They Are Who We Thought They Were; Canucks Threaten Kings with Elimination After Dominating Game Five

During this year’s playoffs, The Canucks continue to remind me of Dennis Green’s epic post-game rant after his Arizona Cardinals lost to the Chicago Bears years ago.

The Canucks are who we thought they were, it may have taken a couple games but the Canucks seemed to simultaneously hit their stride on Friday night, finding the desperation and emotion necessary to win in the playoffs on way their way to beating the Kings 7-2 in one of the most overall dominating performances of the year, by far their best against the stingy Kings.

Steve Bernier surely was excited after scoring the first goal of the game Friday night; however after the Canucks’ opening goal the happiest man in the building may have been Kyle Wellwood. With a golden opportunity to open the scoring, Wellwood blew a shot past the net bouncing the puck off the end boards to Steve Bernier, who demonstrated to his line mate how to properly burry a scoring chance at 8:50 of the 1^st.

Minutes later, the Canuck’s penalty troubles would again come back to hurt them. After a solid opening 90 seconds for Canuck penalty killers, Michal Handzus was able to bank the puck off of the skate of Roberto Luongo from behind the net, tying the game 1-1.

Handzus’ power play goal may add to the already horrific Canucks penalty killing record this series, however the Canuck PK unit couldn’t have looked much better in their first effort of the game if not for the unlucky bank shot that victimized Luongo. The game was tied, however the goal failed to swing the momentum.

After Ryan Kesler worked the puck loose down low to feed Alex Edler, the Swedish defenseman attacked the net and fired the puck short side past Jonathan Quick to regain the lead for the Canucks, a huge goal that sparked the Canucks’ confidence heading into the second period.

In the middle frame, the Canucks fed off of the energy of their 1^st period success and took advantage of the King’s 4^th line after they had iced the puck as Henrik and Daniel Sedin again worked their magic off of the offensive zone face off allowing Daniel to wrap around the net and work the puck past Jonathan Quick. Minutes later, the top line of the Canucks switched positions on the score sheet; Mikael Samuelsson’s rocket from the top of the circle was enough to chase Jonathan Quick from the net as Terry Murray elected to give Quick the hook in favour of backup Erik Ersberg.

Later in the second, Kevin Bieksa and Christian Ehrhoff minor penalties gave the Kings their best opportunity to claw back into the game; however the struggling Canucks penalty kill was able to dig deep and kill off both penalties, again keeping the momentum with the Canucks heading into the intermission.

In the 3^rd, struggling forward Pavol Demitra got capped off a solid performance with another rocket of a shot, blowing the puck by Kings’ backup Erik Ersberg. While it may not have had much impact on the game, Demitra’s goal should help improve the confidence of the Slovakian winger who recently spoke of his demotion to the 4^th line earlier in the season.  “It pissed me off, big time” Demitra admitted.

After Fredrik Modin brought the Kings back to within three a half minute after Demitra’s tally, Mikael Samuelsson and Steve Bernier both continued their solid performances each with their second goal of the game, finishing off an impressive offensive performance from the Canucks.

Fight Club

Tied 2-2 with something to prove, both teams brought an especially emotional and aggressive game on Friday night. However once the game became out of reach, the doors were open for the trash talk to escalate an already emotional series. After his aggressive” extracurricular” activities between the whistles in game four, it is no surprise Shane O’Brien was ready to drop the gloves against Wayne Simmonds late in the 3^rd.

It was a solid fight for O’Brien who was able to manhandle Simmonds without throwing any bombs. O’Brien may have heard CBC commentator‘s worrying over the fragility of the Canucks defence, however that is the brilliance of Shane O’Brien. He not only won the fight but fuelled the fans at GM Place “shooting off” a salute to the crowd which didn’t sit well with the Kings bench. Terry Murray’s review of O’Brien post-fight salute: “You don’t need to rub it in at the end of a fight, skating around with your hands in the air acting like the clown that he is”. O’Brien and Murray have since both apologized for their respective actions “hey, if he (O’Brien) apologizes then I apologize for calling him a clown?” said Murray, who I’m beginning to admire as a coach; even if I am obligated to dislike him for now.

While Terry Murray may have wanted to talk about the O’Brien vs. Simmonds fight from game five, Canucks fans have been buzzing over the playoff debut of the NHL’s unofficial pound for pound champion fighting champion, who was more than welcome to teach Rich Clune a thing or two.

After Rich Clune hooked at Rypien to get his attention, the Canuck’s tough guy quickly turned around furiously attacked Clune with his patented lefts, sending him to the ice. After Clune was able to get back to his feat, Rypien demonstrated his tremendous fighting technique combining two left and right hand jabs to knock Clune to the ice for the last time. Notice the difference between the two Canuck fighters, Rypien’s dominating victory needed no celebration.

Elimination

Given the possibility of their season ending tonight, expect the Kings to come flying out of the gate tonight at the Staples Center. They surely can’t be pleased with their performance in game 5 and will determined to get the crowd into the game early. The Canucks should be brimming with confidence after game five; however the will must be stronger than the skill in order for the Canucks to be successful. After chasing Jonathan Quick out of the game on Friday, an early one on Quick tonight would play havoc with the young backstop’s confidence. Speaking of confident young men, the Canucks need to keep Drew Doughty off of his game again tonight; Vancouver should continue to wear away at Drew Doughty with the same special treatment he received on Friday (on both sides of the whistle) in order to keep the Norris nominee off his game, even if Rick Bowness doesn’t approve.

Injuries, News and Notes

• Notice how I haven’t mentioned Drew Doughty all article? The Canucks did a great job of keeping him from becoming a big factor on Friday; Doughty was a -1 with 4 shots.
• Pro Canuck: Pierre Lebrun on Alain Vigneault and his calm confidence in the Canucks while weathering the storm down 2-1 earlier in the series. I seem to like both Lebrun and Vigneault the more I come across the two, good times.
• Contra Canuck: Darren Pang’s comments about Henrik and Daniel Sedin, referring to them as “Twinkies”. The Province reaction was quite strong, however if media members like Pang expect players to be accountable for their words and actions, so should Panger.
• Michael Grabner is out tonight in favour of the bigger, tougher Tanner Glass tonight. Grabner has shown flashes of scoring talent this series; however his finish is not quite consistent enough to keep him in lineup. It’s not a big surprise that Vigneault is preparing for war tonight with the not-so-fragile Glass.
• After injuring his shoulder Friday night in his fight against Rick Rypien, the King’s depth chart suggests Rich Clune will be out of the lineup tonight in favour of Raitis Ivanans.
• Game time is 6PM Pacific on CBC, which means an hour less to wait until game time! Enjoy.