Canucks 2 Wild 5

This one was a total team effort. Nearly everyone played terrible.

The Canucks, hoping to ride some momentum into the Christmas break, instead were as soft as Santa in Tuesday night's 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild.

Roberto Luongo got things started by waving at another Pavol Demitra slapshot, and soon he had lots of bad company.

You want names? Here's a few. Matt Cooke was a minus-four. And he also found time to take a boneheaded penalty, punching Derek Boogaard, who happened to be on the Minnesota bench. Josh Green, who seems to have absolutely no finish, missed a wide open net in the second period that would have tied the game 2-2. Captain Markus Naslund was again mostly invisible. He played more than 17 minutes, had one shot and was minus-two. He has not scored in nine games.

There were others, but you get the picture, and so does coach Alain Vigneault, who was quietly seething about his team's no-show in St. Paul.

"Too many of our top players tonight had a bad night and that's why the score is what it is," Vigneault said.

• Like John, my fellow Crazy Canucks podcaster, Tony Gallagher (Vancouver Province) wants to see the Canucks in HD. Presumably Tony wrote this piece before last night's game because I'm sure glad I didn't see a clearer, better broadcast of it.

My 3 Stars of the Game

1. Brian Rolston (MIN): Canuck-killer had a goal and an assist and was a pain in the arse for the Canucks defense.
2. Todd White (MIN): Failed to kick in a goal this time around but recorded two assists.
3. Branko Radivojevic (MIN): Very opportunistic and scored a couple of goals.

Official Statistics

• Scoresheet
• Stat Sheet
• Shift Chart