REVscene Automotive Forum - NHL IS BACK! The Official 2012/2013 Canucks & NHL Thread

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Not really racist! (Post 8232096)

http://i.imgur.com/158IcTl.gif

http://i.imgur.com/uhvLw.gif

So THAT'S what it takes to get the Sedins riled up and angry. Too bad, out of games now.

#boldmoves

Quote:

Originally Posted by bballguy (Post 8232088)

It doesn't matter if it was 3-3 or 3-0; As a true fan, you always have that tiniest bit of hope that somehow, some way, your team will pull through...We at least saw some signs of life from the Canucks today, and no matter what, you want to go down with a fair fight right til' the end...Am I stupid and think it's very likely at all that they'd perform this miracle comeback? No, of course not...but you take it one game at a time, and if we were going to eventually lose, I'd like it to be the opposition finishing us off, not the refs....

You have a great point. I'm not sure how it relates to my post though, as it was directed towards the audience that was left in shock and awe when we lost. Of course, every fan has hope that the team they're rooting for wins, it would be an oxymoron if they didn't. But when is a person being a fan and being stupid? To me, when they don't see/don't want to acknowledge how we limped our way into the playoffs and got swept back by a stronger team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpinestars (Post 8232111)

It relates to your post because despite the fact that they have sucked for the most part of the season, part of you, as a fan, has hope that they can bring it together and pull something off....and so that said, you bitch about the refs when the refs decide a game because you don't want to be finished off by the refs, you want to be finished off with a fair match by your opponent, especially on a day like today where we finally showed some signs of life...

Red Wings recent performance is a prime example of why you don't give up that hope...They've sucked for the most part of the season...1 week from playoffs, and they are on the outside looking in...I spoke to a friend of mine, a huge Wings fan, and he had lost almost all hope, because of the shit performances and effort that they'd always put forth...I told him, sometimes, you just gotta hold onto your balls, and anything can happen...Wings win next 4 straight to finish off regular season, not only make playoffs, but finish 7th, and are now 2-2 with the 2nd seeded Ducks...Sometimes, all a team needs is a slight tweak to the line-up to put in the last piece to the puzzle, and that's why, despite the Canucks sucking balls all season long, as a fan, you still have hope, that maybe, just fucking maybe, these fuckers will put something together...

Quote:

It wasn’t long ago that the Vancouver Canucks steamrolled the entire league on route to a President’s Trophy and the Stanley Cup Finals. The team fell a game short, the city briefly burned, and things haven’t quite been the same since.

The Canucks won a second straight President’s Trophy the following year, partly because they were playing in a preposterously weak Northwest division. But they were dispatched from the postseason in five games that year.

This season, in a lockout-shortened campaign, the Canucks finished third in the West and looked to be among the six or so contenders with a legitimate shot at winning a Stanley Cup this season. Instead they are finding themselves down 3-0 in their first round series against the San Jose Sharks. As of this writing the Canucks are the only team in the NHL who hasn’t won a game in the postseason.

Their postseason performance this year has given rise to a number of fun theories about why the organization is so dysfunctional. Some (like myself) blame the bounces, some blame the dithering by management in the crease, and some blame the dithering by management more generally, while others blame the coach. Meanwhile Canucks fans have shown how invested they are in this team’s fortunes by eschewing the purchase of playoff tickets en masse.

The popular perception at the moment is that Vancouver’s “championship window” is now closed and that this team is over the hill. I run a Canucks blog and am a Canucks fan (though when you cover a team every day you find you become increasingly detached emotionally from their performance). I think the “championship window is closed” chatter is overstated because the Sedin twins aren’t really showing their age yet and Vancouver’s goaltending and defence-corps will remain very sturdy going forward.

This is a franchise, however, that is surrounded by a certain brand of fatalism. For example, one of the great moments in team history dates back to when then head coach Roger Neilson waved a white towel in mock surrender from the bench after a referee made a borderline call against his team. This moment of surrender is commemorated with a statute outside the team’s building.

In the history of the NHL, no cup-less franchise has ever made game seven of the Stanley Cup Final and lost. Except the Canucks, who have done so twice (both games were followed by riots in Vancouver’s downtown core). In short, being a Canucks fan sucks and the team’s performance so far in this postseason simply reinforces that.

Born out of the frustration of being down three to nothing came a juicy quote from Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa, who is quite clearly out of sorts as a result of injury in this first round series. He called out several Sharks for diving on Monday afternoon, saying that Sharks star forward Logan Couture and Joe Thornton in particular “lack integrity.”

