Sunday, October 23, 2005
Canucks 6 Avalanche 4
The Vancouver Canucks completed a perfect four-game homestand by beating the Colorado Avalanche 6-4. The much anticipated rematch produced none of the nastiness that has come to follow recent games between the two teams. The game recap is here; the score sheet and stat sheet are here and here.
My notes from the game:
My notes from the game:
- Thanks to three early powerplay opportunities, the Avalanche jumped to a good start, but Dan Cloutier played huge for the Canucks. He finished with 28 saves on 32 Colorado shots.
- Speaking of Cloutier, his rebound control was a lot better. I think I noticed only one or two saves last night that he gave up big, juicy rebounds on.
- I think it's fair to say that the Canucks are no longer a one-line team. In the past week, other players besides Morrison, Naslund and Bertuzzi have contributed and scored; last night, the Sedin line was great and looked dangerous on most shifts. Daniel Sedin scored two goals - both thanks to beautiful passes from brother Henrik.
- Seems like I've brought up scoring from the 'd' a lot recently. Well, last night they scored twice (from Bryan Allen and Ed Jovanovski) to bring their season total to 10 goals. The way they have been scoring, can we call the d-men the Canucks third scoring line?
- Actually, maybe not the third scoring line, the top 3 scoring d-men - Jovanovski, Salo and Baumgartner have combined to score 6 goals and 24 points. Ohlund has also chipped in with 3 goals and 4 points. Meanwhile, Sedin, Sedin and Carter have combined to score 7 goals and 18 points. Is the defense corps the real second scoring line?
- Probably as most people outside the media expected, there were none of the anticipated rough stuff during the game. Just a good, hockey game. Colin Campbell was in attendance and I'm sure the league would have had a stern word or two with both teams prior to the game. After Thursday night's sloppy game, it was nice to see two talented teams play good hockey.
- Pundits usually like to point out that coaches trust and favor players who are on the ice for the game's most crucial moments. For what it's worth, with the score at 5-4 in the final seconds, Crawford put out Morrison, Linden and yes, Jarkko Ruutu. Linden scored his empty net goal on this sequence.
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