Monday, April 23, 2012

Thanks For Coming Out, Vancouver Canucks

(While many have their obtiuaries for teams eliminated.....I'll do the same thing, but in a different/same way as others. How is that going to happen?? Well, I don't know until I do them.This all meant in good fun and to really make you think....or something)  

After the miracle run from last season, things were looking up for the Canucks with their President Trophy win for their season. They were going against the Los Angeles Kings, who were the least scoring playoff team out there in the playoffs, and it looked like a good tune-up for the march.

Boy, was that a bad assumption.

On the hot seat again was Roberto Luongo, who was replaced after Game Two and let Cory Schneider take the reigns and pretty much steal his spot. Schneider played one less game and let up three fewer goals than Luongo did. With Bobby-Lu having almost another decade on his contract and Schneider being a RFA this summer-- the Canucks will have a lot of questions in the cage.

Though, you can't pin it all on goaltending. Only Kevin Bieksa, Aaron Rome, and Chris Tanev were no minuses in the five game series, though they were an even rating overall and Rome only played one game. A goalie is only as good as the team in front of him, which didn't seem to be good enough for Luongo to actually achieve what he needed to do.

Offensively, the Canucks did miss the presence of Daniel Sedin, but they weren't able to actually pick up the slack like they could have done. The Kings defense was able to stop whatever offense they may have tried to create. Many thought it was a non-effort, but at the same time-- could have run into a tough team. Even so, you would think the role guys like Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows would be able to pick up the slack and be the folk-hero players they became.

It's almost as if this was a team that actually wasn't properly prepared and thought that they were the top-seed overall in the league that they'd have a cake-walk throughout the first round. The team themselves will have to re-examine themselves after knowing the highs of last season's run and now the lows of this season's short run. There's going to be questions abound and then trying to actually get stuff better rather than keeping the status quo will be the true task.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hopefully your next article will be "Thanks For Coming Out,Phoenix Coyotes" after Wednesday and not Chicago Blackhawks.