Home for Christmas; ‘Nucks Look To Continue Home Dominance

Heading into their last road trip, the Canucks surely didn’t expect to dominate the Devils and Flyers then turn around and drop 4 easy points against the Hurricanes and Predators. A good time to bounce back with some home cooking to work out the kinks and move up in the standings, right?

Three straight home wins later; the Canucks are slowly getting better and better and look extremely comfortable playing at home. Daniel Sedin’s return has set fire to his brother and the rest of the top line, who finally look like a legitimate NHL top line.  All of the Sedin hype makes the “Sedin Sisters” era seem like a faint memory, and thank Gordie for that.

The rest of the team isn’t letting the Sedin’s take the spotlight however; Ryan Kesler has been on fire of late, scoring three times in his last four games after breaking out of his goal scoring drought. Mason Raymond is also skating circles around the defence again, a nice goal two nights ago against the Kings as well as numerous dominating shifts during the home stand have shown Raymond may be ready to be a top 6 forward on this team for good. Mikael Samuelsson seems to be the only top six guy without recent scoring production, three assists in his last five games isn’t bad, but he needs to shoot more in order to be more effective.

The bottom six forwards have been doing their job on the home stand, bringing energy, killing penalties and getting to the dirty areas effectively. Tanner Glass and my boy Rick Rypien have both been a couple of heroes so far for the Canucks, good to see their hard work hasn’t gone un-noticed by the team or the media. Glass and Rypien both are slotted on the 3^rd line on the Canucks depth chart, and Rypien especially has been getting tons of attention for his giant slaying abilities after an impressive fight with Boris Valabik.

Unfortunately other bottom six forwards continue to underperform, Kyle Wellwood will be a healthy scratch for three of the last four games after tonight’s game against the Ducks, and he didn’t look great in his lone game against the Kings. Steve Bernier also continues to struggle, finding himself on the fourth line even though his 31 points is more than five times more than the sum of his current line mates’ point totals. Bernier needs to bring more energy and score the dirty goals in front of the net more often in order to get more ice time on the 2^nd and 3^rd lines. Darcy Hordichuk seems like a ghost on the ice, I was under the impression he was brought in for toughness and to occasionally drop the gloves, but other than a smart drawn penalty on Derek Boogaard against Minnesota, Hordichuk hasn’t done much with a -3 +/- over his last 4 games.

The Canucks’ defence has been solid in the three home wins so far, nothing wrong with allowing an average of two goals per game on the 4^th highest scoring team in the NHL (As I’m writing this the TEAM 1040 mentioned how boring the Canucks are, apparently 4^th in scoring isn’t good enough). Nice to see Sami Salo shooting again, it’s a tragedy letting a shot like he’s got go to waste. This home stand included, I’ve thought Willie Mitchell has been great all year, I’m happy to see that he’s getting the credit he deserves from the local media; Ian Macintyre also likes what he sees from BC’s own Willie Mitchell.

Roberto Luongo continues to hold down the fort with solid play, he has put up a save percentage North of .916 in 4 of his last 5, and looks very close to mid season form. Team Canada management are either very excited with his play of late, or very frustrated that he is making the starting goalie decision more and more difficult, a welcome predicament I’m sure.

While everything seems to be going well so far on the home stand, the Canucks still don’t find themselves in the top eight in the west, and that needs to change for the Canucks who should consider themselves a contender, whether they are playing like it or not. There are only 9 points separating 1^st place in the conference and the Canucks, so the Canucks can make significant progress in the standings with the home stand.

With the Ducks in town tonight, another seemingly easy two points is up for grabs, and the Canucks need to play 60 minutes of hockey in order to win. In today’s NHL, you can’t be caught thinking a game ahead, unless you are trying to set a record by losing to both conference bottom feeders in back to back weeks.  Leave the media to worry about the Alex Ovechkin’s autograph signing at the bay center, or whatever shenanigans the OV circus creates on the road.

News and Notes

• Ryan Kesler and Willie Mitchell almost fought each other last week at Friday’s practice, described by Alain Vigneault as “two brothers arguing” the scuffle wasn’t a big deal. The thing that intrigues me is that it came the night after a win by the Canucks, I LOVE the face that the Canucks are still a little edgy after a win, because no matter what happened the night before, you should never be happy your teams play if you aren’t in a playoff spot.
• Rick Rypien’s fight against Boris Valabik (seen above) was another Rick vs. Goliath fight, giving up 8 inches and 75 pounds to the 6″7 245 monster. I’ll let Roberto Luongo tell you how much Rypien’s fisticuffs helps his team “I’ve never been so pumped after a fight in my entire life”. So to all of those who don’t think there is a place in the game for fighting, think again.
• As mentioned above, Kyle Wellwood will sit out against the Ducks tonight. Bummer for Mr. Magic Mittens, he really needs to find his game soon.
• Team Canada announced the roster for the World Juniour Hockey Championships today, special congrats to fellow Semiahmoo Minor Hockey Association player Colten Teubert who used to skate circles around your truly back in the day. Brandom McMillan and Martin Jones round out the British Columbian’s on the team.