'Nucks IceMan

Written by Larry “The Nuck IceMan” Johnson

I’ll get to the title in a moment, but in this historic year of the Canucks, with its Presidents Trophy win, total points they put up, etc., they just keep re-writing the history books. No other Canucks Stanley Cup team has ever endured a beating like they did last night in Boston’s 8-1 win.

I did not see the third period as I had to go for a walk I was so upset. Why? It wasn’t because the Canucks lost, because I had already written that they would. It was the manner in which they competed. They quit – and I don’t recall any team in these play-offs quitting and throwing in the towel collectively.

It wasn’t just one player, it was the whole team. No push back, no compete, just no mas, no mas.

Did you notice that only Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows, Kevin Bieksa and yes even Daniel Sedin, showed the courage to stand up and not take this whipping lying down? At the end of the second period, it was Kesler that was probably so furious on how he and the team had played, that he tried to get something going with Bruins Zdeno Chara.

Not one other Canuck player went to support Kesler! Not one! Kesler would later take it out on Bruins’ Dennis Seidenberg.

The Canucks do not have a Bruins Shawn Thornton to match up against him and you may say that these types of players are not needed in the play-offs. If so, look at the physicality he inspired in the Bruins, who are bigger, tougher than the Canucks anyways and proved it last night.

It looked like the schoolyard bully beating up on the little kid, rubbing his nose in the dirt and sending him home, crying to Mommy. Did I want to see a brawl? No! I just expected a whole lot more of the players to show up and be accountable to their teammates, to this so called team that is supposed to be so close.

I sure hope it was embarrassing to the Canucks, because as a life long fan, it was downright unbearable.

In this lop sided whipping sprang forth a positive. If the score would have been like the previous games in which one goal separated the teams, it would have been viewed as the Canucks having played well but just couldn’t close it out.

They Canucks to a man along with coach Vigneault repeated the mantra that “a loss is just a loss no matter what the score is.” Yeah right!

Roberto Luongo was asked after the game why he didn’t come out of the game, and I paraphrase here. He said he had been asked by Vigneault if he wanted to come out and said he wanted to stay in. Now if anyone has an answer to that, please let me know because I can’t figure that one out.  Luongo went on to say that he would be better.

I didn’t have time to find the stats on Luongo’s record after a bad game, but you can be sure he will make amends for not only the score, but for the taunting directed at him at the end of the game.

Boston added fuel to the fire by taunting a number of other Canucks throughout the game, especially Alex Burrows and the Sedins. Even the Bruins coach Claude Julien, was embarrassed at that and said later in the press conference, that he had addressed the players about that, because it did not have a place in the game.

Say what you will about the Sedins, but they are as competitive as any player on the Canucks and to embarrass them the way the Bruins did, will surely bring out the best that Boston has seen.

As for the rest of the team, it’s one thing to lose a game and another to suffer a humiliating beating. The Canucks don’t need any motivation to play hard I mean it’s the Stanley Cup! So when you embarrass professional athletes their competitive juices rise to the top and it brings out the best in them.

Look for the Canucks to play their best game of the finals and even maybe the play-offs.

With the announcement today that Bruins Nathan Horton suffered a severe concussion and is likely done for the series, the NHL handed Canucks Aaron Rome a four game suspension. Enough has been written and verbalized by the media already, so I will move on.

With the Rome suspension and Dan Hamhuis already out, that leaves the Canucks with only Chris Tanev as depth on the blue-line. Keith Ballard is sure to be back in the line-up on Wednesday and I would expect someone from the Manitoba Moose to be called up for emergency.

I can’t figure out what happened to Hamhuis. It doesn’t appear to be his legs because when he went to the dressing room after the hit on Milan Lucic, he wasn’t limping or supported by the trainers, he was bent over.

To me that looked like a lower back injury where you pull a muscle. Also, watching him walk through YVR before the team left for Boston, he was walking fine, no limp or apparent favouring of his legs. He hasn’t skated since his injury and if the injury was severe, wouldn’t he have remained back in Vancouver for treatment if they expected him to play again in this series?

Anyways, the Canucks will have to figure out whom to play with Bieksa now. Because D-coach Rick Bowness likes to keep a right hand shot with a left hand shot together, does Alex Edler play with Bieksa, Sami Salo with Andrew Alberts and Christian Ehrhoff with Keith Ballard?

Better yet, does Canucks management do what’s best for the team and sit out Ehrhoff (-10) and play Ballard with Chris Tanev? That -10 is the worst in the play-offs of any player and his -4 in this series leads all players also.

Footnotes: Ryan Kesler has yet to score in this series, looks like he’s playing injured which has slowed him down, and his line is offensively ineffective. The Canucks need more from that line.

Would coaching be thinking about moving Mason Raymond out of the line-up and putting Manny Malhotra as the centre between Kesler, where he wouldn’t have to skate as much and Chris Higgins, to generate some offense?

Canucks fourth line would then be made up of Alex Bolduc at centre with Victor Oreskovich and Tanner Glass, if he is available. This line needs more grit than the smallish Jeff Tambellini.

In conclusion what seemed to be a Canucks advantage has disappeared with Boston’s special teams re-appearing. Boston leads with three power play goals to Canucks one, is better five on five, has the better goals against average and penalty kill.

Come game four on Wednesday the Canucks will be better and I’m picking them to win an inspired game.

Photo Credits – AP, Getty Images, Google Images and Yahoo Sports!

To catch all the news, updates and new articles as they occur, along with the Canucks farm team, the Manitoba Moose, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/nucksiceman.

Note: www.nucksiceman.com is now mobile friendly. From the web address on your iPhone, you can choose Options/Mobile formatted and the site will appear in its entire living colour for you to view. Check it out.

Related posts:

Filed under: Vancouver Canucks