First off, I gotta apologize for no game notes for the Moose tilt and for the late posting for the postscript from last night’s game. I had a really busy day yesterday that I guess wore me out, as I was passed out by the end of the Wild game. No comment on whether or not the Canucks effort against the Wild contributed to my coma induced state.

Yeah, there’s no real way to sugarcoat things from last night’s tilt. About the only real positive that could be taken out of the game is that Andrew Raycroft was working on a shutout. Unfortunately, that meant that Roberto Luongo was pulled after letting in a number of ugly goals. I recall over on the Canucks Live Blog that there were some calls for Luongo to get yanked after the third goal, as it was pretty plain to see at that point that Luongo was having a bad night.

Luongo stayed in and after efforts from Burrows (who else?) and Kesler to tie the game, it looked like the Canucks may have put their bad start, their second in as many games, behind them. Unfortunately, the Wild came back with three goals in the third that all but sealed the Canucks fate.

The third period was also puncuated with a number of fights, including a rather ugly one where Alex Bolduc was pretty much killed by John Scott. Bolduc, who isn’t known to be a fighter, needed help getting off the ice and ended up losing his lunch en route to the locker roomM. He may also be injured as a result of this tilt. I only mention this because of some post game comments made by Derek Boogaard where he said that Hordichuk told him that coach Alain Vigneault was telling his players to engage in fisticuffs. Now, it’s unclear whether AV was telling Hordichuk, the team’s enforcer, to go out there and fight or if he was simply telling his bottom guys to go out and scrap, but if it’s the latter, I’m not too impressed.

Again, Alex Bolduc is not a fighter. If he went out there and a fight developed because of something that happened or something that was said and he dropped his gloves of his own volition, that’s one thing. However, if he was being ordered by his coach to go out there and fight, something which he isn’t really known for, that’s something else entirely and Alain Vigneault shouldn’t have done that. It’ll be interesting to see what AV’s response to this is.

Beyond that, there’s not a whole lot of positives to take out of this. The Canucks second period was very good, as they managed to outshoot the Wild and keep them back, eventually tying the game up. The second line was looking good in spots with Mason Raymond especially standing out, although no offense can be frustrating. I thought the Canucks third line was the best overall line last night, in that they were skating well and put forth a consistent effort through all 60 minutes. Also interesting to note that either Jannik Hansen was demoted or Rick Rypien was promoted to the third line. Given Hansen’s benching, I have to wonder if Alain Vigneault isn’t happy with the Dane for some reason. Unfortunately, when your third line is the line that’s standing out, you aren’t going to be winning many hockey games.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Canucks respond on Saturday against the Penguins.