Canucks not the cleanest team.

[lmm]

Hey Phil

No

the truth hurt, eh

Different Coach, check, Different 3-4 liners, Same core Sedins are older and les effective, D I still too small to play with the big boys,

what is their record against Cali this year again?

Lived in Edmonton during Gretzky's last cup, was still a Canucks fan then, so I'd rather not, thanks

and for the record, I really enjoyed last nights game, I just Don't think it proved a thing.

Cheers L

[Absent Canuck]

Hey Phil

No

the truth hurt, eh

Different Coach, check, Different 3-4 liners, Same core Sedins are older and les effective, D I still too small to play with the big boys,

what is their record against Cali this year again?

Lived in Edmonton during Gretzky's last cup, was still a Canucks fan then, so I'd rather not, thanks

and for the record, I really enjoyed last nights game, I just Don't think it proved a thing.

Cheers L

I disagree. You dont seem to add much to the conversation.

[5nothincanucksohno]

Read this article today and something seemed a little off.

http://flip.it/dn2Am

Oops. Sorry about this one.

http://www.avsforum....ood-or-bad-idea

Funny how subjective this stuff is...he calls the canucks cheap etc and then goes on to describe Brown as a tough player known for his hitting. Most people out of LA would describe Brown as a dirty hitter who hits and runs.

Home team bias is what makes it all so fun.

[TOMapleLaughs]

The Canucks were recently voted the softest team in the league by the HFBoards braintrust.

Now they're one of the dirtiest.

Um, sweet?

[touchable]

You can't even spell ouch correctly. Come back when you've passed rudimentary English, lmm.

"Ouch" is onomatopoeia anyways... does it really matter how you spell it? Maybe he also pronounces it like that when he says it out loud.

[Linden53]

Hey Phil

No

the truth hurt, eh

Different Coach, check, Different 3-4 liners, Same core Sedins are older and les effective, D I still too small to play with the big boys,

what is their record against Cali this year again?

Lived in Edmonton during Gretzky's last cup, was still a Canucks fan then, so I'd rather not, thanks

and for the record, I really enjoyed last nights game, I just Don't think it proved a thing.

Cheers L

I would disagree with you a little here, the LA game did prove one thing, that this version of the Canucks will stand up for one another when they feel they were cheated. Yes they lost, but that game was more about sending a message, you run Bobby Lu, you will pay for it physically. That's been missing from this team. Time will tell if it has any effect or not, but with Torts behind the bench you can bet that he will have the right people in the lineup against teams that traditionally take liberties in the crease. I look at the "non scoring" issue this way, for the most part they Canucks have been generating a ton of chances. That's an excellent sign. System and players are working together and sooner or later it will all come together and the puck will go in. I personally would rather see that occur in the playoffs than in the regular season. Bottom line is this now becoming a real team with a real team concept. I have no idea whether it will translate to playoff success or not, but I do know I would rather see them defend one another and battle hard block shots, play defence and prepare themselves for a playoff war during the regular season than win president's trophys and play a style that in recent years has been proven to fail come playoff time.

[PONCHE]

Vancouver has never been known as the cleanest team. Recent cast members who might be counted as being on the edge many nights have included Zack Kassian, Tom Sestito, and Mason Raymond

[lmm]

Lets forget about the 3rd period and concentrate on the first 2.

This team is not built tough I it is built soft with some tough players mixed into the bottom 6.

They almost got away with one against a low scoring, PP inept team in LA

Tonight's game shows that it is not a style that they can play on a regular basis.

They did not play tough nor did thy play well, but they fought and took penalties.

[thema]

Lets forget about the 3rd period and concentrate on the first 2.

This team is not built tough I it is built soft with some tough players mixed into the bottom 6.

They almost got away with one against a low scoring, PP inept team in LA

Tonight's game shows that it is not a style that they can play on a regular basis.

They did not play tough nor did thy play well, but they fought and took penalties.

I consider it a "fight" only if there are actually two combatants squaring off after removing their gloves. Tom Sestioto apparently didn't get the memo on this despite being the Canucks' :fighter" (who never seems to win a fight; maybe that's why he passed through the entire NHL on waivers before he landed here) .The Canucks don't fight per se, they mug. And it isn't playing "tough" when your Dutch league all star is running around slew footing star players, it's being a gutless punk. Also it is still a penalty to slash a guy on the wrist hard even if you are two men down for gooning it up.

Agree with you about LA; no PP to speak of. Of course with Lou in net tonight we would have won, right?

[Sypher009]

[-sCi CoRe-]

I can do you one better.

