Wednesday, March 02, 2011

I Watched This Game: Canucks vs. Blue Jackets, March 1, 2011

Canucks 2 - 1 Blue Jackets (SO)


It's a shame that the Canucks weren't wearing their retro jerseys, because this game was a total throwback. The team played poorly, showing a complete lack of offensive flair and a general disarray throughout, but thankfully, Roberto Luongo stood tall and singlehandedly kept them in the game. You'd have thought it was 2006. Funny Bob made 30 stops on the night, and it seemed as though every other one was a game-saver. He was in perfect position all evening, too, making partial breakaways and point-blank chances look completely non-threatening. And his reward for perhaps his best effort of the season? The longest shootout ever. Lucky Lou, you know how he loves a breakaway competition. Thankfully, he was game for that too, just like I was game to watch him, when I watched this game:

  • Luongo had tiger blood tonight (second only to unicorn blood from blood unicorns). His best save of the evening came when he stopped RJ Umberger on a breakaway, but it wasn't just about the save. It was the way he made sure to get a piece of Umberger's ankle as the center went past, putting him off-balance and sending him, spinning, into the corner, so as to prevent any rebound chances. That was most definitely on purpose.
  • Aaron Rome took an interesting "illegal stick" penalty at 6:14 of the third period. His stick hadn't broken; he merely lost it. As he skated to the boards to cut off the Blue Jacket puck carrier, he picked up Scotty Upshall's stick, also-dropped, and used it to tie up the man. Originally, it seemed like a heady move, but the referee blew play dead immediately to call an infraction. What was it? Rule 10.3 of the official NHL rulebook states: A player who has lost or broken his stick may only receive a stick at his own players’ bench or be handed one from a teammate on the ice. Hence, Rome can't pick up Scotty Upshall's stick without getting a penalty. You can't play with an opponent's stick. For instance, Mikko Koivu is not allowed to lose his stick, then rip Bobby Ryan's stick from right out of his hands, and use that instead. And neither can Ryan then pick up Mikko Koivu's dropped stick, score a goal, and taunt Koivu with his stick immediately afterwards. That would be a penalty for sure.
  • The crowd was eerily quiet. It was like classic Buffy episode Hush; you'd have thought all their voices had been stolen by The Gentlemen. I can't help but wonder if a little home crowd support might have spurred the team to, you know, play well, but on the plus side, the muted crowd allowed the play cameras to pick up a number of on ice F-bombs.
  • I love when power forwards like Rick Nash have full beards. They look so freaking intimidating. Mind you, it's not just posturing with Nash. Any time the puck is on his stick, it's concerning. It's a shame he plays in Columbus. Imagine if he played in a city that knew they had an NHL team.
  • Mason Raymond finally broke his scoring slump with a pretty little backhand goal (above) generated by some great board work by Ryan Kesler. Watching a player break an extended scoring drought like that is one of the rewards of following a team closely. Knowing the context, it was hard not to feel his joy, to beam while he was beaming. He was visibly excited, letting out a triumphant "Woo!" on the bench after the goal. I haven't seen Raymond that excited since the team pitched in to buy him a new alarm clock (joke explained: Mason Raymond is boring). Raymond seemed inspired by the goal, and he netted another beauty in the shootout with some fabulous stickwork and skate control to freeze Steve Mason. Raymond had four shots on goal, tops among forwards. Raymond wasn't perfect, mind you. He missed a whopping five shots on the night. In perspective: the rest of the team, combined, missed eight.
  • Mind you, that's not as bad as Ryan Kesler, who had zero shots on net last night, with seven attempts blocked. Do you think getting in front of his wrister has become a top priority? Now that he's a known sniper, he's going to have to work a lot harder to create a shooting lane. Later that night, in the shootout, Henrik Sedin showed exemplary leadership when he modeled for Kesler how to get people to quit respecting your shot.
  • I liked Alain Vigneault's smirk at the bench during the shootout. What was so funny? My guess is he was imagining the Bluth family do their various chicken dances.
  • Keith Ballard had five blocked shots and three hits in three minutes of icetime fewer than Aaron Rome. Aaron Rome may be a forgotten Scrabbler, but Alain Vigneault never seems to forget to play him.
  • The great thing about having a shootout go on for so long is that you're guaranteed an unlikely hero. Seriously, Vigneault's next shooter was Frodo Baggins. That said, this thing could have been over much sooner if one of the coaches had realized the secret to the shootout: send out guys who used to play for the opponent. Instant win. No surprise, then, that Raffi Torres was the game's unlikely hero.
  • You have to feel bad for Maxim Lapierre, whose first game went about as poorly as it possibly could have. He only played five minutes, but boy, were they eventful. In his first shift as a Canuck, he took a minor penalty. During the first intermission, he likely told himself to calm down, because the worst was over. Then, in his first shift of the second period, the Blue Jackets scored. During the second intermission, he probably told himself things could only improve, and he was likely quite excited when nothing untoward happened on his first shift of the third period. Unfortunately, this would be last shift of the game. On the plus side, he finished on a positive note, and was named the game's thirty-first star.
  • Dan "Community Man" Hamhuis's hipcheck on Jakub Voracek was a real thing of beauty. I like how, when Keith Ballard pulls off a hipcheck, the recipient gets pissed, but when Hamhuis does it, the recipient just understands. Mind you, maybe it's because Hamhuis is such a nice guy, he only hipchecks when he suspects a guy need a minor spinal adjustment. Hamhuis runs an on-ice chiropractic clinic. Of course it's free.
  • The Canucks' powerplay is beginning to dry up in the absence of its quarterback, Alex Edler. There have been games where Mikael Samuelsson has been able to keep it humming along, but when he has a lackadaisical outing like last night, the unit falls apart. Sami Salo saw a promotion to the top unit in the third period, but it wasn't enough to get the game-winner during a four minute powerplay to close out regulation time. There was a lingering sense that this would come back to haunt them, like some sort of powerplay poltergeist, bringing clowns to life and whatnot.
  • And finally, we would be remiss not to talk about the high number of pratfalls in last night's game. People were running into one another, tripping over blue lines, and flubbing on shots and passes all evening. It was high octane physical comedy. Halfway through the game, the organist abandoned the setlist and started playing music from Buster Keaton's The General.

