I Watched This Game: Canucks at Predators, March 29, 2011

Canucks 3 - 1 Predators

The two of us have differing views on goaltender's duels. Keep in mind: Harrison enjoys basketball; Skeeter enjoys soccer. Our opinions regarding tight-checking, low-scoring affairs echo these tastes. This is also why, during games, Skeeter often screams more slide tackles! and Harrison often screams more black people! But we digress. [We] watched this game:

• With tonight's victory, the Canucks improved their record against the Predators to two wins and two losses, sewing up the Western Conference in the process. With five games yet to play, this leaves plenty of time to finish up other, neglected sewing projects. Henrik promised Daniel that he would sew Anna a new pair of booties. Mikael Samuelsson's lucky underwear needs patching. Alex Burrows is making a snood.

• It's official. Aaron Rome has his first goal as a Canuck (above), which could either be used as evidence that he doesn't deserve the icetime he's been getting, or maybe as an explanation for why he's been getting it: Alain Vigneault's been determined to get him that goal all season. Apart from Rome, nobody was more excited to see him score than Keith Ballard, whose minutes will finally skyrocket to seventeen.

• It's been awhile since Alex Burrows took it upon himself to win da turd. Tonight, he scored two goals in the final frame, doing just that. Like Seth Rogen in Knocked Up, Burrows only has one move. That's the umpteenth time he's gone backhand on the breakaway. Burrows is predictable, yes, but goalies can't afford to predict and shade left. He sucks at skating, so they have to respect the possibility that he might fall down and have the puck roll to the opposite post.

• The game-tying goal--Burrows' first goal of the night--comes on some positively Wizardous Sedinerie. For the unobservant, this is a no-look bank pass to a one-timed no-look backhand saucer pass to a mid-air one-timer. Nothing but net. This is Bird/Jordan stuff; Burrows wins the Big Mac. Mind you, in Örnsköldsvik, they learn this in peewee.

• Like Mason Raymond and Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Shane O'Brien are clearly besties. In a previous version of the plan, O'Brien and Burrows moved to London together and shared a flat. Instead, the plan changed, and they were separated by forces beyond their control. They spent the whole night fighting hat-wearing agents to retake control of their own destiny. (This is the movie we're referencing. Yeah, we don't recommend it.)

• To explain: Burrows and O'Brien engaged multiple times in post-whistle scrums. The most entertaining moment was the time they were separated by both linesmen, and still waved at each other, smiling and chirping like the birds that circle Uncle Remus in Song of the South, the most racist Disney movie ever. Having seen Pocahontas and Aladdin, that's saying a lot.

• In the first period, the Sportsnet crew showed a graphic with pictures of Alain Vigneault and Barry Trotz, their impressive win/loss records, and the caption, "Hottest in the NHL". That is not a caption that goes above pictures of those two guys, for what should be obvious reasons.

• Roberto Luongo was really good, huh? He's been doing that lately. Despite having to make only 16 saves, Luongo earned third star honours, because a lot of them were tough saves, like Alice Cooper or Brian "Head" Welch. Of note: Head Joins the Body is the greatest headline ever.

• 5 of Nashville's 17 shots came from Jordin Tootoo. So really, they took 12 shots. Ha, just kidding, Tootoo's not too, too bad. Zing. Anyway, Daniel wants everyone to know he's ashamed of this bullet point.

• Despite looking absolutely dominant at several stages of the game, Ryan Kesler and Mason Raymond were the only minus players on the Canucks. The line of Kesler, Raymond, and Chris Higgins gave the Nashville defenders fits with their speed, board play, and rugged manliness, but couldn't generate a goal. They did, however, combine for 13 shots. They took more shots than Roy "Speedy" Harper.

• Frankly, a lot of their excellent work died on the stick of Aaron Rome, who can only hit the net when shooting from the opposite end of the ice, but he scored a goal tonight, so we'll save our grumbling for another night.