[DownUndaCanuck]

To be honest the only dirty plays we've made was the Sestito rag-dolling Nolan (not a hockey play, you can't just fight an unwilling combattant so he deserved a 5 minute major for that). Today's scrap was deserving of a 2 minute roughing or major at the most. I have no idea how Hansen gets 7 minutes when it was their defenceman who came in from the blueline and grabbed Hansen from behind to start the fight.

Refs are trying to make a point and stop the Canucks from getting out of hand, but these penalties don't matter to the game so I hope Torts doesn't look into them and calm his team down. We need to play with this edge. These penalties weren't the reason we lost the game.

[lmm]

Thema, I have no quote function.

I don't really get you Luongo statement, he can let in goals off Dtips as good as anyone.

But otherwise I mostly agree with you.

I didn't mind Sestito taking out Nolan after the run at Hank

I did not see any reason for the Sestito/Jackman fight with 1 second to go in the second and that was clearly Sestitio's instigation.

The double 7s in the 3rd was the worst case of reffing I have ever seen and the league is lucky that injuries did not occur as a result.

The refs were lucky they managed to get rid of every tough player in the Canuck's line up or it could have gotten uglier,

but that did show exactly what I think we are agreeing on, and that is once you get past Sestito, Kassian and Bieksa the Canucks are not tough and should not pretend to be.

I have seen it before, when the Canucks try to play tough they lose focus and play like they did last night

That is why I do not believe Monday's game against LA was any kind of "statement" game

I think they proved the point I was trying to make to Phil Blunt, but he chose to go all "spelling Nazi"

[thema]

Good post lmm. What nobody here seems to realise is that, once the Anaheim game was out of hand the Canucks went into full on goon mode and I will bet money that Devorski's main worry was another Bertuzzi/Moore incident or something like it. I agree that Hansen shouldn't have got the book thrown at him but if I'm a ref and Sestito is doing nothing but starting fights by mugging guys before they are ready to fight then I'm kicking him out of the game. Canucks are lucky that Weise didn't get a suspension for his two slew foots (slew feet?) and now it seems that he is history with this team (I hear there is a future for him as a superstar in the Dutch league).

The whole "statement" game idea is laughable because the statement that we made was that we can be totally derailed by events that happened in the past, which is nothing new of course as the Naslund/Moore situation amply demonstrated. This is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. If I'm a rival team the first thing I'm going to do is run at the Canucks goalie (especially if it is Lou) and then go out and target the Sedins with heavy checks. The Canucks will then lose their minds with revenge and forget why they are there; to WIN THE GAME! Moral victory my eye; a couple more "moral" victories where we mug other players and slew foot every star on the opposition will only see us collect suspensions and, as a further bonus, our rep around the league as a bunch of sniveling whiners will only be reinforced (they tried to hit our captain, waaaaah! they crashed the crease when they scored on us waaaah!). Meanwhile on the one goal we have scored in the last three games the goal scorer managed to knee the opposition goalie in the head while scoring. What did the opposition team do? Scored a bucketful more goals against us, that's what. What did the goalie do? Got back up and resumed playing, something Lou would NEVER do. He would writhe around like a harpooned walrus and pretend to be grievously injured hoping to draw a penalty or at least to get a bit of a timeout for his team. Did anybody see Willie Mitchell's reaction to Kassian trying to intimidate him? Now THAT'S a guy who would make a good captain for us. Too late, he got screwed here so he went elsewhere and won a Cup with the loathsome Kings. Biggest mistake of GMMG's tenure so far sez I. This team is marooned in a total fog. As Orval Tessier once said about his Blackhawks: "this team needs a heart transplant".

[Chalky]

Good post lmm. What nobody here seems to realise is that, once the Anaheim game was out of hand the Canucks went into full on goon mode and I will bet money that Devorski's main worry was another Bertuzzi/Moore incident or something like it. I agree that Hansen shouldn't have got the book thrown at him but if I'm a ref and Sestito is doing nothing but starting fights by mugging guys before they are ready to fight then I'm kicking him out of the game. Canucks are lucky that Weise didn't get a suspension for his two slew foots (slew feet?) and now it seems that he is history with this team (I hear there is a future for him as a superstar in the Dutch league).