21 comments:

  1. the stretch drive:

    the hawks are alive
    after five
    wins in a row

    ergo

    it's the chicago
    i've
    come to know

    my hopes revive
    they'll contrive
    to steal the show

    it just could be so
    i trow

    chicken hawk

    ReplyDelete
  2. _______ point(s)


    it was either or
    one to one the final score
    both wanted it more

    clay pigeon

    ReplyDelete
  3. CH, did you have that poem pre-written? Golly, you're weird.

    ReplyDelete
  4. just want you to face/ that we're still in the race
    ch

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't think players on C-bus feel the same way about Hamhuis as we do. Did anyone else hear plain as day "fuck you Hamhuis fuck you" just seconds before the Upshall goal?
    Also on the Booby (intentional typo) Ryan goal wouldn't the penalty go to Koivu for the original playing with an illegal stick, as he stole one?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm glad you picked up on the Keith Ballard love issue.
    I have no idea why Aaron Rome gets more ice time than Keith Ballard, given that Ballard plays much better than Rome: he's more reliable in his own end, makes better defensive plays and has untapped offensive upside which AV seems to refuse to use.
    I bet if you scrabbled Alain Vigneault, he would find a way to play ROME, even though BALLARD scores nearly twice as much. He would be easy prey, unlike Tanner Glass, who gave you a run for your money.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ha, I missed that one, Ken. I heard a bunch of swearbombs, but I definitely would have commented on that one if I'd heard it.

    Yeah, both Koivu and Ryan broke the rules, and neither was called. It was lauded as this weird, once-in-a-lifetime highlight, but it only happens because the referees completely forgot the rulebook.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Never was big on Buffy.

    But even that was more entertaining than most of this game.

    I watched this game too, but almost fell asleep.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The four minute powerplay is like the 2 goal lead in a way. You know they likely won't score just like you know the other team will likely come back from a 2 goal deficit. Too much time to play with so they lack a sense of urgency, while the defenders have a greater sense of urgency knowing the difficulty of the situation, especially late in the game. I'd be curious to know the canucks % on 4 minute advantages.

    ReplyDelete
  10. are chicken hawk and clay pigeon the same person

    ReplyDelete
  11. Poetry has a time and a place.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Not every poem's good because it's ancient,
    Nor mayst thou blame it just because it's new,
    Fair critics test, and prove, and so pass judgment;
    Fools praise or blame as they hear others do. 
    - Buddhist Quote

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love the recap of Lap's evening...
    Well, at least it's only going to get better (I hope).

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tamby should've shot the shootout goal from his "magic shooty spot"

    ReplyDelete
  15. Crow-eating time... I am going to ignore the out-of-position, running around, pussy along the boards, turnover at either blueline, infield popfly dumpout, make a move at the blueline to put Kesler offside Raymond which was still evident last night to focus on the positive for once. With all the work Keler did to get Raymond that puck on his goal I imagine one of those f-bombs that were overheard was Kes saying "score or never f-ing again!". It was a great move and I love how he tried to bury it through the net to make sure the magic toe couldn't get it last second like on Samuellson in the shootout. And Raymond's move in the shootout? How does he have any knee ligaments left? Great move and he obviously has some raw talent which is what makes it so frustrating at times. Even the shots he missed were short side instead of the usual breakout pass disguised as a shot "juuuuuuuust a bit outside".

    More crow... Lou looked calm all night, he even made some good plays moving the puck. I still don't like him going down on shots like the one Upshall ripped. I guess if you are only allowing lasers that beat you over the shoulder when you are going down then it can't be seen as big. I just can't help envisioning Kirk McLean being jealous of Lui's height and basically chest bumping that shot right into his glove. Lou was awesome last night... That is hard for me to say, believe me.

    The crowd may have been quiet but they sure had their Lou on. I love how people find the energy to Lou a floater gloved from the point unscreened but they are too busy tweeting while they sip their merlot as Lui flashes the quick left pad... Too quick obviously. I'd really love to see a 'How To Lou' blog as it seems to be something we have forgotten once we found out he is a mere mortal.

    Good teams win games they shouldn't. It is confirmed... The Canucks are a good team.

    ReplyDelete
  16. @Vanessa X., I thought the exact same thing after Tamby missed that shot last night!! Clearly Tamby needs to do some blog reading in his spare time.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "Hamhuis is such a nice guy, he only hipchecks when he suspects a guy need a minor spinal adjustment"

    Too funny...

    ReplyDelete
  18. I wanna throw this up here. This blogpost was probably one of the funniest things I've ever read. I thoroughly enjoyed the article.

    Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
  19. "Hamhuis runs an on-ice chiropractic clinic. Of course it's free"

    LMAO!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Wowser... Buffy and the Canucks mentioned in the same blog. One more reason to love PITB. Have fun in California.

    ReplyDelete
  21. In defense of Kes getting blocked pretty much always - if Mayray and Fuckyousweden were going better the opposition wouldn't be able to focus so much on him. I'd put at least half of the blame on them. Having said that, I'm confident that one or both of them will find their games when said games begin to matter again. If Detroit or Philly catch up I'm betting the primary and secondary scoring will magically return.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...