Causes For Concern, For the Canucks Fan That Knows No Other Way

Don't Panic, Canucks Fans. There Are Still Plenty of Reasons to Panic.

Welcome to the stretch drive, the unpredictable and unstable back half of the NHL regular season. With All-Star weekend now in the rearview, the next break in the schedule is the part where it ends, and the looming conclusion to the campaign is enough to send teams and their fans into a tizzy. A win streak or an untimely losing skid can alter one's position faster than drawing a character card in Candyland. With so much on the line, the questions can come fast and furious. Are we good enough? Are we tough enough? Do we have enough depth? It's a nervous time.

Canucks fans should be used to this by now: we go through it every year. But, this year is different. This year, the Canucks appear to be in good standing, and there are seemingly few reasons to panic. Longtime fans could be forgiven for not quite knowing what to do with themselves. PITB is here for you. In the past, we've tried to inject perspective into the fanbase by Babcocking the Canucks, but this time, we need not dream up doomsday scenarios willy-nilly. These are real concerns. Here, for your masochistic pleasure, are a myriad of reasons to caress that familiar panic button--enough worries to make this whole situation feel delightfully familiar. Pure, abject terror after the jump.

Happy Reminders in Lieu of Excuses

So the Canucks are on a losing streak.

As far as streaks go, anyone will tell you I'm more of a fan of the winning ones than the losing ones. Both are bound to happen in an 82-game schedule, and honestly, you can say before the season starts that the Canucks will win between 45 and 55 games this season, and lose between 27 and 37. It shouldn't bother us particularly when the losses come in a row.

Still, I like winning streaks better than losing streaks because I know the Canucks are a solid team, and I like hearing sportscasters and the like recognize them. It's cool to see them near the top of the power rankings, it's cool to hear people talk about how great their power play is. And the forums are always full of crazy, but it's happy crazy rather than panic crazy. I like happy crazy. It's more fun to say, "that's cool, but come on guys, Edler won't really win the Norris," than to say, "that's a drag, but come on guys, there are worse players out there than Bieksa."

I don't believe in excuses. I don't like making them, I don't like hearing them. I've always believed in owning up to your failures, acknowledging your mistakes, and truthfully assessing how likely they are to continue. "I've screwed up. I shouldn't have screwed up, but I did. I'll do my best in the future, and hopefully won't continue to screw up, because that's not acceptable." The Canucks don't seem to take to excuses, either, and I like that. I like that, when Canucks media suggest that maybe jet lag or fatigue or minor injury or bad officiating or the like may play a factor, the best they can hope for is "Maybe that's a factor but that's part of the game, and we need to do better." That's the truth about this losing streak.

The Canucks haven't been playing up to their potential. Sometimes they're still finding ways to win, but they aren't playing consistently, and they've won games they deserved to lose more often than they've lost games they deserved to win. They need to play better than they are, and it's likely that things will start to click.

Until then, we need to keep our spirits up. This is a temporary apocalypse, not a permanent one (like Z-day, but with a cure). While we wait, take a deep breath, and remember the following: