The Canucks flew into Edmonton on Tuesday to take on the blazingly fast Edmonton Oilers. Man, can these kids SKATE or what? The game followed a familiar pattern if you’ve been watching Vancouver this year. The Canucks stumbled out of the gate. They outshot and outchanced the Oilers but fired most of those shots right at the crest on Nikolai Khabibulin’s jersey. Eventually, Vancouver’s defense allowed a cross-ice pass to Jordan Eberle in the high slot. Eberle snapped the puck past Luongo, and his tally was quickly followed by two more Oiler goals. The Canucks rallied, but would only manage to score two. Edmonton would skate out of Rexall Place with a 3-2 victory. Continue reading 26 Oct 2011 – Oilers Grease Canucks 3-2 →

On Thursday night, the Vancouver Canucks showed up to play the Nashville Predators for the first time since Vancouver knocked them out of the playoffs last year; the Preds, on the other hand, didn’t bother. Here’s our review.

Vancouver had more two on ones and three on ones than a gang bang flick, en route to a 5-1 drubbing of the Predators. The Tennessee squad was barely recognizable from the plodding, hard-working, disciplined bunch that gave the Canucks so much trouble last May. While it was refreshing to see a wide open affair when everyone had been predicting a tight game, it was a tad disappointing that the Predators played so poorly. The difference in team speed was so noticeable that I think John Garrett might even have been aware of it. Continue reading 21 Oct 2011 – Nashville Prey: Canucks 5, Predators 1 →

The NHL entered a new era this season, when someone at NHL head office realized that Colin Campbell’s ineptitude is exceeded only by his hobbit-ude. Gone is the infamous Wheel of Justice which was so ineffable that Miss Cleo did a special infomercial promising accurate predictions on suspension lengths. Brendan Shanahan – ShanaBan, to his new head-office friends – has been promoted to Vice President of Player Safety and Something Else I Can’t Remember So It Probably Isn’t Important. Accompanying the personnel change was a stricter definition of what constitutes an illegal hit to the head, and a newfound transparency in the assessment of individual incidents. While the concept of a video explanation of every suspension – and some non-suspensions – is a cosmic leap forward from the NHL’s policy under the previous disciplinarian, the NHL made few other changes to its game. Here are seven things they could have done to make the NHL a more attractive brand. Continue reading 10 Oct 2011 – Seven Things the NHL Should Have Changed →