1. Vancouver looses their last 6 games in regulation
2. Calgary wins at least 1 game
3. Chicago gets at least 1 more point
4. Columbus wins 3 of their last 5
5. Nashville wins their last 5 games
6. Anaheim goes 4-0-1 or better in the last 5
7. St. Louis wins their last 5
8. St. Louis makes up a 34 goal differential on the Canucks in the team remaining 11 games combined. Not Likely

The Canucks have defied the odds and done it. They are in the playoffs. And in such a stress free manner. Got to love that.

Anaheim is not so fortunate. It’s a Ducks team fighting for their lives that shows up tonight. Currently, the Ducks are in the playoffs by a single point. They’ve been hot of late, winning 8 of 10 just at the right time to give themselves a chance of sneaking into the playoffs. Don’t look now, but Scott Neidermayer is starting to round into form and could have the Ducks playing like a force again just in time for the playoffs. I think the Ducks will get in.

Tonight, look for Alex Burrows to score another. He’s due. But look for a huge night from the Kesler line as the Ducks stack their top defenders against the Sedins. It could be a let down game for the Canucks and it’s sure to a tough one.

Ducks 5, Canucks 4

Lets hope I’m wrong.

Enjoy the game!

Tonight, Vancouver faces a Minnesota team that desperately needs to win. It’s do or die time for the Wild. They find themselves three points out of the playoffs now with just 6 games left to play. Worse, they need to jump a bunch of teams to make it. Marian Gaborik has returned and, whether or not it’s his determination to prove his critics wrong or make some money, the Wild sniper has been playing some great hockey of late. How many more games do those fragile groins have left in them? His team will be all but buried if they don’t win tonight.

Vancouver has suddenly regained form after a stumble at the start of the road trip. The victory over Chicago may have been the most satisfying win of the season. The Sedins dominated, Luongo dominated and Kevin Bieksa, well, got dominated, but that really just added to the amusement of the game. Alex Burrows reverted to the form of a four year old girl with his hair pulling antics, which means that Alexander Semin’s drummer boy now has a rival for most feminine action ever taken during a fight. Burrows continues his hunt for 30 goals tonight, needing four in his last 7 games. He’s got 13 in his last 18 by the way. Meanwhile, Henrik Sedin, inexplicably passed over in favour of Daniel for star of the week despite having more points, is just 6 points away from matching a career high. I say inexplicable because how can one Sedin be second star of the week and the other one not on the list? It’s almost as weird as the time only one of them made the all star game….

Wild 2, Canucks 1 (SO)

Lets hope I’m wrong.

Enjoy the game!

The game was complete and utter Vancouver dominance. Or maybe it just felt that way with the Sedins. They struck early on a classic bang bang play in close. Henrik found Daniel alone three feet from the net. Next it was a brilliant Daniel Sedin slap pass for Burrows who made no mistake from in close with a superb deflection for his 26th goal of the season. With the goal, Burrows kept alive his drive towards thirty goals. Finally, Daniel scored a candidate for goal of the season. Burrows found Henrik alone in the slot. Though all Canucks fans knew he would never shoot, the Chicago players clearly did not and as they rushed to check him between the circles, Henrik whirled and through a blind pass to Daniel who stood unguarded at the side of the net. Looking at perhaps an inch (and it was a small inch) of net given the angle, Daniel one timed the puck home. The goal left John Garett in the Sportsnet booth muttering “wow” with the voice of a man who really couldn’t believe what he had just seen. Down on the players bench, you could actually see the little green dollar signs glittering in the twins’ eyes.

At this point if anyone is questioning the value of the Sedins, lets just review who is in front of Daniel in the Western “we actually play defence here” Conference scoring race. Datsysuk, Iginla, Getzlaf, Thornton. That’s it. Both Sedins have more points than players like Nash, Heatly, Spezza, Hossa, Zetterburg, and Patrick Marleau. And here’s a stat you didn’t know about the Sedins. They are a career plus +172 collectively. Sign them!!!!

