2 posts tagged “hockey day in canada”
Happy Hockey Day to all the Canadians and Minnesotans who celebrate it!
Whoever told me that the Leafs own the Canucks so much must have been smoking some good crack.
I missed the first half of first period, but heard that the Canucks got into penalty trouble early again, but thank god their penalty kill came through, especially on a 5-on-3, and we survived.
Roberto Luongo
was big for us again. After being outshot in the first period, he most
likely said something in the 1st intermission to help rally the troops
and they came out more focused and rejuvenated.
- Our powerplay rocked. 50% efficiency tonight, scoring in 5 out of 10 powerplays... when was the last time we had it that good???
- If our PP rocked, our penalty kill rocked more even with the noticeable absence of Willie Mitchell in the blueline. The Maple Leafs went 0 for 8 on their chances on the man advantage and I can't say enough about our team's PK. Even though it broke down against the Wild, it's nice to see it's back up again.
- Taylor Pyatt's
play in the 3rd period was just great! He wasn't so pylon-ish today! I
didn't want to believe that he can score goals that aren't: a)
deflected in b) rebounds. When Mattias Ohlund made that long pass to Pyatt, I thought he was channeling Bert, minus the flash. Nice shot, going for the 5 hole and in.
- He made an even better play when he set up Markus Naslund
for the 6th goal of the game. He chased Kaberle back to Leafs'
territory, and wouldn't stop hounding him until he was able to steal
the puck by passing it to a wide open Naslund who walked in towards the
net and roofed it over Raycroft's left pad.
- Other scorers included Mattias Ohlund, Daniel Sedin, Trevor Linden and Sami Salo.
- The
Sedin Twins' play tonight was just amazing again. Same with Ohllie. I
don't see how the Twins can be passed up for the All Star Game. Not
only are they great players, but I think having them on the roster
would be entertaining for the fans.
- I'm probably not alone on this but Bob Cole, please get Markus Naslund's name right. It's MARKUS, not MATS. Not to mention getting Bieksa's last name right. Seriously? How hard is it to pronounce that name??? BEE-EKS-A or BEE-EK-SA. And listening to this game's play by play made me wish I was listening to Jim Hughson instead. Why oh why do we have to get the sucky commentator??
- Love the Canucks fan presense @ the ACC. It
almost felt like GM Place when I hear loud cheers everytime we score. I
did hear some of these fans start a "Go Canucks Go" chant,and it was
going pretty loudly for a few moments, until the Leafs fans decided
they've have enough of that and chanted "Go Leafs Go".
- They
call Vancouver a goalie graveyard, but I really felt bad for Raycroft
for all the treatment he has received from the Toronto fans. It was
sad when they started cheering after he froze the puck as if it was a
huge save. He just looked up at them and was like "HAHA VERY FUNNY".
Poor guy.
- Oh .. yeah. the officiating. That was horrible.
34723947283 penalties on both sides. I'm not complaining now since the
Canucks were able to bury their chances on the man advantage, but it
was just frustrating to see everytime a stick goes up above the waist,
even without contact, it's being called a "hook". Or everytime a player
takes his hand off his stick it's holding. They really got to cut the
line somewhere. I was watching the first period of the Oilers vs Flames
game, and I was just amazed at how much I enjoyed that first period
because the play just kept going. For a long time there were no
whistles blown and both teams just continued playing. This happened in
the Canucks/Oilers game once, too. That was really good. Keeps the game
at a fast pace.