• Shocking stat of the night: Ryan Suter and Shea Weber both finished the game minus-3. Not so shocking stat: they both played over twenty-seven minutes. I guess when you're on the ice all night, there's a large chance you'll be on the ice for the opponent's goals.

• Upon seeing Sami Salo on the powerplay, Harrison commented that the Canucks weren't really missing Mikael Samuelsson. Then Victor Oreskovich jumped the boards with the Sedins.

• In truth, Oreskovich has been playing solid hockey since his call-up, and his turn on the first line while Alex Burrows rested, post penalty-kill, was a nice reward. While he only finished with 9:55 of icetime, that's almost three minutes more than Jeff Tambellini. When Tanner Glass returns, Oreskovich may be pleased to learn that he's earned a playoff roster spot. Pleased, that is, unless he thinks top line duty will be a regular occurrence.

• And finally, we've already mentioned Aaron Rome's goal, but we left out the best part: watch Henrik Sedin show true leadership by stretching out his arms to ensure nobody derails Rome's 200-footer. Granted, there's no one around him, but Kevin Love would be proud of this boxout. It's been said that the Canucks have nothing left to play for, but look how excited everyone is when this puck goes in. Other motivations aside, this team simply enjoys playing together.

Did Victor Oreskovich Need to be Deprogrammed?

When considering the development of NHL players, we often overlook the influence of environment. Consider Todd Bertuzzi, who developed a penchant for selfish play and an aversion to backchecking under Marc Crawford in Vancouver, nearly falling out of the league because he's couldn't divest himself of these habits afterwards. Thankfully, Bertuzzi landed in Detroit, and has fully taken to Mike Babcock's two-way system.

Babcock's ability to get through to him shouldn't come as a surprise. It's an inevitability--everybody breaks in Detroit. Babcock's system is so transformative that former Red Wings are highly sought. Mikael Samuelsson is one such player whose time in Detroit increased his free agent value. Players that come through Jacques Lemaire's system (former Canuck Willie Mitchell) or Barry Trotz's system (Dan Hamhuis) see a similar effect.

It stands to reason, however, that if a player can develop the right habits in the right system, the wrong system can ingrain the wrong habits. One such environment appears to be that of the Florida Panthers, the team from whom the Canucks acquired Victor Oreskovich.

When the Keith Ballard trade came down, Mike Gillis insisted that Victor Oreskovich was more than just a throw-in. Word was the Canucks had high hopes for him, even skating him on a line with Daniel Sedin and Brendan Morrison in the preseason in order to gauge his skill level. The Canucks were clearly looking for a big right-winger to add some size to their bottom six, and Oreskovich seemed to have the inside track (because, you know, he was big, and, you know, he played right wing).

Instead, when training camp ended, Oreskovich was swiftly shuttled to Manitoba, where he's played 31 games for the Moose this season. Two-year Moose veteran Guillaume Desbiens won the fourth-line muscle role in his stead, and it didn't quite compute. Oreskovich had more NHL experience, better speed, and more upside. And yet the Canucks went with Desbiens. Why?

In my opinion: habits. Though Oreskovich had been a regular NHLer in Florida, the Canucks didn't trust the Panthers' development. I wonder if they simply felt it necessary to start from scratch.

Desbiens, on the other hand, might not have been as sexy, but he was already a product of the Canucks' system. The coaching staff knew that he would step into the lineup and play a proper two-way game, backchecking and forechecking with equal aplomb. After the previous year's fourth line had become a defensive liability, the Canucks weren't taking any chances with a new year's personnel and Oreskovich, despite all his upside, was still a product of the Florida Panthers' system--a system known for producing incomplete guys.

Ask the Calgary Flames about the baggage Olli Jokinen and Jay Bouwmeester brought with them from Florida. Bouwmeester, for instance, looked to be an elite NHL defender, but has struggled playing for a competitive team, and is only just now coming into his own as a top-pairing guy. Even Keith Ballard has taken longer than expected to adjust his play.