“Couture has been snapping his head back and this isn’t my opinion, the evidence is in the video,” Bieksa said, “Thornton takes his glove off and shakes his hand and draws a huge 5-on-3 for them.” He continued: “Those are two Canadian guys who are supposed to be playing the game with integrity. Maybe our team has to do more of that, maybe we have to sell calls.”

Ironically, the Canucks are the team most associated with diving across the NHL, and it’s not without some justification. Bieksa has had a personal bee in his bonnet about diving for a while – he was on the NHL’s anti-diving committee this past summer, and called his own team out for diving during their 2011 run to the Cup Finals.

Still, “embellishment” or “diving” has little to do with integrity; I tend to think, and everything to do with tactics. For a couple of seasons the Canucks were the NHL’s most dominant club five-on-four, so it was smart for the team to do everything in their power to generate power-play opportunities. If that meant selling a call occasionally, that’s what you did to help the team win. That’s what I like to call jerk-puck.

This year the San Jose Sharks boast the league’s best power play (at least in terms of shot rate, if not conversion rate) and in their first round series against the Canucks in particular, they’ve enjoyed a huge advantage five-on-four.

They’re not dummies, they know what they have to do to win, and if that means shaking your hand or popping your head back (and to the left), then they’ll do what they need to do. That’s playoff hockey, and any honest player will skate through a wall if that’s what they have to do to get a shot at the Stanley Cup. Out of this ethos means what logically follows is that any honest player will also sacrifice some integrity if they have to.

The Canucks did this for years, and in doing so accrued a reputation for it. That reputation was furthered by Alex Burrows’ brush with Stephane Augera few years back and it got to the point where media members outright accused them of embellishment to their facesduring the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. Now they can’t buy a call because that’s the cyclical nature of such things.

This Canucks team is facing elimination on Tuesday night for a multitude of reasons. It starts with the club’s inability to score, it’s furthered by the fact that San Jose has superior depth, and it’s worth noting the fact that the Sharks have received superior goaltending in this opening round series so far.

But we should also mention that the Sharks have received over 27 minutes of power play time in this series while the Canucks have received about ten? Some might blame the referees—y’all fuckin’ know that’s a Canucks fan tradition—but I’d rather point the finger where it belongs: on the team itself. If you make your own bed, you can’t bitch about having to sleep in it, I figure.

No Embellishment: Canucks Fandom Sucks | VICE Canada

Quote:

Originally Posted by dL (Post 8231889)

Cup is not everything. Experience and enjoyment is just as great. As we know by now, there's always next year.

Unfortunately this is the Canucks we're talking about. There's no such thing as "next year"; more like next decade until we see another SCF run.

That's why I'm still so pissed at SCF GM7 and am still not over it. :okay:

Quote:

Originally Posted by kristianhay (Post 8231947)

And to anyone who says the Sedins "don't care", you're a fucking idiot. Daniel Sedin goes down the hallway after he gets ejected, snaps his stick numerous times, cursing non stop and throws it down the hall.

I truly DO believe we can with the Sedins on our team. It's Gillis' job to create a team that has a strong supporting cast, offering real secondary scoring. Our team this year and last was pretty much shut down the Sedins, and no one else can score. Give us a legitimate second line.

Oh yeah, apparently Daniel's penalty was a violent "shove"? What the fuck? It was shoulder to shoulder.

I agree with this, and for once, I actually agree with Shawn regarding the Higgins signing being a mistake - the guy is a playoff ghost, just like Raymond, albeit Raymond having a decent game tonight.

I'd be down to bring in Horton, but his concussion history is a big :heckno:
Bickell would be a solid acquisition, but again, he'd be another third liner that would most likely be drawn into the top 6. In retrospect, goaltending was never the problem - our offence going dry at crucial times was.

Sedin-Sedin-Horton
Bickell-Kesler-Burrows
Higgins-Schroeder/UFA-Kassian
Sestito-Lapierre/UFA-Weise

Buyout Booth and let Raymond walk. I highly doubt Roy would fit under the salary cap. IMO, Kassian will be ready for a full-time role with this team next season.

/BacktoNHL13

Quote:

Originally Posted by jayare604 (Post 8232132)

I know you're trying to be realistic with your armchair GMing (and that's good!), but I don't think that team would be much better than this one...

How many guys have they tried on line with Kesler who just "didn't click". I don't know if it's a Kesler thing, or coaching, or what, but trying to build a 2nd line around him is a bad idea IMO. If they have to keep him, it should be in a checking role...

