The Official 2010/2011 Canucks Thread

[stuff99]

AV plays too much into favoritism. Please refer to my line up article I posted in the previous page written by Tony G.

Seriously, what's with his love affair with Glass when offense was an issue? Last time I checked, we did pretty well with Cody in the line up.

[- kT]

gonna look for a kesler jersey soon that a bandwagoner is selling. that guy has all my respect. he played his heart out tonight as he always has, through the pain and everything, and to wear a jersey with his name on the back would be a fucking honour

[SkinnyPupp]

Some athletes become superstars even in losing efforts. IMO Kesler is one of those few

[spoon.ek9]

i have to be honest: there were a LOT of moments during the year where i couldn't understand wtf AV was doing and it felt like he was the beneficiary of a truly skilled team with a lot of depth. personally, i would like to see a different coach but i don't see it happening.

[jdmhaze]

^Wait for the Kesler jersey that comes out with the 'C' on it

I really think he deserves it.

[Wongtouski]

Originally Posted by spoon.ek9

i have to be honest: there were a LOT of moments during the year where i couldn't understand wtf AV was doing and it felt like he was the beneficiary of a truly skilled team with a lot of depth. personally, i would like to see a different coach but i don't see it happening.

Much like The Heat (in the NBA), someone will get blamed for the "failure" of the season, just depends who will be (fairly/unfairly) blamed. Other than getting rid of Luongo which is highly unlikely, the next option is to get rid of the coach. Mentally I think the team might have had enough with AV, and could tune him out next year.

[stuff99]

Originally Posted by jdmhaze

^Wait for the Kesler jersey that comes out with the 'C' on it

I really think he deserves it.

Henrik is a great captain.

[dark0821]

GO Canucks GO
I am a bangwagoner when the play off started this year...
but even thru just this small amount of time...
I can still say, I am proud that we gotten this far!!!

there is always next year...

GO CANUCKS GO!!!!

[stuff99]

Originally Posted by spoon.ek9

i have to be honest: there were a LOT of moments during the year where i couldn't understand wtf AV was doing and it felt like he was the beneficiary of a truly skilled team with a lot of depth. personally, i would like to see a different coach but i don't see it happening.

My thoughts exactly. He favours Rome and Alberts over Ballard? His confidence is shot. Every scout says Cody is can't miss and by all accounts when hes on the ice he's great...bench him over Glass...what has Glass done?

Some other folks can do no wrong too. But Ballard and Cody? One mistake and they're gone.

[mb_]

Kesler is a true warrior. Glad to have him on our team. He's a type of player that will bring home the cup.

[falcon]

I guess after Weber's FB post, he won't want to come play in Van. Too bad since he has a lot of friends on this team and would make a great addition.

[kristianhay]

More detail about the Ehrhoff injury.

VANCOUVER -- There are few players who are completely healthy by the time the Stanley Cup Final rolls around. Canucks defenseman and free-agent-to-be Christian Ehrhoff admitted after Wednesday's 4-0 loss to the Bruins in Game 7 that he wasn't one of them.

Ehrhoff suffered a shoulder injury during Game 3 of the Western Conference Final against the San Jose Sharks. He said in order to play in the Stanley Cup Final, he needed to take a pain-killing injection in the shoulder before all seven games against the Boston Bruins.

The 28-year-old from Moers, Germany, was minus-7 with just one assist against the Bruins, but he showed the type of toughness teams covet. One of the top unrestricted free agents the Canucks possess said Wednesday that he wouldn't mind staying right where he is.

"It's a great group of guys," Ehrhoff said. "There's definitely a great chance to be back (in the Stanley Cup Final) again and I hope I can be part of that. My agent and (GM) Mike (Gillis) have to talk. We'll see where that leads."

The Canucks' three biggest decisions involving unrestricted free agents will come with their defensemen -- Ehrhoff, 30-year-old Kevin Bieksa and 36-year-old Sami Salo. Other notable free agents on which decisions will be made by Gillis include forwards Christopher Higgins, Raffi Torres, Jeff Tambellini and Tanner Glass.

Three restricted free agents -- Jannik Hansen, Maxim Lapierre and Victor Oreskovich -- round out the group.

