Man, where to begin with tonight’s game? It was bowling shoe ugly…

As I wrote in my recap last night, the Canucks needed to play a full 60 minutes and get away from the sloppy play that allowed an injury riddled and exhausted Oilers team to make it a game after going down 4-0 in the first period.

Taking 3 penalties in a row is a recipe for disaster against a team like the Sharks, particularly when your PK has been having problems like it has for the Canucks. Factor in a team that played the night before and a powerplay that was firing blanks by going 0 for 4 and the Canucks could ill afford to suffer poor play.

Recently, the Canucks haven’t had much to look forward to when the NHL goes on its annual Christmas break. The World Junior Championships, a Boxing Day Tradition, have typically been light on Canuck talent. That’s starting to change, though, thanks to the efforts of general manager Mike Gillis. There are a number of players in the system who have a good shot of representing their country for the Juniors. With Team Sweden’s announcing their roster tomorrow and Team Canada naming their training camp roster on December 3rd, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at those players.

Normally, I’d be happy with back to back wins with the Canucks. Especially when the Canucks outscored their opponents 11-4. However, sloppy play has been a concern as of late. Now, I’m not trying to dip into eternal pessimist territory (Tony Gallagher and Dan Russell have that position on lockdown), but the Canucks inability to play a consistent 60 minutes should be worrisome, particulary with big games against the Sharks, Devils and Flyers coming up.

Basically, when you have a mostly healthy team going up 4-0 against the Edmonton Oilers, a team that played the night before and has been ravaged by the injury bug, there’s no reason why you should be letting that team get back into the game.

Thought I’d lay out some of the albums that I absolutely adored that were released this past year. Christmas is coming up, so maybe this could help to serve as a potential shopping list?

2009 had some fun stuff, some disappointing releases and a couple of outright horrible ones. So, here’s a look at some of my faves, plus a couple of forgettable purchases. I’m going to do this in a bite-sized format, simply because a couple of people had been bugging me about what I liked, so here you go.

Canucks GM Mike Gillis participated in some pre-practice antics the other day, suiting up:

What the hell is with that helmet, though? Reminds me of the prototype ‘fight helmet’ Pierre LeBrun modelled on Hockey Knight In Canada not too long ago.

I know Gillis likes to look for unconventional ideas that’ll give him an edge, but this is pushing it.

The Vancouver Canucks have a couple of things to be thankful for after tonight’s win over the Los Angeles Kings. Top of the list is that they’re thankful for the stellar play of Roberto Luongo, who had a brilliant glove save in the second period and stopped 32 of 33 shots, all while looking like the potential Team Canada netminder we all know he can be.

Contributions from their role players is another thing the Canucks faithful can be thankful for, as Tanner Glass has continued to quietly put together a strong season, notching his third goal of the year.

They’ve also got to be thankful for the end to a couple of streaks. Alex Burrows managed to break a 6 game goalless streak, bulging the twine in the first period and adding an assist.

Not a whole lot to say about tonight’s affair. The Canucks played a tight, conservative game against the red hot Chicago Blackhawks, a team that has been on a 6 game winning streak prior to coming into tonight’s affair. It looked as though coach Alain Vigenault was trying to prey on the fact that the Hawks had played 3 games in 4 nights and was trying to completely exhaust them and capitalize on any mistakes they might’ve made.

Unfortunately, that’s not how things turned out, as a single gaffe ended up costing the Canucks. That said, I was quite happy with the team’s performance, considering that Chicago had outscored their opponents by a ratio of 4:1 and they were quite effective at shutting down Chicago’s offense. Both goaltenders looked great, particularly Niemi, who was a total brick wall in the third period, completely denying the Canucks on a number of great chances. Were I to get a present for the Canucks for Christmas, it’d probably be a Caps Lock key, as the inability to capitalize is what ultimately cost us the game.

Rosie DiManno, who is an crusader for smoker’s rights and whose journalistic offerings can best be summed up by Now Magazine’s take on her (”A break, please, from the pining about the latest guy you’ve failed to bed.”) decided to delve back into the exciting world of sports journalism by penning an article bemoaning the lack of interesting nicknames that exist within hockey. According to her, hockey lacks fascinating nicknames, a sin which should be laid squarely at the feet of sportswriters throughout the world as they’re “historically been the ones to tag a player or a line, a team or a memorable incident.” She then goes on to talk about all the interesting nicknames that are out there. It’s a confusing mess and, aside from DiManno being wrong in her assertion that hockey lacks witty nicknames, I’m not sure what the hell her point was.

Wow, okay. Yeah, I still have this blog here. Good to know.

So, I had a bit of a hiatus there. Apologies, but I’ve got my ducks all in a row, so let’s get back to blogging! Yay!

I guess I should offer up some thoughts on the Canucks, seeing as how we’re already 22 games into the season and one of my goals here is to do some hockey blogging.

I’m sure most people have seen that the Canucks are leading the league in man games lost to injury and yet, despite that, the team is 2 games above .500. What’s even more remarkable is that the Canucks have been without Roberto Luongo and Daniel Sedin for a good chunk of that season. This has been in large part due to the team stepping up when the chips are down and contributing. For example,

Henrik Sedin has managed to step up and explode offensively: he has 13 goals to date and is on pace to hit the 40 goal mark. There have been a number of people who were critical of Mike Gillis over the summer for signing the Sedins to rather pricey contracts, with the argument being made that the twins are only good as a package. As we’ve been seeing, at least with regards to Hank, that is happily not the case.

Andrew Raycroft, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, stepped in for a spell and has looked great in the backup role. How great? He currently has more wins than the beleaguered Toronto Maple Leafs, a team who is on pace to have a worse record than the 1993 Ottawa Senators, a stat made all the more troubling in the era of shootout, which hockey curmudgeons say has been leading to inflated point totals thanks to the ‘loser points.’

One of the biggest keys to the Canucks success so far has been at the hands of Christian Ehrhoff, who is quickly becoming Gillis’ best offseason acquisition so far. Back in the summer, I heard from San Jose fans who praised him for his offensive capabilities, but warned me of his defensive brainfarts. Thankfully, this hasn’t been the case, as the ‘Hoff has been playing amazing hockey, tallying goals like it ain’t no thing, being amazing on the penalty kill and being the Canucks best defenseman by far: his +11 rates him as number one on the team, with Willie Mitchell’s +3 being the only dman who plays top minutes coming close to touching him. His defensive brainfarts seem to be a thing of the past, as supported with his +/-, but his scant 10 PIM ties him at number one with Alex Edler for lowest PIM amongst defensive regulars. Paired together, it’s looking like Ehrhoff’s game is really starting to come together.

Other standouts have been Mason Raymond, who is on pace to smash his offensive totals from last season and is finally utilizing his speed in ways other than falling on his butt in the attacking zone, Ryan Kesler, who has been an absolute monster for the Canucks (especially on the PK) and Tanner Glass, who has been really starting to assert himself on the fourth line after a rather ‘meh’ preseason. Michael Grabner, a highly touted prospect who had a poor training camp, fared much better in a callup role before injuring himself in a freak accident.

All in all, this is a Canucks squad that seems to be rolling with the punches thus far this season and hasn’t been forced to rely entirely on Roberto Luongo to steal games for them. Me likey.