It’s over. Finally.

The marathon 14 game road trip with the Canucks ended tonight in Arizona and probably not a game too soon. Naturally, on the very last game of the Canucks road trip, a slight detour had to be made with some overtime and the shootout.

The Canucks didn’t win, but given that they were at the very end of their road trip and had just played the second game of a back to back they put forth a great effort against the Phoenix Coyotes. I’m not going to use the back to back as an excuse for the Canucks losing, though, as they have been very good in back to back affairs this season. Phoenix played a tight game and Raycroft was really fighting the puck. I’d imagine that with 15 games left to go tonight’s game was probably Raycroft’s last.

That said, the Canucks had a really interesting game against the Coyotes. As mentioned, Raycroft seemed to be really fighting the puck: there were a number of huge sprawling saves he made that came, I feel, from being unable to properly corral the puck or misreading plays. After having some rather solid goaltending for most of the season I guess Raycroft was due for an off night. Fair enough. Things got really bad in the shootout, though, as his five hole was used and abused. Had Luongo been in net, this probably would’ve gone down as another win for the Canucks.

Watching Mikael Samuelsson and Pavol Demitra out there really makes me appreciate the diversity in the Canucks lineup. Both goals that they helped out on came from who they are as players: Samuelsson’s tendency to shoot the puck from anywhere led to the rebound goal for Henrik Sedin, while Demitra exhibited great patience by holding onto the puck before feeding it to Ehrhoff. That sort of utility can be found with other forwards on the roster: speedy Mason Raymond, Burrows ‘hard work’ goals and the methodical cycling Sedins make for a top six that has a lot of variety. That the Canucks have such variety AND talent spread out amongst their forwards (Henrik, Kesler, Samuelsson, Burrows and Raymond are all having career years this season) is something that’s not really addressed when talking about the Canucks offense this season.

And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it seems as though Aaron Rome has stepped things up as of late, as he’s not making as many silly mistakes that he was prone to do even a month prior and has actually been looking not entirely out of place on the powerplay. I’m not saying ‘dangerous’, as that’d be a stretch, but he’s made me pay attention to him in a good way the last couple of games. Given that the Canucks defense has been suffering without Mitchell and Bieksa, every little positive contribution helps.

Especially when guys like Christian Ehrhoff are having off nights. Although the ‘Hoff did score that one goal that I mentioned earlier, he seemed to be having a time of it in his own end, getting mixed up in plays or getting caught up ice. It happens, especially with the minutes he’s been logging as of late, but he’s set a career high in goals this season and looks to be on pace to match his previous career high in points (42) that he had with the Sharks, so I’m not going to complain too much.

The two guys I want to talk about on the Canucks backend, though, are Alberts and Edler. Alberts really got savaged by the TSN panel during the second intermission. Unfairly so, too, I thought. He was brought in to help give some depth for the team, yes, but for guys like Ray Ferraro to be expecting Alberts to perform like a top pairing defender when a) that’s not a role he’s ever been used for and b) that’s not what the Canucks are expecting of him is a little unfair. You’re not going to dump on Raffi Torres for not leading the Sabres offensively, so why would you call Alberts a failure? I don’t get it, personally. He’s playing a hard nosed game but has had a couple of mistakes out on the ice. Not much more you expect from a bottom pairing defender who has played a grand total of 4 games with his new team.

As for Edler? Call me crazy, but I think folks are confusing Edler with Mattias Ohlund, given the amount of flak he’s been getting as of late. He’s only 23 years old, which is bloody YOUNG for a defenseman. Yes, there are guys like Tyler Myers or Victor Hedman who jump in and contribute at a young age, but they’re not the norm. Secondly, he’s been logging a TON of icetime with Bieksa and Mitchell out: his last 5 games had him logging 22:30+ minutes. In tonight’s game, he logged 26:56 worth of icetime, while in the Chicago game a week ago, he logged 26:57 of icetime. For comparison’s sake, Christian Ehrhoff logged only 19:23 of icetime against the Hawks and 22:39 of icetime against Phoenix. Edler’s a horse who is still growing and learning. Yes, his offensive totals are down and he makes some mistakes, but consistency will come. The fact that AV trusts him with so much icetime speaks to his skill as a player and I really feel that the mistakes he does make are overblown.

And now I’m going to make myself sound like a hypocrite as I move over to Jannik Hansen, the guy who is justifying Hordichuk’s spot in the pressbox. While Hansen is a damn sight better than Hordichuk, there is a reason he bounced around a bit this season. Young players do make mistakes and Hansen is no exception. He had a rather brutal giveaway tonight that led to some solid scoring chances for the Coyotes. As I said in my ‘Sinister Six’ piece, the only way for Hansen to improve is by giving him playing him, but just as I think folks shouldn’t be getting carried away with their criticism of Edler, they should also not be getting carried away in their praise of Hansen.

The Canucks are FINALLY back in the confines of GM Place Saturday where they play host to the Ottawa Senators in the first of two Canadian back to back games.