getHIGGYwithit

Columbus Vs. Vancouver. A seemingly easy game. The roles would seem to be clear when a 3rd place team plays a last place team. There should be a good team, and a bad team. There should be a visible difference in playing standards when the contestants are separated by 26 teams in the league standings. But we knew better than that. None of us bought into that ‘it’s a sure bet’ hype. Being born and raised Canucks fans we were prepared for disaster. Our organization brought us up this way. We do not get suckered into believing what ‘should’ be or what makes ‘sense’. We know all of those crazy ideals are just mumbo jumbo. We were ready for anything, and so we should have been. For it was March 17th, a day filled with green beverages, drunken mistakes, and crazy luck! Many teams in the league cashed in on the ‘luck o’ the Irish’: Colorado beat Lundqvist and his Rangers, the Leafs almost got a shut out against the Sens, and worst of all the Bruins won a game. *shiver* it’s just creepy. The game between Vancouver and Columbus was mediocre at best. Somehow, the Jackets were battling harder than us to get the puck, but they still managed to make our lack luster ‘current team’ look good. The best example of this has to be the coast to coast goal by Edler. He literally skated down the ice like royalty. The Jackets politely moved to the sides of the rink to bow down to him as he went five hole on their stranded goalie. While the Jackets commenced an epic stare down on the ice trying to find one person to place blame, Nash was busy on the sidelines doodling in his sketch book trying to decide which city made his name look pretty… Captain. Detroit Nash…. Captain. NY Nash. While the Canucks did not play to the best of their abilities, there were significant improvements in their play. The biggest improvement came from the first line. Mason Raymond: While anyone listening to the game on the radio may have thought Mason had his usually clumsy, constantly falling down regular game, they would have actually been wrong this game. Due to the Jackets goalies last name being Mason, and the incredible boring, monotone announcing that was CBC, whenever the goalie went down to stop a puck, listeners could have easily confused the Mason in net with our speedy little winger. Maybe Mayray made a sudden recovery from his back injury, realized that he was skating with the Sedin twins, or simply got bit by a magical hockey spider, but anyway you see it, the guy wasn’t half bad. While he did take a few spills, Mason stood his ground with a new found confidence. He put himself in the right spots to receive passes from the Sedins, developed various chances on net, and was truly a good addition to the line. One thing that has never been lacking from Mason Raymond’s play is his never give up attitude. He has proved it various times throughout his career, especially when returning this year after a serious back injury he acquired in the final series of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Raymond’s puck battle in the third period to keep the puck in the attacking zone was purely a treat to watch. Raymond skated circles around the opposing team, entrancing them into a hypnotized state. Eyewitness reports say that the Jackets continued to look confused on the ice for several seconds after their encounter with Mayray. They reportedly were quick to leave the ice after complaining of hearing Kelly Clarkson songs humming on repeat in their ears. The Sedins: After a 10 game scoring drought Daniel Sedin finally brought back some life to the 1st line. Whether or not his success was due to the color of his beard, or true talent is not yet determined. Over all, the Sedins had a fairly good game but the real story that emerges here is this: now that the Sedins are back on the scoreboard: who should AV pick Mason or Burr. Battle of the bromance. Some may argue that since Mayray had a better game with the Sedins, that he deserves the right to stay and see what chemistry could develop. Others would say that Burrows is still a way better player than Mason, and has unmistakable chemistry with the twins. But once again we all know that what ‘should’ happen won’t, so I vote we don’t make any concrete decision here. We’ll leave it up to AV to decide. (plus that way: no matter what he chooses we can complain and not be called hypocrites) WHOS THE EVIL GENIUS NOW AV? Huh? Huh? The Amex Line: Strong as always. Kesler is still in love with his wrist shot, Booth still loves snuggling up to goalies, and Higgins still experiences equipment malfunctions that always require him to lift his shirt up- but as he says no one really minds. The Third Line: We saw less of the fearless Honey Badger this