The Ducks refuse to surrender themselves as dinner to starving Canucks fans, 3-2
I wasn't able to watch the game properly tonight, hence I couldn't really comment on it properly. I went to my friend's house to watch the game, and since I got off work at 4, I ended up missing the first half of the first period before I arrived at her house at 5:20.
Anyway, the real key to this game was the powerplay. We had around 8 opportunities, including two 5-on-3's, to bury the Ducks, and we failed. On the other hand, the Ducks capitalized on the little powerplay time they received by scoring on 2 out of 4 powerplays.
Looking at both powerplay units, you would see a huge difference in the way they set up and move the puck. Doesn't it seem like once the Ducks are setup, anyone can take a shot from anywhere, and unless it's blocked, it would probably go to the net? They seem to be moving the puck around a lot by making smart passes, getting a good screen in front of Luongo, getting the shot through, whether it be from the point or the faceoff circles, and when Luongo lets out a rebound, there's immediately a lot of guys crashing the front of the net read to knock it in at all costs.
Ours is the complete opposite. Either we don't make smart passes, or we pass too much. The pointmen refuses to take a shot, the player at the faceoff circles also doesn't shoot until the last minute. Even when we do get a shot, we wait for so long that a player can just block it, and it doesn't even go through the net. Where's the one-timers? We also need to win more of those puck battles, better dump-ins and carry-ins.
The list can go on.
It's just really frustrating. We got a lot of powerplays tonight. If we were able to score on the 5-on3s at least, we might have won the game.
Well, we did score one powerplay goal. That was a good PP shift by the Canucks as they won the battles, Markus Naslund read the play well and saw Mattias Ohlund open on the other side and passed him the puck. Ohllie's shot was tipped by Giguere's glove towards Nazzy who just shoved it towards the net to tie the game.
That was it. We had, maybe, a couple more good scoring opportunities in the PP, just no finish. I hope AV's focus on special teams on practice tomorrow would vastly improve it on the game the next day.
Other things.......... hmm... Daniel Sedin scored the other Canucks' goal, Sami Salo was back in the lineup tonight, Willie Mitchell is alive and kicking, and Roberto Luongo thinks he deserves to be blamed for the loss tonight.
As I said, I couldn't really watch the game as me and my friend were focused on other things sometimes, like complaining on how long does it take to make and deliver pizza...
One other thing, I loved when the crowd were chanting "NAZZY NAZZY NAZZY NAZZY NAZZY!" when he scored. It was very heartwarming. Music to my ears. As you can see, my new layout features the man himself, Markus Naslund. *hearts* this guy.