Heck, there are already rumblings that the Panthers have derailed the development of prized prospect Erik Gudbranson, and he hasn't played a game in a Panthers' uniform yet.

If the top-tier guys struggled to adapt to new environments, it seems a foregone conclusion that guys like Oreskovich would too. The previous year, he had been the worst defensive player on one of the league's worst defensive teams, a star adherent of the Florida Panthers' cult of poor defensive play.

I would argue that the Canucks knew he would require a thorough deprogramming before even being considered for the big club. Effectively, they bought low--extremely low--counting on their minor-league coaching staff to clean him up, break him of these poor defensive habits and, hopefully, produce a diamond in the rough.

I Watched This Game: Canucks at Blues, February 14, 2011

Canucks 2 - 3 Blues

There are many possible explanations for the wave of mutilation that has befallen our defense corps, and they all involve the unspeakable. This ain't no worldly happening, y'all. This is a straight up X-file. Here are some theories: Sami Salo's lifelong injury demon is the most powerful Hellspawn since Dakota Fanning; Dave Nonis is a voodoo champion (Cam Cole's expert theory), Rick Bowness is suffering the ill effects of a gypsy curse; while watching video on hip checking technique, skills coach Glenn Carnegie accidentally played the team a haunted video tape; Kevin Bieksa had a premonition and recently prevented the entire Canucks' defense group from boarding a plane that crashes, and now death has a list; or maybe, the hockey gods are trying to humble us. Guys, I have to know. Not so much out of concern for the Canucks, mind you, but because nobody knows what sort of evil we're dealing with here, and therefore, nobody knows how transferable this curse actually is. Am I next? After all, I watched this game:

• Forced humility by way of the hockey gods seems a likely explanation. Last night's loss to the St. Louis Blues was exactly the sort of loss that might have sent Canuck nation into a tizzy in previous years. The Canucks were sorely outhit, outshot, and outplayed, and a severe puck misplay by Roberto Luongo wound up being the difference-maker. Normally, this would be time to trot out the usual gripes about team toughness and overrated Italians. But, when it's your goaltender's first regulation loss in twenty games, and when your team remains a trillion points ahead of the rest of the Conference, it's hard not to shrug at the occasional whoopsie. I mean, the Canucks are 1-2 in their last three. Is that reason enough for panic? No, not really, all things considered, but such rationality flies in the face of regular Vancouver fan protocol. It's possible that the hockey gods are attempting to exacerbate each loss by tacking on a long-term injury to a defenceman, simply so that we will treat the defeat with our usual austerity. This is all our fault. Canuck fans: for all our sakes, please panic like you used to.

• If you're not sure what I'm on about with all this, let's catch you up to speed: in the second period of last night's game, Andrew Alberts broke his freaking wrist. He joins an injury list that includes: everyone ever. Everybody hurts.

• Unfortunately, the injuries on the back end are beginning to show. Give Chris Tanev credit for going eleven NHL games before people realized he had only played eleven games in the NHL.
  

• One of the best things about all these injuries has been the certain ensuing article about how it opens up cap space. That's like saying the accidental death of a plane crash survivor means more food for the remaining stranded, now forced to eat him.
  

• Roberto Luongo deserves a ton of credit for his remarkable streak, bookended, strangely enough, by losses to the St. Louis Blues. Don't act so surprised: compared to battling depression, it's easy to overcome wild animal attacks and natural disasters. Sometimes there's simply no cure for the blues.

• It's a shame it had to end the way it did, though. I was just going to write an article about how Luongo's puck-handling skills had improved. Suffice it to say, such an article is no longer relevant, as Luongo picked up an assist on Alex Steen's goal when he made a perfect feed to Steen while concurrently vacating the net. That's the opposite of what you're supposed to do. That gaffe aside, however, Luongo was sensational last night, making 31 saves--several of the phylum "Hoo boy, wacky!"--to keep things close, including one toe save that prompted a John Garrett swoon over Luongo's freakishly long legs.

