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Thursday, January 15, 2004

SHARKS 3, CANUCKS 1 

The difference in this game was that the Sharks dominated the first period by outshooting the Canucks 17-6 shots and getting two goals. Ironically, in the second and third periods, the Canucks outshot the Sharks 16-6 and 16-7, but only converted once.

Dan Cloutier, who along with Markus Naslund were the two cogs in the Canucks' eight-game road winning streak, had his magic touch run out tonight in the form of two horrible decisions which led to two Shark goals. The first came when Cloutier tried to poke check, leaving him open for Alex Korolyuk's wraparound. The other bad decision happened in the third period and effectively killed the Canucks tonight. Cloutier came way out of the net to play the puck and had a ton of room to his left, but decided to throw the puck into traffic. He didn't get back in time, though he saved one shot, but then Alyn McCauley punched it in. Looks like Dan Cloutier has one thing in common with Pat Roy -- he's a crappy puckhandler.

Unfortunately, even with Vancouver on this red-hot road streak, Colorado beat Dallas tonight and now is tied with the Canucks (Colorado breaks the tie, and has played two less games). The Avalanche has picked up 17 of their last 18 possible points. Peter Forsberg has 36 points in 22 games. The man is nuts. Markus Naslund has 53 points in 45 games. Peter Forsberg is the best hockey player on the planet.

The Canucks have a big five-game homestand that starts Saturday against Anaheim.

Henrik Sedin had four hacks at the puck in front of Evgeni Nabokov in a sequence in the second period and none of them went in. Henrik was credited with seven shots in the second period. Nabokov was solid in net tonight, stopping 34 and not giving out a lot of rebounds.

Also with eight total shots was Markus Naslund, one of which went in. Naslund, with his 25th goal this year, is now in sole possession of third place on the all-time Canuck goal scoring list at 255 goals, passing Pavel Bure, who is now out of hockey. Unfortunately, Cloutier had deflated the Canucks' hopes 19 seconds earlier with his dumbfounded decision. No bad Cloutier decision there, and it's 2-1 instead of 3-1, and the end of the game is much dicier.

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