Ehrhoff earned $3.4 million in the final year of his three-year deal he signed with the San Jose Sharks, who dealt him to the Canucks in the summer of 2009. It remains to be seen if the Canucks can afford Ehrhoff, but he thinks the future in Vancouver is bright.

"It's tough to say right now, for me, I think we'll be back," Ehrhoff said. "We'll learn from this experience."

Following the loss, Daniel Sedin was able to cut through his grief to say he believes that with the core of this team intact for the foreseeable future, there's no reason to believe this team can't get back to the Stanley Cup Final again.

"It's tough now, but I think we have a great group in here," Sedin said. "There's no question we're going to get back next year and be hungry again. Once you've been here, you want to get back. It's been a fun ride and we're a tight group."

Explains Ehrhoff's subpar play, what a thing to play through.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=5...d-rr-headlines

[falcon]

Originally Posted by stuff99

bench him over Glass...what has Glass done?
.

fan on an open net?

[Ronin]

Just got home.

Looking through pictures. Mailing every clear shot of a face flipping a car, setting a fire, breaking a window or looting a store straight to VPD.

[Ikkaku]

Don't forget though, we all said the same thing about Kesler back then before him and Burrows became such a crucial part of the team. We all asked why they drafted him instead of David Backes or Corey Perry. We all questioned the coach as to why they kept playing him when he never showed the offensive flair he has today. Sometimes the coaches see things we don't see.

However, I definitely agree AV was out-coached. They indicated that they found a way to get past Tim Thomas, but even when it didn't work, they continued the same strategy. Simple fact is they figured out how to beat our system, but we could not figure out theirs.

Admittingly, I almost shed a tear watching Kesler's interview. With the injuries, he was still giving 110% during the entire series, he played like a true champion. If there is one Canuck that is deserving of the cup, it would be him.

[stuff99]

Gallagher: Canucks not the team they were

By Tony Gallagher, The ProvinceJune 16, 2011 12:02 AM

Ryan Kesler mumbled his way through a tearful interview and the Sedin twins stood and took the blame for coming up blanks in the final, pointing at themselves constantly as they stayed and answered questions for well over a half an hour.

The twins may not yet be Stanley Cup champions but they are unquestionable superstars of life no matter what Mike Milbury or anyone else might want to say about them.

The Boston Bruins were finally the team to piece together a great road game to win it here in Vancouver, and certainly on the 23-8 goal differential they were more than worthy winners behind a brilliant Tim Thomas in goal.

But it's amazing what can happen to a team over the long run of a run to a Cup final and now the Canucks have watched it happen to them two years in a row. You pretty much start with the team you have had most of the season give or take a player or two but by the end there is scarcely a remote resemblance to the same team.

By the time the Bruins were taking their advantage in the second period last night, can you honestly say that was the Vancouver Canuck team out there? They were hard to recognize.

For the second straight year they appeared not to have enough bodies on the back end despite a cast big enough to shoot Pirates of the Caribbean several times over. In game seven you had rookie Chris Tanev, a spare part in Andrew Alberts and four other guys who were regulars, but only Sami Salo and Kevin Bieksa looking anything close to top form. Christian Ehrhoff's shoulder was so banged up it was like somebody having come in off the street and deciding to play in his stead and Alex Edler could neither shoot (with two broken fingers on his left hand suffered on a slash in game six), hit nor turn anything like the guy who was so great in game five.

Losing Dan Hamhuis was an absolute killer. And the fact Keith Ballard was not kept in the mix earlier ended up really hurting the offence in Hamhuis' absence. If there was any doubt as to the Smithers native's effectiveness in this team with respect to moving the puck and making Bieksa a better player it was pushed aside once he took his leave. Against Boston the Canucks did something they didn't do all year—have trouble moving the puck to their forwards in full flight. None of that happened in this series. Certainly the Bruins deserve a lot of credit for that but his loss in Vancouver's eyes was nothing short of devastating.

Up front it was more of the same although Ryan Kesler was seeming to get his skating legs back at the end. But it has been so long since he had any energy given the torn hip flexor which plagued him since the end of the San Jose series, it was like he was getting used to moving again. And by that time Mason Raymond was deteriorating and was eventually mangled in Boston and Chris Higgins was creeping around the ice like a guy his grandfather's age given the foot problem. End of second line.

