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10 Games Into the Season ...


BigRedMachine

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I gotta say, the team being 4 games above .500 at the 10 game mark far exceeds my expectation from the Canucks, given the missing pieces. Even with Kes and Booth in the line up, I would have considered being 6-2-2 at this stage as a bonus.

There are some surprises (some pleasant, some not)...

(1) How long it's taking (taken?) the Sedins to find their game legs.

(2) Play of Kass, Schroeder, Raymond, Tanev, Ballard, Volpatti.

(3) Play of Lu and Schneider (take away CS's starts against the Ducks season opener and Sharks).

(4) Just how bad our PP is (function of no. 1).

(5) Just how good our PK is.

(6) The sloppiness that is Edler and Bieksa's game.

(7) The quiet efficiency of Tanev's game...he looks like a young right handed Hamhuis to me. And he certainly outplayed Justin Schultz the other night.

(8) Lack of improvement among our NW rivals. I thought for sure each of the teams in our division improved a lot, but so far, from what we have seen, this does not seem to be the case.

So, those are my observations at the 20% mark...still not really representative of what is to come this season, but things look much better than it did after game 2.

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Well I must say I am happy with the Canucks play.

The goaltending has been outstanding and I know it can't go on for ever but I hope we get at least one more playoffs with both goalies.

The top 4 D men have looked good sometimes and mediocre at others but the emergence of the shut down pairing of Tanev and Ballard has no doubt eased that burden.

I have always defended MayRay and I know bandwagoners will always couple him up in trades, but luckily the management is alot more intelligent then the "lets trade Raymond" posters. He is going to have a break out year and will be a major part of our playoff run.

Kassian looks amazing every game. Breaking into the offensive zone, reading plays and knocking out teeth, he knows his role and plays it well. Look to him as a future Assistant Captain within the next 2 years.

Schroeder is looking great, after Kesler and Boothe are back and he gets sent down to the wolves, I expect him to really teach our prospects everything he learned this year and will hopefully contribute to the advancement of all our prospects.

AV, although looking like a complete gum chewing useless moron earlier in the season, has drastically upped his game. He is rolling lines and using players much more effectively over the last week and a half. Last game vs the Wild our players looked completely prepared for the game. Something I can not recall seeing at alll in the last couple seasons, and IMO was the main reason we lost to Boston and LA. If he keeps this up, we will win the Cup for sure.

DJ Dave has improved the tunes at the games and to not be subjected to top 40 and actually hear music that pumps up the fans and the players and has really overhauled the ambience at Rogers Arena.

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10 games in and it's not what I expected missing Kesler let alone Booth.

I applaud GMMG for not making a hasty Luongo trade, and giving this team a chance to prove itself with the players we have currently.

So far this season exceeds my expectations, in all honesty IMO this would have been the season I wouldn't have minded a blowout season for a high draft pick, and maybe another high one in a Luongo trade...But I'm not gonna argue with winning!

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Alpha-numeric dude...you don't seem to get the point that we're dealing with a small sample size of games; so good or bad, it's hard to make any real assessments at this point in time. Observations, for sure, but conclusions? Not likely.

When talking about goaltending, the reference is to collective efforts of both goalies over 10 games, and not specific to Schneider. It's a lot like establishing a handicap for your golf game...you take out the extreme highs (the two shutouts) and lows (Schneider's starts vs. Ducks/Sharks), work out the average on the norm and presto, you have your handicap. You getting it now, or does it have to dumbed down some more?

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Around the 15-20 game mark will give us a better understanding of what teams will look like.. Right now it looks good, but that can change in three games with a three game losing streak... Chicago, San Jose, and Anaheim look good right now, but once they start losing two regulation games in a row, we'll see what they can do about that.

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We've been lucky. If it weren't for Luongo playing like he has, our record would look more like 3-5-2.

We have a pretty decent 2.8 GPG, however this stat is inflated because we had one blowout and another big win. 9 goals reserved for two games, and suddenly we only scored an average of 2.38 GPG in the other 8.

Our offense is hurting without Kesler and Booth. We owe huge thanks to Luongo for where we are in the standings.

I just thought I'd make this known since Roberto is seldom given credit for anything he does.

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I agree with every point made except for PK. That should be better considering the defensive specialists we have on our team, even with Kesler injured. I would also like to see the coaches telling the boys to move their sticks when plugging the lanes, NHL players are too skilled these days to worry about a stick simply laying in the passing lane. Move it around, make him guess!

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Big Red...it's been a long time since I was in grade school, but I remember 6 minus 2 equals 4. Last time I checked, OT/SO loss still gave us a point, so technically, it's a loss, but qualifies as .500 hockey which makes it a wash.

Anyways, I get what you're saying...a loss is a loss whether it's regulation or OT/SO.

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Ok. I see where you are coming from.

I was actually treating the OT/SO losses as a wash, in which case a 4-4-2 record would be .500 and 6 less 4 is 2, so I have them as two games above .500

But it's a nit picky point, I agree it's your other points, so I can just agree to disagree on this one.

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Yeah but you can`t just take games out to make the stats say something else. I`m sure every team this year has some high scoring games, thats why it is called an average. I could just take out the games we allowed the fewest goals to show the opposite argument haha. I think our scoring is doing just fine. And yes I completely agree about Luongo, He has been our best player in my opinion

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well considering Cory and Lu are both furious with management, kesler hates the city, kassian is only leading the team in goals by 1 so he is a major concern and not the big gritty RWer we need in the top six.. id say we are due to lose the next 12 straight unless Gillis is finally willing to hit the panic button and starts making trades.

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well considering Cory and Lu are both furious with management, kesler hates the city, kassian is only leading the team in goals by 1 so he is a major concern and not the big gritty RWer we need in the top six.. id say we are due to lose the next 12 straight unless Gillis is finally willing to hit the panic button and starts making trades.

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