The whole "statement" game idea is laughable because the statement that we made was that we can be totally derailed by events that happened in the past, which is nothing new of course as the Naslund/Moore situation amply demonstrated. This is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. If I'm a rival team the first thing I'm going to do is run at the Canucks goalie (especially if it is Lou) and then go out and target the Sedins with heavy checks. The Canucks will then lose their minds with revenge and forget why they are there; to WIN THE GAME! Moral victory my eye; a couple more "moral" victories where we mug other players and slew foot every star on the opposition will only see us collect suspensions and, as a further bonus, our rep around the league as a bunch of sniveling whiners will only be reinforced (they tried to hit our captain, waaaaah! they crashed the crease when they scored on us waaaah!). Meanwhile on the one goal we have scored in the last three games the goal scorer managed to knee the opposition goalie in the head while scoring. What did the opposition team do? Scored a bucketful more goals against us, that's what. What did the goalie do? Got back up and resumed playing, something Lou would NEVER do. He would writhe around like a harpooned walrus and pretend to be grievously injured hoping to draw a penalty or at least to get a bit of a timeout for his team. Did anybody see Willie Mitchell's reaction to Kassian trying to intimidate him? Now THAT'S a guy who would make a good captain for us. Too late, he got screwed here so he went elsewhere and won a Cup with the loathsome Kings. Biggest mistake of GMMG's tenure so far sez I. This team is marooned in a total fog. As Orval Tessier once said about his Blackhawks: "this team needs a heart transplant".

That was not goon mode. They could have made a mockery of the game and gone goon, but in reality they did not. I would never call the Canucks one of the cleanest teams, nor would I call Anaheim a dirty team, but I would say Devorski was frustrated and made it personal. The refs should be impartial and we should never see them mouth unprofessional words at either bench. The Canucks were clearly outmatched and as a team they are lucky they kept the goonery down and didn't whine about the reffing after, because the loss had nothing to do with reffing.

[thema]

Look, I have absolutely no problem with the Canucks attempting to play tough but playing tough means taking on WILLING opponents in fights and laying the body on them hard. Sucker punching guys during the faceoff and slewfooting the other team's star players isn't playing tough, just like Bert punking Moore wasn't playing tough. Devorski's comment about Kassian stemmed from the fact that Kassian had absolutely no interest in playing hockey and was running around non stop trying to start fights etc. When Devo told him to cut it out he told Devo off; when Devo told him to shut it he continued beaking off at the ref, hence the second 10 minute misconduct. For me the telling moment was when Kass tried to take on Willie Mitchell and , when Willie stood up to him he backed down fast. Epic fail for Kassian.

The annoying part about all this is that the Canucks are developing a list of bogeymen that gets longer almost by the day. Just this week we have had Dustin Brown as our pet bogeyman and, two games later, we have Martin Hanzal (anybody know if any of his victims will actually miss any games due to his play). There is a growing list of refs that Canucks nation thinks is out to get their heroes. As these lists get longer and longer so do the number of outside distractions that cause the team to lose focus. I'll say it again: We should be the team that other teams are complaining about; instead we are complaining about just about every ref that works our games and every team has a guy that we just have to "get". Be proactive, not reactive!

[Chalky]

Look, I have absolutely no problem with the Canucks attempting to play tough but playing tough means taking on WILLING opponents in fights and laying the body on them hard. Sucker punching guys during the faceoff and slewfooting the other team's star players isn't playing tough, just like Bert punking Moore wasn't playing tough. Devorski's comment about Kassian stemmed from the fact that Kassian had absolutely no interest in playing hockey and was running around non stop trying to start fights etc. When Devo told him to cut it out he told Devo off; when Devo told him to shut it he continued beaking off at the ref, hence the second 10 minute misconduct. For me the telling moment was when Kass tried to take on Willie Mitchell and , when Willie stood up to him he backed down fast. Epic fail for Kassian.

The annoying part about all this is that the Canucks are developing a list of bogeymen that gets longer almost by the day. Just this week we have had Dustin Brown as our pet bogeyman and, two games later, we have Martin Hanzal (anybody know if any of his victims will actually miss any games due to his play). There is a growing list of refs that Canucks nation thinks is out to get their heroes. As these lists get longer and longer so do the number of outside distractions that cause the team to lose focus. I'll say it again: We should be the team that other teams are complaining about; instead we are complaining about just about every ref that works our games and every team has a guy that we just have to "get". Be proactive, not reactive!

I agree with a lot of what you say, it's important to note that the Canucks didn't complain, they weren't being whiners on the ice. Every team has fans that complain, I travel to Alberta a lot and I hear the exact same complaints en masse. I don't care who complains, I'm a Canuck fan, you are a Canuck fan, we are not complaining. Did you hear Tony Gallagher? He whined worse than every other person who whined combined. I just don't care who whines as long as it's not Mike Gillis, John Torts or any Canuck player. That is a reputation we can lose any time.

[thema]

I agree with a lot of what you say, it's important to note that the Canucks didn't complain, they weren't being whiners on the ice. Every team has fans that complain, I travel to Alberta a lot and I hear the exact same complaints en masse. I don't care who complains, I'm a Canuck fan, you are a Canuck fan, we are not complaining. Did you hear Tony Gallagher? He whined worse than every other person who whined combined. I just don't care who whines as long as it's not Mike Gillis, John Torts or any Canuck player. That is a reputation we can lose any time.

