I Watched This Game: Canucks vs Canadiens, February 22, 2011

Canucks 2 - 3 Canadiens

Not sure why, but the Canadiens started this game like they had embarrassed themselves on national television in their previous outing. Frankly, they skated like it was their first time on indoor ice in days, shooting like they hadn't scored a goal in over sixty minutes, and playing like above zero temperatures were suddenly new to them. Spurred by a novel appreciation for insideness, they jumped out to an early lead, and never looked back. The Canucks, meanwhile, drifted for the first ten minutes, spoiled by their indoor malaise. I say this malaise cost us the game. Also, we scored fewer goals. I watched this game:

• To be perfectly honest, I hated this game. Not just because of the Canucks, mind you, but because the Canadiens play ugly hockey. Ogre ugly. They even employ an ogre. Have you seen James Wisniewksi these days? After taking advantage of a flat-footed Canucks team early, they spent the evening defending their lead by collapsing in front of Carey Price like the 1929 stock market, and clogging up the neutral zone like a big ball of hair in the J-trap. It was unattractive hockey.

• Speaking of hate, Harrison would like everyone to know that he hates P.K. Subban. He claims he's allowed to, because they're both black. That said, I thought I heard him say something about the white way, but it turns out he was saying the white whale (he's in Darren Pang's book club). I'm actually a Subban fan. He's a jerk, sure, but no moreso than Kesler or Burrows. He's a pain in the posterior to play against and is unapologetic about being young and talented. Nothing wrong with that.

• Tonight's big story? Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg were in the audience tonight. I'd be upset about this if I were Nick Frost. Cruise is a much better-looking running mate, and considering his career-trajectory, he might soon be reduced to playing sidekicks. Anyway, considering Cruise and Pegg are from the United States and United Kingdom, respectively, I assume they spent the majority of the game wondering where the ball was. And fending off thetans. Couch jump.

• One of Ryan Kesler's most underrated skills is his overall opaqueness. He used this ability to great effect tonight, proving to Carey Price that it is impossible to see an incoming puck through a body. Not even with X-Ray Specs. You would need military-grade x-ray glasses, and the Canadiens just don't have access to that kind of hardware. Come to think of it, that's about the only kind of hardware they don't have a tonne of. That's a french ton, for those who don't know.

• Kesler was also a beast in the faceoff circle tonight. He went 13-for-13 in the defensive zone, 4-for-5 in the neutral zone, and 8-for-11 in the offensive zone. That's 25-for-29 overall. I say again: he took 29 faceoffs. He lost four. But those four cost them the game. Trade him for money.

• The Canucks Scrabble challenge (in which Harrison will be competing tomorrow) was enough of a big deal to get mentioned twice. It was sort of neat. That said, just to establish, Shorty's proposed Scrabble technique of spelling the word "THE" to block triple word scores is not recommended, and doesn't really make sense. I really can't think of a single scenario where spelling the word "THE" to block a triple-word score--without actually using the triple-word--score would work. That said, Shorty's Scrabble knowledge definitely tops Garrett, who only seemed to know that A had a low-point value.

• Between his poor puck management, and his incessant urges to go wide and try wrap-arounds, it's a wonder Mason Raymond remains an NHL second-liner. He should try managing a truck stop diner, where the turnovers, wraps, and poor management are expected.

• Keith Ballard and Dan "Community Man" Hamhuis both played tonight, but neither was really back, if you know what I mean. They weren't at 100%. For example, Dan Hamhuis only built one Venezuelan orphanage during the game.

• Christian Ehrhoff played 28:35 tonight, which is more than he played in the games Hamhuis and Ballard missed. That's too much icetime for the Hoff, who doesn't play a steady enough game to be on the ice for half of it. Without Alex Edler, he's a bit manic and overzealous. In the last ten minutes of the game (when he didn't seem to leave the ice), Ehrhoff rushed the puck well, but tried to force play after play, and often wound up getting turned back or flummoxing his forwards. A steadying presence like Edler's would have helped greatly. One might say that Christian Ehrhoff misses Alex Edler like Raffi Torres misses the net. That is to say, constantly.