There were two more exciting elements of the game other than the Sedin line dominance. The first was the solid if unspectacular play of Roberto Luongo who picked up his 7th shutout of the season. He did make one particularly huge save of Martin Havlat after the Hawks sniper was allowed to walk out at the side of the goal late in the second period. Luongo stacked the pads and robbed him. The Canuck captain is slowly, very slowly, starting to return to form. The second element was the third period line brawl. After Dustin Byfuglien cross checked Roberto Luongo in the face, chaos erupted. Ben Eager and Kevin Bieksa paired off, with the former landing a nasty punch that had Bieksa bleeding profusely from his nose. Not to be outdone Alex Burrows was challenging everyone and ended up in the middle of a pile. How he avoided a fighting major, and the ensuing Gordie Howe Hat trick, was anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, Shane O’brien had to be restrained by officials as he attempted to get to the defence of Daniel Sedin who was being besieged by two Hawk players. We can only hope now that these teams meet in the playoffs. For more reasons than one….

Chicago will likely still be smarting from the 7-3 thrashing Vancouver laid on them in the last meeting between these two teams. Remember the Canucks near meltdown in that one? They worked hard that night to blow a 6-0 lead. The Sedin twins are really heating up right now, timely, considering the Kesler line is finally cooling off. Of course, that’s all relative given that both lines are putting up points at a prodigious clip these days. Mats Sundin isn’t doing much these days but he’s still doing something in the form of 2 assists against Colorado.

Meanwhile, Alex Burrows is into a goalscoring drought having failed to score against the Avs. If he doesn’t score tonight we’ll start calling it a slump. No word yet on the Vancouver lineup, but you can expect it to remain largely the same as last game.

Look for Darcy Hordichuk to get back into the lineup and drop the gloves within the first five minutes as Alain Vigneault reminds his tough guy he’s here to send a message to a potential first round opponent.

Roberto Luongo will be back in tonight. Can he match the performance of Jason Labarbra? The Canucks need a solid performance from their captain.

Canucks 4, Blackhawks 3

Enjoy the game!

After a lousy first period, the game, and the Canucks play, picked up in the second. First Ian Laperriere lost his head then his dignity when he shot a stray stick at the puck during a Canuck powerplay. The result was the rarely seen delayed penalty shot (an automatic call given the puck was in the offending players defensive zone). Laperriere however, seemed unfamiliar with the rule when he began arguing with the official even after the stick had clearly struck the puck. He got 10, then, clearly unsatisfied, turned that into a game misconduct. Based on the way the Avalanche season has gone, nobody could really blame him. On the penalty shot, Andrew Raycroft made arguably the save of the month after Demitra had made a superb deke to the backhand. Shortly after the penalty shot, Henrik tallied to tie the game heading into the third period, where the Canucks took over. The Canucks had outshot the Avalanche 16-5 in the second with Andrew Raycroft keeping his team in game. But in the third, the Canucks tallied 3 times on just 8 shots.

It wasn’t a Sedin night for Vancouver in the total dominance sense, but it was pretty close. The Sedins were in on three of the four goals, leaving Daniel just a point away from a point-a-game pace. It looks like the slump is officially over.

Jason Labarbra was fantastic in the Vancouver net, surrendering only the one goal and gobbling up the puck any time it came near him. On the bench, Roberto Luongo was visibly seething as his counterpart stoned the Avalanche cold. I’m not going to go there, I won’t…..ok I will…..Goaltending controversy! With the way Luongo is playing now, Labarbra is better, much better. But I stand by something else. For the Canucks to be legitimate contenders, they need Luongo. But they need Luongo at his best. And because of that, they need to ride him for better or for worse.

Alex Edler became the 11th Canuck to score 10 goals this season, with Mats Sundin due to become the 12th with his next strike. If you can point out one reason that the Canucks are in the position they are, that’s why.

The Northwest race is on! The Canucks now are withing just one point of Calgary. It’s an 8 game sprint now for the division title, home ice, and a matchup with the inexperienced Columbus Blue Jackets, a team the Canucks systematically destroyed in their last meeting. Of course, the Jackets have the MVP so that might now be so attractive (seriously though, how could he not be the MVP). For those keeping track by the way, the Canucks do still need to win 4 of their last 8 to guarantee a playoff spot.

Now it’s on to Chicago for a crucial game that may decide home ice advantage.