I'm not exactly a Gallagher hater but I do believe that a lot of the Canucks problems are related to the way the media portrays this team. The whole week before the LA game all we read about in the press was "retribution" which set the table nicely for the "statement game" that resulted. The problem is that had the Canucks come out less aggressively and still lost the media would be in full cry about how "soft" we are and the true whiners like Garrett would be insufferable. It is really a "damned if you do damned if you don't" no win situation for this team and it goes hand in hand with being in one of the most fanatical hockey markets in the world. The only solution is to win every game which is, of course, unrealistic. Ignore the media hacks sez I. Play YOUR game. Ignore the other teams' antics.

Interesting note: Kass and Kes are now -6, Sestito is a -8 and this on a team where the slumping Sedins are +9 and +7. IIRC Kes was an even +/- not 2 weeks ago. Hmmm.

[Chalky]

I'm not exactly a Gallagher hater but I do believe that a lot of the Canucks problems are related to the way the media portrays this team. The whole week before the LA game all we read about in the press was "retribution" which set the table nicely for the "statement game" that resulted. The problem is that had the Canucks come out less aggressively and still lost the media would be in full cry about how "soft" we are and the true whiners like Garrett would be insufferable. It is really a "damned if you do damned if you don't" no win situation for this team and it goes hand in hand with being in one of the most fanatical hockey markets in the world. The only solution is to win every game which is, of course, unrealistic. Ignore the media hacks sez I. Play YOUR game. Ignore the other teams' antics.

Interesting note: Kass and Kes are now -6, Sestito is a -8 and this on a team where the slumping Sedins are +9 and +7. IIRC Kes was an even +/- not 2 weeks ago. Hmmm.

We are sorely lacking chemistry. I truly believe the team is in the dumps with their confidence, which really does matter. Kes is definitely struggling. I don't have a lot to say about Kassian, I want to like him but he makes some suspect decisions and I have nothing to say in his defense.

The Sedins are going to bounce back, they always have their down moments, I'm not worried. From what I hear Hank is playing hurt, I wish he'd just take some off.

Sestito is a -8 becasue he is so slow to transition from the Offensive zone to the Dzone. That is why he is not a viable option to play top line 5 on 5 an is not a top 6 forward. I'd love to see him come in next season with a more explosive takeoff.

[Industrious1]

In my opinion I'd consider Vancouver about a middle of the pack team when it comes to extra-curricular activities after the whistle (or even during). I have Centre Ice back this year and I've been watching a ton of out of market hockey and honestly what the 'Nucks do isn't any different than what teams like the Wings, Pens or even the Caps do.

The difference is reputation. Not a lot of people outside of BC like the Canucks and ever since Neilsen back in the day there has been a negative slant towards Vancouver. Some is deserved but quite a bit is also just word of mouth and hyperbole that goes from one fan from the next to the media and so forth and so on.

CBC in and of itself alone, has spread Canucks hysteria across numerous broadcasts over the last 6-8 years or so. Ron Maclean quite publically does not like Burrows (which is perfectly fine, but leave it off the air) after he dared question the Officals of the almighty NHL after Auger-Gate...and I daresay Burrows and folks from Vancouver in general were vindicated after all those nasty little emails from Colin Campbells office were made public (If you aren't aware of the emails go google it. Very interesting stuff).

I won't even get into the clubs coverage on our national broadcast during the 2011 Cup Run. That was a shameful, shameful bunch of programming and I'd have been just as happy to watch a Panel that was hosted by Ed the Sock with Hammy the Hamster and his pet crew then what Healy and Stock were offering up on a regular basis. This was what turned a good chunk of a mostly ambivalent Canadian population (outside of Alberta, of course) against the Canucks because before that most of them didn't care about us and probably wouldn't even stay up late enough to watch Vancouver even if only to see some of this 'dirtiness' with their own two eyes.

And finally this manufactured 'heel' status has also rubbed off on the reputation of two of the classiest and most even tempered players in the game (of course I refer to Henrik and Daniel). Two world class all star athletes that get about the same respect as a decent 3rd liner on most teams...these guys take hacks, slashes, punches, crosschecks (especially crosschecks!) and all manner of other punishment that superstars like Ovechkin and Stamkos never have to take because the league 'protects them'.

I'm not saying they should do such things but if you are going to give this kind of treatment to exciting point producers in the NHL...give it to all of them, not just League Darlings. The fact that Hank has played so many games against such stiff opposition constantly is not only a miracle but a feat of superhuman will and endurance. A lot of people don't recognize that and even more don't respect it. This boggles my mind.