• Actually, I'm going to the Canucks superskills on Sunday, and I'm hoping Torres competes in the shooting accuracy competition. More than that, I hope he wins, just to increase his already astronomical ability to boggle. Think he plays Boggle? Should this be our next challenge? #BoggleMeRaffi

• The Canucks evidently got 39 shots-on-net, with the Canadiens blocking another 22. The number of quality scoring chances, on the other hand, was significantly lower, and this is the third or fourth game in a row where this has been the case. During this stretch, with the defensive injuries, the Canucks' shot totals have actually gone up, but the overall quality of their offense has gone down. One example would be the very common occurrence of the Sedins parking behind the net. Typically, they make something happen from back there, but half of the threat is predicated on the defensemen being viable passing options. They really weren't tonight. Instead, you had long stretches of Alex Burrows darting back and forth in front of the crease, hoping to get open, before Henrik gave up and went somewhere else.

• For the first time, Chris Tanev looked a little out of place in the NHL. He's really only had one unimpressive game prior to this evening, but tonight, the Canadiens took advantage of how raw a talent he is. Unlike Mikael Samuelsson, whose minus-3 was not reflective of his overall defensive play (it had more to do with playing with Mason Raymond), Tanev's minus-2 was self-made. On the opening goal, he drifted into center ice while David Desharnais tiptoed in behind him (inasmuch as one on skates can tiptoe) for a breakaway. On the second Montreal goal, he took himself out of the play with a poorly-timed hit and couldn't get back in time to cover Andrei Kostitsyn. To this, I say: Tanev, play to your strengths, one of which is not strength.

• The Canucks' power play quite nearly bailed them out tonight, potting two goals on six powerplays (one here, one above), despite looking discombobulated, at times. Part of me feels like the power play let the team down tonight, especially considering the ill-disciplined nature of Montreal's penalties. It was especially aggravating to see a five-on-three go to waste. The Canucks remain one of only two teams in the NHL that hasn't scored on a five-on-three, the other being the special teams juggernaut that is Edmonton. Suffice it to say, sharing any statistical anomaly with Edmonton should be somewhat embarrassing.

• At under five minutes, Cody Hodgson had one minute less icetime than Victor Oreskovich. Thinking about the playoffs, that is not a sign of trust. This is.

• Carey Price played well tonight. He's been good all season, really, and it wasn't that long ago that everybody was calling for Bob Gainey's head because he'd traded the wrong goalie. I brought crow for everybody. nom nom nom

• And finally, I wasn't a huge fan of Alex Burrows's game tonight. Not too long ago, he was scoring like crazy, so it's unfair to complain that he's not scoring. But he didn't score tonight. It would have been nice if he had done so, especially with the golden opportunities he was given. It was especially bothersome because he didn't do much else. His puck retrieval was below-average and his forechecking was ineffective. He's at his best when he's creating turnovers and getting the puck to the Sedins, not when he's waiting for the Sedins to get the puck to him.

Darren Pang, With the Most Unfortunate Verbal Gaffe Ever

In case you missed it, this is Darren Pang from last night on TSN. In the clip, Pang lands perhaps the most unfortunate slip of the tongue since that time Lorraine Baines tried to park with Marty McFly, when he compares Alex Pietrangelo's quiet class to P.K. Subban's chirping, declaring that Pietrangelo plays "the white way."

Obviously, he meant to say "the right way." I feel terrible for him. I'm laughing a little too, of course. But it's a gentle laughter.

Now I've been holding my tongue on the P.K. Subban issue, but I'll take this opportunity to talk about it (sorry, Panger). The furor around P.K. Subban isn't going to go away. First, because P.K. Subban is a very, very good player, and second, because Subban is a completely different breed of hockey personality. He's flashy and arrogant in a way few are, and it doesn't help his cause that he's black. Other hockey players play with swagger too, but when P.K. Subban sports that swagger, it's hip hop. As a result, it's hard to put Subban's blackness aside-- it's a major element of his playing style. Worse, it's hard not to consider the role that plays when people talk about how he needs to earn respect.