game, but this line was still strong all the same. The Fourth Line: Zack Kassian had an excellent scoring chance on a break away pass. Unfortunately for Zack he forgot what a glove looked like, and only realized that he wasn’t looking at a net after he had gently handed the puck to Mason. Kassian was so embarrassed by his mistake that he disappeared into the abyss for the remainder of the game. Insiders have told us that they heard lingering whistle-y sobs from the locker room. Using our deductive powers, we believe it could only be our 6'4 Kassian. A man who was brought in to add intimidating force to the 4th line. Schneider: It turns out every red head found a way to get on the scoreboard today. Schneider’s assist on Edler's goal was extremely lucky, but than again as were most of his saves. While I am quite aware that goalies must leave their net to play the puck, I have to wonder if they can make a special rule that people named Cory Schneider aren’t allowed to. You have to be a complete idiot to say that Schneids is any good at puck handling. He makes Luongo look like a Sedin in comparison. I think we should all be kind of thankful that Schneider won, yet didn’t have a spectacular game. We can still maintain our love for Luo, and have our insurance in Schneider. Best of both worlds. So now it’s road trip time. We’ll be making stops in Minnesota, Chicago, Dallas, and Colorado. Chicago should be a great game, which will hopefully fire us up. Nothing like a Conference rivalry to get you out of a slump! It’ll also be interesting to see what happens in Dallas. We seem to be having problems against the Stars, so seeing a win would be great for our confidence. In my mind, we will win this road trip if we see Bieksa do a Fiddler impression. Then off to Colorado for some Landeskoging. LETS DO THIS GUYS!

haha you're right, nice catch! had to look that up to check, damn that boy is sucking. I call conspiracy -__-

We've all heard it before. AV is a coaching genius. AV got us to the Stanley Cup Finals. AV has made the Vancouver Canucks the best team the organization has ever been able to produce. When we were winning this mentality was all fine and dandy. We bowed down to our mobster look a like coach, and bragged about his sass. We giggled with him, shook our heads in disgust with him, and stood behind him as he smirked his way into our hearts. But times have changed, and moods have soured. We were warned. The Mayans told us the world would end in 2012, and we all thought it was a joke. We thought that there was no way they could be right. But then the worst has happened. Our worst nightmare came true. The Sedin’s got off the scoring board. Fans began to wander the streets in confusion, calling out obscenities as the faint sound of "Henrik to Daniel" faded into a mere memory. Stumbling into local sports traders the fans did the unthinkable. A shipment of "Weise" "Alberts" and "Rome" jerseys found their way onto the streets of Vancouver. The city obviously losing touch of what a good hockey player looked like. And then it happened. The angry little French man in AV reared its ugly head after losing to his former team. "How could Montreal beat us?” he clamored. "They are one of the worst teams in the league!" And that is when AV went crazy. When our sassy bilingual coach went rogue. And did this: 22, 33, 21 20, 17, 7 14, 26, 36 9, 40, 32 3, 23 2, 8 5, 6 AV PROBLEM 1) You know you can make a problem list when you find Mason Raymond on your first line. As speedy as that little guy is, he is no first liner. I believe it is a requirement for 1st liner's to know how to not fall on the ice. But then again Mason Raymond's girlfriend Alex Burrows may want to argue that. Overall, the game against Phoenix didn't go horribly when looking at it offensively. The shock appeal of Raymond’s promotion had settled pregame for the crowd. The Canucks clearly knowing this would be a difficult decision for the fans to accept released the hint that Raymond would be on the 1st line the day before. Everyone was ready for the horror show that would be the first line. We all accepted that Raymond was destroying every other line, and that since the Sedin’s are currently slumping, we may as well quarantine the worst players to one line. The line did not fail to disappoint throughout the night. While MayRay did a great job of rushing the puck into the opposing teams zone, he failed to bank on any chances that were presented to him. Fans weren’t disappointed to see Raymond fall though, because they came prepared. Everyone in the crowd had brought a 40 of Captain Mo’s and were ready for the Mason Raymond drinking game. Result: An even more ineffective first line. A crowd of drunk, and sad Sedin fans. AV