Ahhhh….Vancouver. An absolutely beautiful city. The weather is great, the people are well mannered (unless they are rioting), and it’s close to mountains and water. A perfect city for a guy like me. Well, except for it’s hockey team which has irritated the snot out of me in recent years. I have a habit of buying a t-shirt from any NHL city that I visit. I cannot bring myself to wear my Canucks T-Shirts any longer. I suppose I could use them to dry my car after washing, but I really love my car.
All joking aside….for now….Larenzo Jensen the lead writer for our Vancouver Canucks site The Canuck Way, provides us with a very well written, and in depth analysis of the team. Anyone who knows me has become familiar with the fact that I don’t like the Canucks, and specifically I don’t like many of their players and their head coach Alain Vigneault. No offence Larenzo, but the dislike that I have for this team is virtually second to none. More on that in a bit. The Canucks came dangerously close to two things last post season: Choking away a three games to none lead against the Chicago Blackhawks in round one, and almost winning the Stanley Cup…..that is until Roberto Luongo pumped the tires of Tim Thomas. Here’s Larenzo’s opening remarks:
"As it stands right now, the Canucks have made 3 Stanley Cup Finals appearances, yet the ultimate team prize eludes them. With only small changes, relatively speaking, occuring during the off-season, General Manager Mike Gillis still has the utmost confidence in this group to go deep. Some hockey pundits felt that more could have been done to the team during the summer, particularly in free agency."
One of the reasons that Vancouver failed to win their first Stanley Cup championship is that they have too many ex-Florida Panthers on the team. Seven if I recall last season. Granted these are the Panthers from the losing regime, and therefore any team with the most ex-Cats does not win a championship. Proving my Ex-Panther factor to be right….Again.
Will this year be any different? Not really a reason to see otherwise. The Canucks lost a lot of toughness, or should I say thuggery when Raffi Torres took his act to Phoenix, and Tanner Glass went to Winnipeg via free agency. Roboundo Lunogo remains their number one netminder, and he continues to almost single handedly (or maybe it’s his five hole) lose the playoffs for them every year. Please don’t ask me to describe the events, as you won’t like it if you’re a Canuck or Luongo fan. The sisters Sedins continue to put up outstanding numbers in the regular season, yet come playoff time seem to end up in the missing persons file of the NHL. Proof that soft Europeans do exist. Would you like to see the Proof? Daniella Sedin has 3 points in the seven games final against the Bruins, and Henrietta had one (ONE) point in that same series.
This could and should very well be Alain Vigneault’s last season behind the bench if he can’t bring home the hardware. He has consistently had his team out coached and outplayed in the finals. They have yet to learn to control their emotions on both sides of the ledger as witnessed when they celebrated their victory over Chicago in the seventh game. That was their championship. In addition general manager Mike Gillis and his constipated look was harboring for penalties the entire playoffs, hoping that the officials would take his side. Guys, if you played hockey and concentrated on that, instead of the antics, you’d have a pretty decent team. One that maybe other fans might even like.
In all seriousness I don’t think they’ve done enough to get out of the Western Conference. The heat is on, and it should be. Here’s the entire preview.
Next up is the Washington Capitals!
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