Quote:

Originally Posted by jayare604 (Post 8232128)

NO FUCKING WAY - YouTube

About the only call that could have been legit was the cross check, even that was weak. The sharks knew how the refs were calling it and took full advantage.
Posted via RS Mobile

I still believe that this team is a few moves away from going back to having success

However, its too soon for a rebuild, more like its time to retool certain things and really give this roster a look.

This roster may be built for success in our weak ass division, but moving to next year, they will get CRUSHED by the depth and the hard nosed physical play from the California teams.

Its too soon to break this team apart, I believe they have one more good crack at it

^

Agreed, a retooling would be great. We'll have 2 spots on the second line, a third centre, and whole fourth line to fill, it will be interesting to see what happens. Buyouts coming to Booth and Ballard, Lu gone, etc. Look at the top 6 of the Cali teams. All those second lines are much better than ours, we'll have to make major improvement having to play them much more often.

LA
Williams - Kopitar - Brown
King - Richards - Carter

Anaheim
Ryan - Getlaf - Perry
Winnik - Koivu - Selanne

San Jose
Marleu - Couture - Torres
Galiardi - Thornton - Burns

Canucks
Sedin - Sedin - Burr
XX - Kesler - XX

Hopefully Schroeder will have a spot on the team
Posted via RS Mobile

Quote:

Originally Posted by kristianhay (Post 8232158)

Those are some big bodies that the first two lines are going to be up against. With Booth hopefully not in our organization next year, do we try and get a guy like David Clarkson into the 2nd line? He's big guy and can play the game. Or do we get a guy with decent shot for our PP2 like Ryder?

All those first lines are better than ours.
Posted via RS Mobile

We're not going to "get" any of those guys...... haven't you guys noticed a trend in the past, oh, I don't know.... whole history of this franchise in not being able to land any significant signings (except for guys who are over the hill ie: Sundin) and guys choosing other teams over ours even when we are in the running. I have no idea what the reason is, especially with the damn country club Mike Gillis is running nowadays, but it's always been that way.

On another topic, this is a pretty cool story:
Melnyk sends limo for Quebec girl banned from wearing Sens jersey to school | Ottawa Senators Extra

^ Exactly.

Vancouver could perhaps boast about a winning culture a couple of years ago, but I'm not sure if we could sell that to free agents. If I were a player looking to score big, why would I come to Vancouver which is hockey mad and where you would be recognized in an instant, has a high cost of living even for athletes (after all, someone making Lu's salary can only afford a relatively small penthouse compared to the sprawling mansions that other professional athletes can buy in other cities), higher taxes than most states, and a slow lifestyle.
Posted via RS Mobile

What happened to our special teams?

Over the past three seasons, our PP/PK ranking over the regular season has gotten worse:

PP
2010-11 1st
2011-12 4th
2012-13 22nd (huge drop! Guess other teams figured us out and coaching staff was unable to adjust accordingly)

PK
2010-11 3rd
2011-12 6th
2012-13 8th

Special teams = da drop pass
Posted via RS Mobile

Back on reffing, I thought Roy's 'boarding' call was the BS that set the ball in motion last night. Bieksa's crosscheck was soft, Daniel's was near the boards, both could have been borderline in that split second decision for a ref. But the Roy call was clearly body to body check, some reason Stuart involved his head legit or not, and got injured on the play. Absolutely brutal. Like bball, I agree the series wasn't lost on the officiating, but its a tough pill to swallow when your team looks ready at least claw back a little and the hand of God pulls you back and says 'Thats enough of that'.

On the other hand the Canucks didn't deserve to win this game either being clobbered in the scoring chance battle yet again. Schneider deserves some credit for giving the team a chance to win despite 2 soft goals which he would have stopped with no rebound in midseason form.

Re Lu only being able to afford a small penthouse: I'm sure he could have bought a large house in Shaugnessy if he wanted to, or rather if his wife and kids wanted to live in Vancouver. It's a pretty dope bachelor pad though

^ It was a bit of a poor example on my part, but if your average 2nd or 3rd liner these days is only making 3 million, that doesn't get you very far if you want to own property in this town. Maybe a fixer-upper in Kits for a million-five?
Posted via RS Mobile

I just had a revelation for Kesler's linemates: Sestito-Kes-Ebbett. The 2 wingers will do nothing anyways like they normally do on the 4th line, Kesler will not pass to them anyways so why waste talent trying to fill his wings. This way the ice time gets spread out through the lineup. /semisrs