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CANUCKS HOCKEY BLOG

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Blue Jackets 3 Canucks 2 (SO)

Elliott Pap (Vancouver Sun) called it a market correction:

It appears the Vancouver Canucks are living through a market correction. The Canucks, so dominant in overtime and shootouts prior to Jan. 19, fell again to a non-playoff team on home ice Tuesday, losing 3-2 to the Columbus Blue Jackets in a shootout.

The defeat was eerily similar to Vancouver's 3-2 OT loss to the Los Angeles Kings last Friday.

Vancouver fell behind early, came back to tie, never led and then died in the end.
Despite the loss, I thought the Canucks played a pretty good game. Both teams stuck to a conservative game plan, but the Canucks were able to generate a few more scoring chances and even controlled a good portion of the game. Sedin, Sedin and Pyatt looked good as usual. So did Markus. And even Jan Bulis played with a lot of jump. I doubt they had the start they wanted, giving up a goal - to Anson Carter, no less - only 18 seconds into the game, but they stuck it out and at least earned themselves a point in the standings.

There was really only one thing that bothered me about last night's game - okay, one more besides how our scorers can't score on the shootout and that Josh Green seems to now be a regular option - and that's how the Blue Jackets crashed - and were able to crash - Luongo's net with reckless abandon. This has been going on for more than a few games now and the team needs to do a better job of protecting their goaltender.

Tony Gallagher (Vancouver Province) has more on this subject:

The traffic in Roberto Luongo's crease has reached ludicrous proportions. The way things are going for the Canucks' emerging league MVP candidate, he would have been lucky if his wife didn't run him down in his own driveway when he got home.

It's been a rough situation much of the year, but in the last three games, with his save percentage and goals-against average reaching absurdly good levels, it has been abundantly clear that opposing teams' strategy is to send bodies at him to make contact. If the puck is there, well, so much the better, but it doesn't seem to be necessary.
Maybe Willie Mitchell's impending return will help, though I hope the boys don't wait till then to do something about it.

More from the Mainstream

My 3 Stars of the Game

  1. Ty Conklin (CBJ): Wasn't looking too far ahead to tonight's game against the Oilers. 36 saves to earn only his second win of the season.
  2. Brendan Morrison (VAN): Good overall game. Only one assist but also won 17 of 28 faceoffs.
  3. Dan Fritsche (CBJ): Effective and noticeable in only 16 minutes of ice-time..

Official Statistics

Next Game

Thursday night against the Edmonton Oilers.

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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, 6:41 AM

1 Comments:

At January 31, 2007 11:31 AM, Blogger Miss 604 said...

I wish it was the Ty Conklin from these episodes that we faced last night

 

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