Playoffs, 2 Thoughts.....

[nuck luck]

- Giving up short-handed goals....no excuses, not scoring on the PP....no difference.

As soon as our PP returns and we score goals on a constant basis, you can bet that the Canucks won't get any more opportunities to use it again, the referees will not let the Canucks hone their skills and use the PP to their advantage. It happened to us early last year and again, early this year....

As soon as our PP becomes a dominant part of the game, the refs stop calling penalties for us. They will do this until it's evident that our PP is rendered useless and then, they will give us PP opportunities again. We need to learn how to win games without the PP....just don't give up short-handed goals!

- AV is a good coach, I like that he used the regular season to look at potential pairings before the playoffs began... But, I think he gets a little carried away with the confidence and makes some judgment errors.

I ALWAYS preferred a dominant Amex line over the PHD line... after AV knew that he had a great checking line with Higgy, why didn't he put the Amex line back together earlier to get acclimated with each other? I think that Lappy would have done the same job on the 3rd and even Raymond played pretty good last night... and he knows that he has the option of putting Higgy there if needed.

AV would be in a better situation, now, if he started playing playoff lines about 2 weeks before the playoffs, let the guys gel and get their scoring touch and head into the playoffs with confidence.

He loves the checking-3rd line (PHD) so much that he overlooked the 2nd line (Amex)... it feels like it's been half a season since I've seen this line, how can we expect them to dominate games at the flick of a switch? It took them a couple weeks before they dominated games (at the beginning of the year)...we don't have that option anymore.

[Smashian Kassian]

The way our Powerplay is going, I would worry morew about not letting in Shorthanded goals than scoring.

In all Honesty I just want the refs to put there whistles away the rest of the Series, its clear Newell brown is not willing to make any chances to our Powerplay Strategy and the Kings know exactly what were gunna do so they just pressure the half boards and the point and take the Puck away Easily.

[Go Faulk Yourself]

Our powerplay is too predictable, Edler's drop pass is a given, it's his go-to move now and I think every team knows that. When that doesn't work, the opposition clogs up the neutral zone and we dump and chase. As the above poster said, we play the half boards, and it usually ends up at the point blocked as they're ready for the shot, or we lose the puck in all.

As for the ref's taking away our powerplay if it starts striking, I think that's absurd. I think the San Jose series last year is a good example of our powerplay dominance, while we kept getting the calls when fair. This year the ref's just haven't called that much until all of the sudden now (Postseason).

[topbananas]

2 new and insightful thoughts, thanks

[Bodee]

I think most fail to realise, this has little to do with the refs.

In my opinion we are not at the races without Danny and even with Danny we have not played well. We have stolen many games this season mainly because we have 2 outstanding net minders and a great set of sub elite players who made up the difference.

That, does not win you a Stanley Cup, especially if our special teams are faltering.........and why wouldn't they be, they are made up of the same elite core of forwards, in the main, who are not producing enough 5 on 5.

Not only does it not win a SC, as we are seeing it makes it even difficult to progress at all.

We shouldn't be blaming the team or the coach however as no one can predict form. Unfortunately due to our size, we are not able to produce a plan B like Boston or the Rangers or some of the other teams we have seen "take their hammers out of the cupboard"

I think the best thing now is to give even more support (did anyone watch the Rangers game) and pray that with the return (hopefully) of Danny and the impressive first game display by Ballard others will finally turn the corner.

Regrets.

I do have regrets. However I will not stop supporting the players who are given the jerseys. They are personal regrets and are only based on gut feelings as I would not deem to know better than the decision makers and coaches at the club. They are not hindsight as most of it, you will find in my posts, early season.

1, Going back I would not have signed Booth. He was not what the team needed for that line (these are just my opinions) We needed someone who had size grit and could hold the puck up and make plays. Someone who was strong defensively and could also have enough attitude that he could be shunted occasionally up to the top line to protect the twins. Owen Nolan was thought to be the type we needed but as we all know that didn't work out.

My main problem with Booth is that when his "one trick," going to the net doesn't work, which as we are seeing, because he is so predictable, is more and more often, he doesn't offer much else. I would have kept Sammy who in retrospect was performing no worse than any of our other forwards and would have given us more cap when it mattered.

2, I'm not sure that CoHo could have coped in the ultra physical environment that is these playoffs. However I do regret that we lost Sulzer in the deal. We never really gave him a chance and I admired his cool effectiveness. MAG will be good for us but like Kass you could not seriously see him coping with the red hot competitiveness of these playoffs. I really think we got the timing of this wrong and we got our priorities confused.

Coho if we are to believe the feedback was for Pahlsson ...........and yet I thought Reinprecht was supposed to have the same qualities. Coho, if we were to part with him should have been in exchange for a "physical player" who could have played the in the 3rd line or a big dominating defender. We would have had decent space if we had kept Sammy.

Lastly, we experimented too long. The last 10-15 games should have been our SC team. Everyone knows (I think) that Hamhuis goes with Bieksa, Edler with Salo, Ballard with Tanev/Sulzer,Alberts,/Rome. We should then have given our big minute players rest/maintenance days during these 15 games and brought in the peripheral players to give them some game time.

All of this is immaterial now and many reading it will still think hindsight is all very well. As I say read my early season posts. I wasn't the only one. Does this ring a bell?............because it was a recurring theme from pre season.

"WE NEED A BIG GRITTY POINTS SCORING TOP 6 WHO WILL DROP THE GLOVES WHEN REQUIRED AND A BIG IMPOSING CLEAR OUT THE TRASH D"...............sadly we got neither.

PS I don't think we are out of it yet and I still think we can win this round. The players we have are too good to fall to LA imo.

[themonicator]

People will say that the regular season means squat but the process of getting to the playoffs is important. They were coasting for most of the season and our goalies had to steal games. Scoring and PP woes were not addressed and it's costing the team right now.

[WeDreamOfStanley]

The worst thing about our PP right now is the fact it is killing any momentum we get, killing our confidence, and doing the exact opposite for LA by feeding them momentum and making their heads swell.