Subban's blackness will continue to be an issue in the same way that Ray Emery's was. These are black athletes with hip hop swagger in hockey; they stand out like a sore thumb. Worse, they're stars in Canadian markets, where the coverage is vast, and, frankly, most hockey fans and media guys aren't really sure how much they're allowed to notice what's so plainly evident.

But worst of all, they're both jerks. It's hard to point that out without being labelled a racist. There was a brilliant episode of 30 rock on this once.

Anyway, as a result, coverage of Subban has become very, very sensitive. (Crap like this doesn't help). Nobody wants to be the racist. As Greg Wyshynskhi pointed out:

[This incident] does speak to some hypersensitivity in coverage in Subban, who is quickly becoming one of the most prominent black players in the NHL.

For example, CBC analyst Glenn Healy's words were scrutinized in the Globe & Mail after he said Subban was having "none of this monkey business" during a scrum. Columnist Bruce Dowbriggin wrote: "the incident illustrates the new sensitivities of modern broadcast etiquette in Canada’s multiracial culture."

Very true. But the Panger incident is different. He didn't break some sort of modern etiquette rule; he just had an Elmer Fudd moment. Later in the show, the panel briefly addressed the issue. Panger: "I feel terrible. I've got a knot in my stomach; it was an honest mistake, and I mixed up my words, obviously." Darren Pang is no racist. Heck, he's the star of the Urban Dictionary. Urban! But seriously, he's no more a racist than Ron Maclean is the grand marshall of Mardi Gras.

Edit: For a different take on this, check out Angie Lewis at All We Do is Puck, who takes issue with the things Pang said leading up to the gaffe:

Well, notice how Pang, and of course everybody else comments on Subban's behavior, need of "settling him down." The same conversation has happened with Russian Alex Ovechkin's personality and party-boyish ways. While it is understandable in the case of Subban in a community where everyone else doesn't act the way he does that he should be mindful of this for the betterment of his team, it is still troublesome that he has to do so.

This all goes under this concept of "conformity"... the idea that the right, proper way to do everything is to assimilate by conforming to the Anglo-Canadian style of play, attitude, training, etc. And this concept appears in many forms in our daily lives, and it is hard to detect by others on the outside because of the idea of privilege... unfortunately, this is All We Do Is Puck and not sociology class, so I won't explain all of it here, but it is something to be aware of.

There's definitely something to this, though I don't entirely agree with Lewis. To my mind, conformity is a team sports convention. I don't like it (it's partly why weirdly adorable Kyle Wellwood is playing in Russia and, as Lewis points out, it's certainly caused Alex Ovechkin undue grief), but it's not solely racial. Conformity attacks difference of all sorts.

That said, I've spoken to Angie Lewis on Twitter, and we both agree that no one seems quite sure what to do with P.K. Subban, and where his personality and his blackness intersect. This won't be the last we hear of this issue.

I Watched This Game: Canucks at Canadiens, November 9, 2010

Canucks 0 - 2 Canadiens

After the sublime pleasure of watching the last two Canucks games, this game was excruciating. It wasn't just that the Canucks lost - though that certainly doesn't help - it's that they lost in such a lacklustre, boring way. The Canucks started the game flat-footed, were unable to string passes together, generally looked slower than a Shaun of the Dead zombie. Everything seemed to go wrong: instead of possessing the puck, they chased it. Instead of forechecking hard, they lazily coasted through the offensive zone. Instead of setting the tone with strong physical play, the Canucks were the victim of a couple early big hits, setting them back on their heels.

In any case, I watched this game. It wasn't fun. And while the IWTG posts are usually full of wit, in-jokes, and joie de vivre, it's a lot harder to do after such a terrible game. That said, it's a lot easier to take a game like this after a 6-game winning streak. Canucks fans have a tendency to go through rapid-fire mood-swings, like a terrible Katy Perry song. One loss like this is not the end of the world: the Canucks are still a good team that should be able to learn from this defeat and put together a stronger effort through the rest of their Eastern road trip.