• It's also a shame that the Canucks' loss and injury party overshadowed the kiss from a rose that was a rare goal by the third line (above). After some impressive sustained offensive zone pressure by the reunited trio of Hansen, Malhotra, and Torres, Jannik Hansen was able to shock the world by putting in a rebound. Several people tweeted "Good shift by Torres." the rarest sentence in the English language, rarer even, than the 1287-word sentence in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Torres didn't look too bad last night. Here's hoping he's beginning to trend upwards.
  

• I remain unconvinced the Canucks can't keep both Bieksa and Ehrhoff somehow, but if you're wondering which of the two should be kept, consider that Ehrhoff has looked a little shaky without Edler, while Bieksa, even without Hamhuis, remains the best breakup artist since Dashboard Confessional. On one rush, Bieksa hurried back to turn a 2-on-1 into a 2-on-2, then somehow put himself in perfect position to break up a saucer pass to the trailer. It was sort of amazing. Anyway, Christian Ehrhoff still finished as the high-minute man, logging an obscene 29:16, but Bieksa probably would have eclipsed thirty, had he not spent four minutes in the penalty box.

• Speaking of the penalty box, I didn't particularly care for the reffing in last night's game. They called some stuff they shouldn't have (Kevin Bieksa's slash) and they missed a bunch of blatant calls (like a handful of holds on the Sedins, or Samuelsson's dangerous crosscheck). That's not why the Canucks lost, though, so we'll move on.

• The Canucks' first goal was yet another instance where one Sedin picked up a point while the other didn't. This has happened a lot this season. Daniel remains five points up on his brother, which is just strange to me. Is this evidence of a rift? I say yes. We all know Daniel Sedin is out for blood and often imagines strangling his brother to death. Rumour has it, every night, in the Sedins' shared dreamspace, Daniel tries to use inception to convince Henrik he should retire, and Henrik is sick of it.

• Manny Malhotra won most of his faceoffs again, going 12-for-16. Of note: he went 9-for-12 in the defensive zone, 3-for-4 in the neutral zone, and 0-for-0 in the offensive zone. Again, that's 16 faceoffs, none inside the opponent's blue line. I hate to say Skeeter was right (I really do), so I won't. But let it remain implied. Malhotra spends less time in the offensive zone than the Jonas Brothers.
  

• The game-tying goal that was waved off in the dying seconds of the game was probably right not to count. While Kevin Bieksa's ability to move an entire pile of adult men with one superman punch is impressive, it seems kind of against the rules. But if Jannik Hansen ever needs him to punch Team Rocket into space, it's good to know it'll be a piece of cake for him.

• And finally: Victor Oreskovich needs to finish the night with more than one hit, especially on a night when the Blues outhit the Canucks by a margin of 2-to-1.

What Do You Want, Canucks Fans?

After Wednesday's loss against the Anaheim Ducks, the prevailing opinion amongst Canuck fandom was that the Canucks got outmuscled. This opinion could be heard from callers on the Team 1040, read on threads posted on Canucks.com, and absorbed by osmosis from articles written by Brad Ziemer (you wouldn't want to actually read them). This sudden outcry was simultaneously baffling and expected. Baffling, because the goals scored against the Canucks were largely due to breakdowns in defensive coverage and not being outmuscled along the boards or in front of the net. Expected, as Dan Hamhuis left the game after a borderline hit from Ryan Getzlaf and no one stepped up to fight him.

Never mind that none of the Canucks actually saw the hit happen. Never mind that it looks like a perfectly innocent hit until Hamhuis crumples to the ice. Never mind that there honestly wouldn't have been any point in fighting Getzlaf. The lack of response from the Canucks in that moment is apparently indicative of a team-wide lack of toughness.

Fine. Let's say I agree.

