Canucks Down Kings As Playoff Races Intensify
By The Nelson Daily Sports
Leigh Ramsden lives in Vancouver and is an avid Canucks fan, having been a partial season ticket holder for over 10 years. He’s old enough to have witnessed all three Stanley Cup losses, as such, his prime goal is to remove those scars by seeing a Cup brought to Vancouver. Leigh is Fighting For Stanley’s (www.fightingforstanley.ca/vancouver) west coast correspondent, and will also blog after all Canuck games for The Nelson Daily.
The Vancouver Canucks opened their final homestand of the season with a hard fought, 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night at Rogers Arena. The Canucks received stellar goaltending from starter Roberto Luongo, who stopped all 38 of the Kings’ shots to earn his fourth shutout of the year. With the result, the Canucks climbed to within two points of conference-leading St. Louis and the Kings fell to ninth place in the conference – such is the way of things with the standings the way they are. This game review won’t be that long because, for the most part, not much happened tonight.
The Canucks received the only offense they would need courtesy of Manny Malhotra, who streaked down the left wing and received a pass from fourth line centre Max Lapierre before snapping a perfect shot off the post and in over Jonathan Quick’s glove at 3:05 of the opening period.
From there, the game was a horribly tight checking affair with very few quality scoring chances at either end. Luongo faced nine shots in the first, 12 in the second, and a whopping 17 in the third as the desperate Kings team threw everything they had at the home side.
The Canucks played well defensively throughout the game, and when the Kings did get a good chance, Luongo was there to turn them away. Luongo’s best work came late in the third period, when L.A. upped their game and generated a number of their scoring chances, some from point blank range.
Throughout most of the game, the Canucks were full value for the lead as they had an advantage physically over the Kings and threw a lot of hits, finishing with 34 to L.A.’s 24. While I would say the first two periods were relatively even, the Canucks came out in the third with a notion to putting the Kings away, at one point outshooting them 8-2 in the third.
As noted above however, the Kings dug down deep and threw everything they had at the Canucks in the last half of the period.
Throughout it all, the Canucks’ defense had a strong night, as they didn’t fall into their habit of backing in and did a good job standing up to the L.A. forwards as they came in over the blue line and were able to keep the shooting lanes clear for Luongo to see pucks.
Overall, this game felt like a playoff game (this is becoming the norm) as the Kings were very desperate and the play was scrambly at times. In addition, there were a number of hard hits dished out by both sides. Finally, both goaltenders were on the top of their game, only allowing one goal between them.
The Kings are a team that has a relatively strong possibility of finishing in a position (seventh or eighth) that will represent the Canucks’ first round playoff opponent, so this may have been a playoff preview. If so, we are in for a long, dull series.
GAME OBSERVATIONS
- None of the Canucks’ offensive lines were that noticeable tonight. For the first time since Daniel Sedin’s injury, the first line of Sedin-Raymond-Kassian didn’t do much on the ice. Consistent with many recent games, both the second and third lines were relatively effective.
- The fourth line of Lapierre-Malhotra-Weise was also pretty good in limited duty. I just find that I notice them every time they are on the ice – they usually make a good play with the puck and they can be counted on to play physically. Lapierre and Weise accounted for 11 of the team’s 34 hits on the night.
- The evenness of the forwards’ play was reflected in the icetime tonight, as only Ryan Kesler played more than 20 minutes.
- Zack Kassian had a great first few games with the team after the deadline, but he’s fallen into a funk while playing with Henrik. He recorded only two hits tonight and had only one in the last game. He needs to use his size and be physical to be effective. Hopefully the coaching staff gets the young player going, otherwise, I think we’ll be seeing Byron Bitz back in the lineup come playoff time.
- The referees continue to cause me to pause and wonder what the hell is going on in the NHL. Tonight’s game was the second in a row where a good number more penalties were called than we have been seeing since December.
- In general, you can put me in the camp of those that think the Canucks usually get a raw deal from the officials. Not tonight. The referees called a number of weak calls on both teams, but tonight it seemed like the Kings got the short end of the stick as they had at least three weak calls against them.
- One such call was the ridiculous call against Kyle Clifford for unsportsmanlike conduct when he gave Luongo a snow shower. I’m generally in favour of this rule, but this situation tonight was one where Clifford was chasing the puck and he was bearing down on Luongo with steam – and if he hadn’t stopped, he would have completely run him over. Just a bad, ridiculous call.
- Equally bad was the call in the late going against Dustin Penner, as he barely touched Luongo in his crease and fell victim to a dubious goaltender inference call. If I were a Kings fan, I would have been incensed.
- Meanwhile, there’s a ton of clutching, grabbing, and other stick fouls occurring all over the ice – and those remain uncalled as the referees focus on these other chincy calls.
- As a result of all the penalties, the Canucks received four power plays to L.A.’s three. Neither team scored and the Canucks’ power play in particular looked discombobulated. I’ve noticed in the last few games, and even moreso in the last two games against Colorado and the Kings, that teams are being very aggressive on the Canucks’ defensemen at the point and on the forward lined up on the half wall. Once the Canucks figure this out, they should be able to get the puck down low very quickly to generate more scoring opportunites.
- Marc-Andre Gragnani drew into the lineup, replacing injured Aaron Rome. Gragnani needs to play six more games for the Canucks to avoid him becoming an unrestricted Group 6 free agent, so expect to see him a lot before the end of the regular season. Gragnani played reasonably well in his 12 minutes of icetime.
- Sami Salo hasn’t been having a great stretch of hockey. I’m hoping coach Alain Vigneault will find a way to get him some rest prior to the playoffs.
- I’m really not a fan of Kings’ coach Daryl Sutter and his cryptic gameday comments did nothing to help that. He “thanked the Canucks for fitting the Kings into their schedule”, which most people believe was a sharp comment directed either at the Vancouver media, or the team itself, for thinking that the Canucks are a very good team. Like most of the crap that comes out of his mouth, that just didn’t make any sense. I still can’t believe that Kings’ GM Dean Lombardi hired him.
- Sutter’s suits are even worse than his comments.
- The Kings received almost nothing offensively from Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. If they are hoping to get into the playoffs, they need those guys to score. Ditto for Anze Kopitar – for a supposed young star of the NHL, he was invisible most of the night.
- Drew Doughty has also been a disappointment. Since his strong 2009-2010 campaign, where he was one of Canada’s best players at the Olympics, he has regressed. He doesn’t take over a game the way he once displayed he could.
- For a team that can trot out Doughty, Voynov, Carter, Richards, and Kopitar on its first power play unit (not to mention Justin Williams), the Kings’ power play unit is anemic.
IF THIS WERE A PLAYOFF GAME
As I said above, this game really felt like a playoff game with the intensity shown by the Kings and the quality of the goaltending at both ends. Further, the Canucks were full value for the win tonight. Therefore, it would have been another win if it were a playoff game, and the Canucks are now 5-3 since I began tracking the games in this fashion.
PARTING SHOTS
Broadcast Observation of the Night: TSN was the broadcaster of choice tonight. They do a few things well, but mostly I enjoy watching it when Ray Ferraro is the colour guy (I think he’s one of the best in the business).
Tonight, he and partner Gord Miller brought up the fact that this was the 25th time that the Kings went to the third period with the score at 1-1 or less. That’s an absolutely insane statistic.
Jonathan Quick should get some serious consideration in the Hart Trophy race, as many nights he’s the only reason his team is in the game. At a minimum, he’s in a good position for Vezina consideration.
Looking ahead: The Canucks continue their homestand on Wednesday night as they host the equally desperate Colorado Avalanche.
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