Thursday, April 13, 2006
GAME 81: SHARKS 5, CANUCKS 3
Sharks 5, Canucks 3
[initial partial post]
It's all over. The Canucks needed one point to keep themselves alive for a playoff spot, and they couldn't get it. Edmonton came in one point ahead coming into the night, and both teams had two games to play. Thus, the Canucks needed to come out with one more point than Edmonton and would have had the tiebreaker based on more wins. But really, the Canucks came up short, much like the entire slate of games they played after New Year's Eve.
In an odd testament to the season, the big line of Naslund/Morrison/Bertuzzi showed up tonight when they hadn't most of the season, whereas the season-long nightly show of D Sedin/H Sedin/Carter didn't score a point. Quite odd, but so was the entire season.
After the Canucks lost Game 7 of the first round to Calgary during the last hockey season, immediate speculation was that the core of the team would be shaken up and that GM Brian Burke would possibly be gone. What ended up happening was that Burke was fired not long after that series ended and after the lockout the entire core of the team stayed intact. But now, it's got to be shaken up. I know that the radio crew had that sort of "end of an era" tone to their voices after the game. I don't think Marc Crawford is the problem as coach -- I just think some of the group of guys got too comfortable with each other or something. Too comfortable or not comfortable enough to criticize each other. Everyone over the last how many months has wondered where the leadership was in that dressing room and where the jump has been in the team, and it really didn't come on that much until the last week or week and a half.
In short, this was like watching the 2003 Mariners, except with a ton more injuries.
Here's to a better next season and so long to a very weird season.
1st period
»» 1, VANCOUVER, Ed Jovanovski (Todd Bertuzzi) 4:42
»» 2, SAN JOSE, powerplay, Nils Ekman 20 (Matt Carle, Jonathan Cheechoo) 4:42
2nd period
»» 3, VANCOUVER, powerplay, Brendan Morrison 18 (Bertuzzi, Markus Naslund) 4:57
»» 4, SAN JOSE, powerplay, Cheechoo 52 (Tom Preissing, Joe Thornton) 10:32
»» 5, VANCOUVER, powerplay, Bertuzzi 24 (Jovanovski, Naslund) 17:48
3rd period
»» 6, SAN JOSE, Ville Nieminen 8 (Marcel Goc, Kyle McLaren) 4:36
»» 7, SAN JOSE, powerplay, Matt Carle 3 (J Thornton, Evgeni Nabokov) 11:24
»» 8, SAN JOSE, emptynet, Cheechoo 53 (J Thornton) 19:43
Three stars -- (1) San Jose's Joe Thornton, (2) San Jose's Jonathan Cheechoo, (3) San Jose's Matt Carle
skater, goals-assists-points
Bertuzzi 1-2-3
Jovanovski 1-1-2
Naslund 0-2-2
Morrison 1-0-1
The last meaningful game of the season left the Canucks at 90 points with a 41-32-8 record (4-4 shootout, four overtime losses). What follows next is a completely meaningless home game on Saturday against Colorado, which also functions as Fan Appreciation Night and jersey-off-our-backs night. Though it'll be nice for whatever fans end up with the players' sweaters, I'm sure the fans would appreciate more if this team made the playoffs. It won't happen now. In a way, I'm almost glad this is over because of how schizophrenic this team was over the span of the season. They didn't deserve to be in the playoffs, and if they did get in, it would have been patchwork city anyway. Of course, they didn't deserve two of their top four defensemen leaving last offseason and three of the remaining defensemen to miss significant time during the season either.
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