Sunday, February 15, 2004
MIGHTY DUCKS 2, CANUCKS 1
Once again, the Canucks are not making it easier on me or my sports psyche. I'll let my postgame notes tell the story, along with some summaries of what Canuck radio personalities John Shorthouse, Tom Larscheid, and postgame show host Dan Russell had to say.
The Canucks dropped all three games in the homestand, and have lost 5 of 6.
Sergei Fedorov had two points for the Ducks for 1001 career points; he is the first Russian-born player to hit 1000 points. The next-highest Russian is Alexander Mogilny, who has been injured a ton throughout his career.
Canuck Tyler Bouck chased after a puck before it would have been icing; this hustle play led to the Artem Chubarov goal, which unfortunately would be the Canucks' only goal of the night. That goal (Artem's 6th of the season) tied the game at 1-1, and during the announcement of the goal over the PA, Matt Cooke hit the post with a shot. Chubarov reeled six shots off during the third period.
The teams have played three games this season, and the road team has won all three meetings (Ducks 2-1).
The Canucks played a good first period and a good third. They played a horrible second period though.
Johan Hedberg was in goal for the Canucks and did let in somewhat of a knuckleball goal that he probably should have had, but there were some saves he made that he probably had no business of making too.
The game-winning goal by Anaheim was aided in no small part by the weak stick check that Todd Bertuzzi put on Sergei Fedorov, allowing him to dish off easily for the assist on the goal.
Pathetic stat of the night: the Canucks have 3 regulation home wins in their last 19 home games.
The Canucks go to Denver to face the Avalanche on Monday for what is a must-win game if the Canucks think they can take this division. They lost two points on Saturday afternoon, when Detroit couldn't beat Colorado. That and the Canucks failed to get a point off another team that had played three games in four nights beforehand.
Now, the summaries of the postgame guys. Not exact quotes.
Larscheid: 1st period good, 2nd period asleep, 3rd good. Canucks need to play the full 60 minutes...Teams are ready to play the Canucks when they come to the Garage (gunning for them)
Russell: The Canucks got away with playing under 60 good minutes for first half of the season, had good record doing it
Shorthouse: The Canucks are not manufacturing goals like they did before; they've seemed to be the least-confident that I've seen them
Larscheid: This team's coming off the all-star break...Why are they playing sluggish? They should be chomping at the bit and coming out strong
Russell: Are they just biding time until playoffs? Colorado can't lose a game. Maybe the Canucks are just not as good as the media thinks they can be
Larscheid: None of the players seem to be on the same page; passing not sharp; no one's having fun...the group of players has been together for most of the last 3 yrs
Shorthouse: The fans/media haven't had an extended stretch of futility with this group of players...but only two teams have more wins in NHL
Larscheid: it's one thing if you lose five hard-fought games in the NHL, but it's another if the team is playing like crap while they're losing
russ: Anaheim was last place in their division coming into the game
[Edit ~9:45a -- some light editing done in the Larscheid/Shorthouse/Russell portion of the post. Sorry to anyone who noticed the word "maps" snuck into the post. That's what happens when you put the post up initially when you're damn near asleep, and you have some sort of project in cartography class looming in your mind. Sorry to anyone who noticed that and rendered the post mentally incoherent. The base of it was made in Notepad right after the game, and the cleaning up of the latter part of the notes was done very late last night among the cleaning spree that I took upon my apartment.]
The Canucks dropped all three games in the homestand, and have lost 5 of 6.
Sergei Fedorov had two points for the Ducks for 1001 career points; he is the first Russian-born player to hit 1000 points. The next-highest Russian is Alexander Mogilny, who has been injured a ton throughout his career.
Canuck Tyler Bouck chased after a puck before it would have been icing; this hustle play led to the Artem Chubarov goal, which unfortunately would be the Canucks' only goal of the night. That goal (Artem's 6th of the season) tied the game at 1-1, and during the announcement of the goal over the PA, Matt Cooke hit the post with a shot. Chubarov reeled six shots off during the third period.
The teams have played three games this season, and the road team has won all three meetings (Ducks 2-1).
The Canucks played a good first period and a good third. They played a horrible second period though.
Johan Hedberg was in goal for the Canucks and did let in somewhat of a knuckleball goal that he probably should have had, but there were some saves he made that he probably had no business of making too.
The game-winning goal by Anaheim was aided in no small part by the weak stick check that Todd Bertuzzi put on Sergei Fedorov, allowing him to dish off easily for the assist on the goal.
Pathetic stat of the night: the Canucks have 3 regulation home wins in their last 19 home games.
The Canucks go to Denver to face the Avalanche on Monday for what is a must-win game if the Canucks think they can take this division. They lost two points on Saturday afternoon, when Detroit couldn't beat Colorado. That and the Canucks failed to get a point off another team that had played three games in four nights beforehand.
Now, the summaries of the postgame guys. Not exact quotes.
Larscheid: 1st period good, 2nd period asleep, 3rd good. Canucks need to play the full 60 minutes...Teams are ready to play the Canucks when they come to the Garage (gunning for them)
Russell: The Canucks got away with playing under 60 good minutes for first half of the season, had good record doing it
Shorthouse: The Canucks are not manufacturing goals like they did before; they've seemed to be the least-confident that I've seen them
Larscheid: This team's coming off the all-star break...Why are they playing sluggish? They should be chomping at the bit and coming out strong
Russell: Are they just biding time until playoffs? Colorado can't lose a game. Maybe the Canucks are just not as good as the media thinks they can be
Larscheid: None of the players seem to be on the same page; passing not sharp; no one's having fun...the group of players has been together for most of the last 3 yrs
Shorthouse: The fans/media haven't had an extended stretch of futility with this group of players...but only two teams have more wins in NHL
Larscheid: it's one thing if you lose five hard-fought games in the NHL, but it's another if the team is playing like crap while they're losing
russ: Anaheim was last place in their division coming into the game
[Edit ~9:45a -- some light editing done in the Larscheid/Shorthouse/Russell portion of the post. Sorry to anyone who noticed the word "maps" snuck into the post. That's what happens when you put the post up initially when you're damn near asleep, and you have some sort of project in cartography class looming in your mind. Sorry to anyone who noticed that and rendered the post mentally incoherent. The base of it was made in Notepad right after the game, and the cleaning up of the latter part of the notes was done very late last night among the cleaning spree that I took upon my apartment.]
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