Quietly, Daniel and Henrik Sedin continue to produce points, game, after game, after game. Both find themselves just a fraction under a point a game average, Daniel with 71 points in 73 games, and Henrik with 1 less. Might be time to wonder if Alex Burrows shocking goal tally of late is largely due to the twins. But hey, since they never do anything we would never want to resign them, right. Seriously though, that line is starting to heat up. The twins also tend to feast on poor defensive teams and Colorado fits the bill. It might be one of those special Sedin nights.

Lineup changes appear imminent. Mason Raymond will return, with Darcy Hordichuk likely sitting this one out. Raymond has been an enigma this season but seems to slowly be finding his form of late. Shane O’brien may also slot in for Ossi Vaananen, who has looked rusty in his two games thus far.

Colorado is dead last in the West. But any long time Canuck fan knows two things about this game. One, that the Canucks have a terrible time against the Avalanche and two, every time you feel certain they will win, they lose.

This is a game the Canucks have to have to put the pressure on Calgary. They’ll get it, coming from behind in the third to win 4-3.

Enjoy the game!

Actually, lets just review that goal for a second. Oshie got the puck near the red line. Somewhere the Canucks started thinking they were playing soccer. We saw a nicely formed slide tackle by Kyle Wellwood, before Mattias Ohlund made arguably the most pathetic effort of his NHL career with his attempted poke checking. Of course the real problem was that Taylor Pyatt had been forced into a defensive position by Bieksa horrendous pinch. Watch the highlights and you will notice Bieksa making a last ditched slash on Oshie as he walks untouched around Luongo . Yes Kevin, that was your guy. An yes, he was scoring from exactly where you should have been standing.Still, can’t anyone take the body? It’s a contact sport!

Now I promised a proper Bieksa roast so I will go on. Remember David Backus ripping a wrist shot off the cross bar with about 15 minutes to go? It was a two on one with Brad Boyes. That was thanks to an absolutely terrible Bieksa pinch where he skated along the blue line towards the center of the ice, then turned back towards the boards as the Blues broke to center. This naturally left him as the 10th skater on the ice skating towards the Vancouver end, a major accomplishment since he started closest to the Vancouver net. He cruised back into the picture just as the Canucks cleared the zone. The horrendous didn’t end there but I’ve run out of energy to describe further…

Still, it was a worse night for Vancouver than just Bieksa. Roberto Luongo looks like a trampoline these days. Pucks are bouncing off his everywhere. The Canucks are clearling going nowhere unless he gets his act together. The Blues second goal saw the bizzare combination of Mats Sundin and Pavel Demitra playing the powerplay point. Thats just asking to give up a shorty. Finally, the Canuck penalty killing, which was showing so many promising signs, was you guess it, terrible.

So were there any positives? Yes. Alex Burrows scored again, getting right into the crease to bury a rebound from about two feet. Shades of Anson Carter, the best Sedin winger ever, certainly came to mind. In fact, I will now make the bold assessment that Burrows may now hold that post, although Jason King was brilliant with them  for a little while too.

After it was all over the Canucks had 32-23 and deserved to lose. but they caught a big break when Columbus smashed Calgary keeping the Northwest very much in play. Still, home ice seems to be slipping away right now for Vancouver. The street might just be coming to an end. The team needs to pull together and get ready for the playoffs, where every game will be just like this one.

Alright, now that you understand how important this game is, lets talk about it. Ossi Vaananen has done enough to earn another game. Will he get more ice time after playing less than 10 minutes against Dallas. Alain Vingeault surely wants to know what he has in his newest player. Meanwhile, the Canucks will dress 13 forwards for the pregame skate, then decide who sits at the last second. The Great Dane is ready to roll and should be a nice addition to the fourth line and the PK. Why has he not been back in sooner? He has to get a chance tonight, doesn’t he?

Here is a fun stat that means nothing, compliments of Caucks.com. Vancouver is 4-0-0 when Alex Burrows gets in a fight. Burrows has been doing a lot more scoring than fighting of late. Every game seems to build on his career high goals mark. Speaking of career highs, Ryan Kesler is adding to his career high in goals with each tally while Henrik Sedin needs only 1 more to match his own personal best. Yes this team scores by committtee.

Canucks win a squeeker 3-2 in the Shootout.

Enjoy the game!