Yeah, consider me surprised. After a rather forgettable 50 minutes or so that saw the last place Edmonton Oilers, a team that had just 1 win in their last 15 games, carry the play and pretty much look like a team that wasn’t last in the Western Conference, the Canucks finally woke up and decided to win the game.

On the one hand, it’s kind of fun to watch the Canucks consciously flip the switch and decide that now is the time to win. That’s what good teams can do: take over the game at any moment. On the other hand, I hope that this isn’t a return to the inconsistent Canucks of a few months prior and was simply due to the Canucks having a few days off and being a little looser due to having the Super Skills competition as the last ‘event’ they did. It’s also possible that they’re looking ahead to Saturday’s matchup against the Hawks, something which the Canucks, to a man, will deny is the case. Or yes, maybe the Canucks merely got lucky due to a few garbage penalties that were called against the Oilers, including the tripping call on Mason Raymond in OT, which led to the eventual game winner.

From what I understand, the boards were getting lit up on Edmonton radio’s postgame shows due to the Canucks ‘diving ways’ winning the game for them. They pointed to Raymond’s penalty as being a blatant dive, as well as the penalty Samuelsson drew. Given that the Canucks basically won the game due to their powerplay, I could see how Edmonton fans could be getting upset over it.

That said, diving isn’t Mason Raymond’s game. Falling down easily because he’s a stringbean of a player, compared to other NHLers, I understand he could probably crush me between his thumb and index finger, that is. There’s a long history of it and I used to joke that Canucks fan could play the Mason Raymond Drinking Game: take a sip every time Raymond lands on his butt.

Now that I’m dying of liver failure, that didn’t seem like such a great idea, but I digress. Bottom line is that I don’t think Raymond was embellishing or doing anything untoward there in OT. Hell, the guy was clearly the best player out there on the ice last night by a far margin, even though he didn’t manage to put up any points. My take on it is that that the referee who made the call had a bad angle on it and things looked worse than they did.

Those things do happen from time to time and I highly doubt that any official would willingly open himself up to closer scrutiny in any Vancouver Canucks games right now. It was a mistake and I’m not sure what Oilers fans are getting upset about: the playoffs are about as far away as they can be and you should be thankful that the refs ‘helped’ you out with ‘only’ getting a single point tonight. I’m only half joking there.

Samuelsson’s call, the other one that Oilers fans were angrily pointing to, I could see. It did look bad and I’d be willing to believe that Samuelsson ‘helped’ the referee make up his mind there. That said, what Cogliano did does constitute a penalty, but there should’ve been an offsetting unsportsmanlike for Samuelsson and I wouldn’t have had a problem with it. Hey, the Canucks were killer 4 on 4, one of the few bright spots in tonight’s game.

Speaking of bright spots, how about that Trois Kronors line? Burrows now has more goals than Jarome Iginla and has as many goals as the Flames (8) have been able to muster in their last 12 games played. Henrik managed to build on his points lead, giving him a five point cushion which will probably be erased once the Pittsburgh/Washington game is done later tonight. Oh yeah, and Daniel with the nice OT goal, putting him right up there with Brendan Morrison for OT goals. Sorry, who said they weren’t clutch?

I already talked about Raymond and how I thought he was the best guy on the ice. Salo’s also been on fire as of late and I really hope I didn’t just jinx him by mentioning him and his play. It’s a damn shame that he wasn’t more durable.

I keep saying this, but it bears repeating: Roberto Luongo should not handle the puck. He should not play the puck, as playing the puck results in giveaways or suicide passes to the guys playing in front of him. Just stop the puck…and stop handling the puck, Luo. My liver is already a shrivelled, dying mess thanks to Raymond. I don’t need cardiac problems to boot.

Tomorrow’s game against Dallas will be interesting: another struggling team that has a bit of a goaltending conundrum on their hands. Also, it’s always fun to beat up on Marc Crawford coached teams.