Fastforward a couple days: Cody Hodgson gets sent down to the Manitoba Moose. Victor Oreskovich gets called up. A skilled young rookie who may not be ready for the physical play of the NHL goes down to the AHL to play more minutes and further seasoning. A big body who has played NHL-level hockey before is brought up. He's a physical presence, a guy who can crash and bang and occasionally drop the mitts. Oreskovich can be summed up in a word: tough. Clearly, this is the kind of move that the fans were calling for.

The response: callers on the Team 1040 complaining about Hodgson not getting a chance. Posters on Canucks.com crying foul. Random fan bloggers on the Vancouver Sun website shocked.

On one day, Canucks fans and media are bemoaning the lack of toughness on the Canuck roster. A couple days later, a move is made that increases the Canucks' overall team toughness, and Canucks fans and media bemoan the move. And all this after the Canucks' first loss in seven games. What do you want, Canucks fans? Do you even know what you want?

This shouldn't have been a surprise. Harrison had it mostly right when he described the purpose of the fourth line as prospect development. But it's not necessarily about getting on the ice during the games. It's not even necessarily about evaluating their ability to play at the NHL level. It's about familiarity with the team, the routine, and the practice regimen. It's about knowing what it is to be a Canuck. It's about creating familiarity, so that when these players need to step into the lineup in high-pressure situations (ie. the playoffs), they are facing only one challenge instead of two.

In the end, this move isn't about increasing team toughness or disrespecting a top prospect: it's about acquainting each of the Canucks' prospects with the NHL experience so it's not a shock later on. This makes complaints in the wake of Hodgson being sent down to the Moose even more ludicrous. Hodgson will be back in the NHL before too long; in the meantime, he'll get first-line minutes with the Moose while playing 6 games in 9 nights. But 20 games from now, as injuries crop up, I don't want Oreskovich to be facing his first NHL action of the season as the playoffs approach. I don't want him to be trying to figure out the Canucks' morning routine or the practice schedule with the weight of playoff hockey on his mind.

And seriously, people calling into the Team 1040: chill out.

Surprise Moves for Joel Perrault and Jonas Andersson

Jonas Andersson might be okay at hockey.

The Canucks announced today that Joel Perrault has been re-assigned to the Manitoba Moose. This in itself was surprising, as the 4th line had shown steady improvement with Perrault in the lineup and it was assumed by many that he had earned his spot as the 4th-line center and would need a few games of poor play to lose it. Instead, it appears that Alexandre Bolduc, who re-joined the team as an emergency call-up last game, will slot back in immediately.

The second surprise was the player called up from the Moose to replace Perrault: Jonas Andersson. Many Canucks fans will simply respond with "Who?" and it's difficult to blame them. Andersson had a cup of coffee at the NHL level with the Nashville Predators...8 years ago. This season for the Moose was his first in North America since 2003, spending the intervening years in Sweden, Finland, and Belarus. He re-signed with the Predators in the offseason but was packaged up with Ryan Parent in the Shane O'Brien trade. Unlike Victor Oreskovich, who got a lot of attention as the throw-in player in the Keith Ballard deal, no one paid any attention to Andersson, which is entirely understandable. Oreskovich played 50 games for the Florida Panthers last season; Andersson played 30 games with HC Dinamo Minsk.

Instead, it's been Andersson that has been more impressive with the Moose this year, combining size, speed, and skill in the top-six and putting up 6 points in 12 games, most recently scoring 2 points in 4 games last week. Meanwhile, Oreskovich has slipped below management's radar: he hasn't scored a goal since October 16th and has no points since November 12th.

With Mikael Samuelsson out of the lineup with a "mild" concussion, it's possible that Andersson could make the jump to the third line with some strong play. JJ Guerrero at Canucks Hockey Blog had speculated that we might see Cody Hodgson called up in place of Samuelsson, but it seems that the Canucks will prefer him to spend a longer period of time with the Moose and only give him a call if they have need of a center.