilliant defensively, so get the minutes around: Edler, Tanev and Hughes all around 22-23 Fantenberg - 18 Benn - 17 Stecher - 16
  22. Rough game, we just got outworked in the last period and OT, Blues were hungrier. Green needs to get his guys angry and amped for a big Game 4 which may well decide the series. 2-2 and the Blues have all the momentum but 3-1 is hard to come back from. Will be interesting to see when Demko gets a start because 3 games in a row is tough for even Marky. I'd play Demko tomorrow then back to Markstrom for what will either be the clincher of massive Game 5. Going forward we need more of a net presence to beat Allen, we got lucky against a bad Binnington but need to play Allen the way we did Stalock who was pretty strong.
  23. As much as everyone loves Hughes and loves to ignore his mistakes, that one was all on him, should have known no one was covering, Canucks were changing, worst time for a D man to rush up the ice 1 on 3 for no reason. Left Stecher out to dry.
  24. Teams are being even more cautious than before about injuries, it used to be an upper or lower body injury but now they're just fit or not to play. Looking at Myers I thought he was more clutching his head, worried about concussion protocol which, to be fair, might not be too bad if he didn't really have one. A shoulder injury would be hard to come back from so quickly. Let's hope he's only out a game or so because there's a big trickle down effect without his hard 20 minutes - Tanev and Edler are going to get leaned on hard and they'll start making more mistakes (ala 2011 playoffs) when they're over-worked. This is where we need Benn to slot in and play 20 minutes out of nowhere.
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