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CANUCKS HOCKEY BLOG

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Canucks 1 Stars 2

Jason Botchford (Vancouver Province) billed it as the battle of two top goalies.

It was.

Except only one goalie faced a lot of work.

Facing one of the top teams in the league, the Canucks came out and played a heckuva game. They forechecked and forced the Stars to a lot of turnovers and poured 34 shots on Marty Turco. On the other end, they did okay without top defensive defenseman Willie Mitchell in the lineup - Mitchell may miss more games with lingering headaches (Brad Ziemer, Vancouver Sun) - and limited the Stars to just 26 shots. By the 14-minute mark of the second period, the Canucks had limited the Stars to only six shots for the game. In the end, the only goals the Stars could score were a fluke goal off Kevin Bieksa's stick and one on an 80-second 5-on-3 man advantage.

Like many games this season, the Canucks' work ethic was there (Ed Willes, Vancouver Province); with a little more finish, they could have had a better result (Jason Botchford, Vancouver Province).

My 3 Stars of the Game

  1. Marty Turco (DAL): Many of his 33 saves on 34 Vancouver shots were of the great variety.
  2. Mattias Ohlund (VAN): Led a Willie Mitchell-less defense logging 27:16 minutes of ice-time.
  3. Mike Modano (DAL): Played big on the Stars' third period powerplays and scored the game-winner.
Other Things on my Notepad

  • Luc Bourdon stepped into the lineup and fared much better than his first two outings. He kept his game simple and made the simple play every time - he logged 9:58 minutes of ice-time and you didn't even notice him. That's a good thing.
  • Brendan Morrison had another strong game. I thought he was still fighting the puck a bit but he was good in everything else. He logged 17:28 minutes of ice-time, had three shots on goal and won 10-of-15 faceoffs.
  • Marc Chouinard has also stepped it up. Against St. Louis, Nashville and Dallas, he's won a combined 21-of-26 faceoffs (81%).
  • Josh Green had a strong game as well. For someone who was supposed to be a defensive player, he was probably the Canucks' best offensive threat besides the Sedins and even saw some powerplay time in the third period.
About the game around the blogosphere

Fun With Numbers

The Canucks finish off their 9-of-11 games on the road stretch on Wednesday night against the Chicago Blackhawks.

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Comments/Questions: Feel free to post in the comments section or email me at gocanucksgo10 (at) hotmail (dot) com.

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posted by J.J. Guerrero, 6:31 AM

2 Comments:

At October 24, 2006 9:01 AM, Blogger Sean Zandberg said...

Ohlund did play pretty good didn't he? I like how he jumped in on the rush without getting caught. Too bad he didn't bury his chances.

 
At October 24, 2006 11:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What's it going to take for the Canucks to be a more disciplined group? It seems like they're taking way too many penalties, and it's costing them games.

 

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