PROBLEM 2) Burr's Demotion. The leagues of 'Stanley Cup Finals #14' jersey's were disgusted that their dragon slayer had fallen to the third line. "Clearly AV is just jealous of his luscious eyebrows," said every (ie. no) fan. These die hard Burr supporters decided to give the demotion a chance once realizing that Jannik Hansen is actually kind of bad ass. Quickly the crowd saw that Burr & the Honey Badger have some wicked chemistry, and that together they could possibly 'win da turd'. After a quick, scrambling goal by Burrows in the first period, all but 4 burrows jerseys were content to find him on the 3rd line and away from the toxicity that is the ‘current Sedins’. As for the 4 burrows jerseys that were not content, they all happened to be poorly made fake jerseys, donned by 14 year old females looking for Chris Higgins abs, and wondering why Cody Hodgson was missing a tooth. Result: Turned out ok. We’ll let AV off this time. AV PROBLEM 3) Manny Out, Weise In. One of the most gigantic jaws problems with the unibrow 4th line was that Dale Weise was on it. As much as that one misguided girl from twitter thinks he's 'liek the coOLest canuk" he is actually really bad. Not only is his face productivity lacking in Canuck standards, but his overall ugliness bitterness over being a healthy scratch for the past 10 or so games has really made him an unattractive (oh wait no that works) unattractive choice for the team. Unfortunately we had no choice in the matter due to Manny Malhotra being out for personal reasons. Result: I had to look at Dale Weise’s face. Wasn’t the loss punishment enough? AV PROBLEM 4) Splitting up the HamJuice. Nobody could have predicted how good Ham and Juice would work together. Ham is so tender, and well rounded, while Juice is tangy and can pack a punch. However, opposites must attract because the two make a delicious very effective defensive pairing. While numbers may tell AV that the defensive pairs may be faltering, these numbers (may I say in the most proper way) are wack. Taking Hamhuis away from Bieksa, is like taking away a stroller from a baby. Who is the baby going to lean on? Who is the baby going to rely on when he goes to pinch in from the corner and has the puck stolen from him? (Ok, bad metaphor). Either way, giving Bieksa a chance to shine with Edler, made Bieksa look like (and I say this nicely) the most ridiculous excuse of a defensemen in the league. I remember at one point in the game, I begged for AV to hear me through my TV and bench Bieksa. I pleaded for Rome to replace him. That's right. I wanted Rome to be on the ice. I saw past his numerous turn overs, repetitive horrible penalties, and over all stupid plays, because I wanted Bieksa off the ice. I knew at this point somewhere far away, maybe a small farm in Ornskoldsvik Sweden, that there was a pig that just learnt to fly. Result: Bieksa having possibly the worst game of his career. Confusing Hamhuis into pinching and scoring a goal, throwing off the delicate balance that is the Hamjuice. PROBLEM 5) Cody Why you have to be so mean to him AV? Result: We’re still angry about that. Overall, the game was a bust. Our offense came out ready to kick ass and take names (especially Weise who was looking for some new LG twitter accounts to follow). What started as a 2-0 lead, fell as quickly as Mason Raymond in his signature spin-o-rama. No matter how hard the offense worked to create chances, the defense wasn’t able to stand strong and protect our net. Even though Luongo has looked extremely uncomfortable in net for the past few games, the goals cannot be blamed on him when he had no one to help him out. The amount of odd man rushes, and lack of coverage was absolutely grotesque. When pre game AV said that MAG and Tanev were the most reliable defensemen, I quite literally guffawed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the Tanman, but Hamhuis and Edler are just straight beastly. However, by the end of the game I had to agree with AV’s statement pregame. Stupid evil genius. The worst part is that in yesterdays practice the defense pairings stayed roughly the same. While I know that we are just mere fans, and that the coaching staff have experience and expertise, I must give a solid WTF. Obviously breaking up the Hamjuice was a horrible mistake… how can they not see that? MOVING ON from last game. I look forward to seeing the final line decisions for tonight’s game against Columbus. I don’t want to jinx anything here, but I think we are all on the same page when I say that we should win this game. A 92 point- 3rd place team vs. a 51 point- last place team should be a sure bet. However, given our previous losing streak, I think we all have reason to be a little worried.