The Sedins were flat out shut down by Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg on D along with Patrice Bergeron's gifted line in much the same way as they were in Nashville.

“It's up to us to score and we didn't do it,” said Henrik. “We're the offensive players and we have to get the job done. Their goalie was unbelievable, but it's our job to score and we take the blame for that.”

When Henrik was asked if he was suffering from anything during the playoffs his response was: “A scoring slump.'

Nobody was willing to cop to injury but given the ease with which he was pushed off the puck for much of the playoffs it's hard to believe he was completely healthy. If he was, this is going to be a persistent problem for the rest of his career.

And then there was this team's staple all season, the power play. What they mangled the Sharks with turned around and bit them in the hind quarters in the final, their 2-33 performance dreadful but only half the bad news. The three shorthanded goals they surrendered—a shocking six over the course of the playoffs—literally did them in. How do you plan for something like that?

You build a great power play, it functions brilliantly much of the way and then suddenly freezes up like a cheap piece of junk at the most crucial moment.

And how about the road performance in the final after being terrific all season. As good as he was at home, Roberto Luongo who was strong everywhere during the regular season was laughable in the three road games in this series.

“We gave them three freebies in Boston and you can't win doing that,” said Jannik Hansen.

The officiating played it's role in all this as it usually does, particularly in Boston, but not in game seven.

Where they go from here will take more than a few days to figure out.

© Copyright (c) The Province

[stuff99]

Originally Posted by falcon

I guess after Weber's FB post, he won't want to come play in Van. Too bad since he has a lot of friends on this team and would make a great addition.

What did he say?

[VooDood]

i went to the nhl webpage, and i see all these pics of the bruins holding up the cup and it hit me hard, they were holding it up in our arena, all the merchandise in the online store had bruins logo on it. i admit we had a good run, but it was just so hard to take all this in.

[shawn79]

seeing kesler bieksa and burrows watching bruins hoist the cup u know they want it bad

henrik looked cool as a cucumber

[Frank D'Angelo]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

You just answered your own question 2 posts above... The Sedins were stymied by Chara and Seidenberg. Not sure why you have to be such a dick about it though...

Oh wait, nobody can say anything bad about Luongo without the nut lickers coming to his defense with inflammatory troll retorts. Thanks for keeping the tradition alive even in the post season!

I really wish we could hear another "SEE I TOLD YOU LU WOULD BRING THE CUP HOME FOR US" from all you fuckers, I really do

it isn't even about luongo sucking either. the guy whines non stop, does RIDICULOUSLY EMBARRASSING dives, breaks down out of nowhere and will let in 20 goals in a span of 3 minutes, talks shit about other players then gets owned in the next game.

i have no doubt schneider would have performed as well as or better than luongo with that defence in front of him.

[hypediss]

im not looking forward to the draft or the awards ceremony cuz u no u would see those cockheads bruins bringing their cup winning grins to the show

ill read nething related to the nucks after these two things happen and past away

[stuff99]

Originally Posted by shawn79

seeing kesler bieksa and burrows watching bruins hoist the cup u know they want it bad

henrik looked cool as a cucumber

Henrik took it like a man facing the media and wanted it as much as anyone of them.

[kristianhay]

Originally Posted by shawn79

seeing kesler bieksa and burrows watching bruins hoist the cup u know they want it bad

henrik looked cool as a cucumber

That's how the Sedins are, cool, calm, collected. Henrik is a stoic figure, he's a classy dude and I can guarantee he wanted the cup as much as anyone else did. Just because the Sedins have a bit more composure doesn't mean they don't care.

[stuff99]

Originally Posted by Frank D'Angelo

it isn't even about luongo sucking either. the guy whines non stop, does RIDICULOUSLY EMBARRASSING dives, breaks down out of nowhere and will let in 20 goals in a span of 3 minutes, talks shit about other players then gets owned in the next game.

i have no doubt schneider would have performed as well as or better than luongo with that defence in front of him.

At least he's better than Cloutier and we went to the Cup Finals with him.

[cliffhanger33]

It just wasn't supposed to end like this today.......