• I'm sure some people will characterize this game as the Canucks running into a hot goaltender, but it really wasn't the case. Often when a goalie is on his game, he makes difficult saves look routine, but in this game, the saves looked routine because they were. Yes, Carey Price was as good as he needed to be and did make a few good saves, including a good one on Dan Hamhuis when the score was still only 1-0 and a great one on Jannik Hansen that would have been more meaningful if it hadn't been with only a few seconds remaining in the game.

• A revealing statistic: 9 of the Canucks' 34 shots came from Christian Ehrhoff, with an additional 9 from the other defencemen. That's a lot of shots from the point and nowhere near enough shots from the forwards. An inability to get shots from in close meant an easy night for Carey Price.

• The Canucks were generally terrible on faceoffs, going a combined 23 for 53, for a winning percentage of 43%. Henrik was disastrous at 13%, including going 0 for 8 in the offensive zone. It's no surprise, then, that the Sedins were unable to sustain much offensive pressure. Manny "Alternate Captain Mal" Malhotra was his usual consistent self at 57%. The only other centre at 50% or better was Rick Rypien, who won both of his vitally important faceoffs.

• In a game like this, it's hard to pick out one player or another who was particularly bad, because everyone was generally bad. Andrew Alberts, however, didn't do himself any favors with two careless penalties, the second of which led directly to the Canadiens' second goal. He also seemed to mistake himself for Shane O'Brien a couple times, attempting to skate the puck out of the defensive zone by juking out a couple defenders. It didn't work.

• At the same time, Alberts didn't play terribly, it's just that his terrible moments were exceedingly noticeable. Many will be calling for Keith Ballard to replace Alberts next game, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Aaron Rome in the pressbox instead. He played like what he is - a seventh defenceman - and Alberts overall hittiness is an essential component of the Canucks success. That said, Alberts was effectively benched in the third period, playing only 1:50 in the final frame, so...

• Andrew Alberts first penalty, a double-minor for highsticking, was a stupid penalty to take. Pro-tip: don't hit opponents in the face. On the plus-side, the Canucks got their first decent scoring chances while killing the double-minor and the Sedins managed their best shift of the game shortly thereafter. Considering the Canadiens' powerplay was only 6% going into the game, it almost seemed worthwhile to take more penalties as the Canucks seemed to play better shorthanded. Then Hamrlik scored on the powerplay. Forget that theory.

• The Canucks powerplay was anemic tonight. (It literally had anemia; please donate blood to the Canucks powerplay.) They were seemingly unable to gain the offensive zone and repeatedly attempted to do so the same way, by trying to skate it through the 4 penalty killers lined up on the blue line. Considering the Canucks played against the Wild's trap for years, it was incredibly painful watching them attempt the same method of gaining the zone despite its repeatedly failure. Definition of insanity, people.

• As an aside, Canadiens fans baffle me. One minute they're booing the home team (which is a great way to negate your home ice advantage) and the next they're chanting "Carey, Carey, Carey." They're moodier than Canucks fans and that's saying a lot.

• Jannik Hansen continues to be one of my favorite Canucks. He's essentially Burrows-lite, forechecking like crazy, hitting with abandon, and hounding opponents constantly to force turnovers. He's all over the opposition like slobber on a Great Dane.

• As for regular-strength Burrows, he had a reasonable game. Despite the top line's inability to get anything done tonight, Burrows was a complete nuisance to play against, with six hits to tie for Hansen for the most in the game. He and the Sedins need to start clicking as a line on this road trip or Samuelsson and Burrows might trade places on the top two lines.

Ugh. I'm tired of talking about this game. It wasn't entertaining and the Canucks didn't play well. It doesn't help that I'm writing this on an ancient laptop that goes into conniptions just opening a regular website. The bitterness is immeasurably heightened and even the rum and coke I made (with delicious Sailor Jerry rum) isn't making the bitterness go away. Hey, remember when the Canucks beat the Red Wings 6-4? That was awesome.