Man, I love/hate the playoffs.

I love the playoffs because nothing, absolutely nothing, matches the excitement of watching live sports. The only thing that I think comes close is the atmosphere that comes with the World Cup. World Series? Yawn. Super Bowl? No thanks. I’ll stick with the Stanley Cup playoffs, thanks.

I hate it because, hey, I cheer for the Canucks. The playoffs are not a time where you can be happy and joyful: cheering for Vancouver has more than enough heartbreak. Just as there are great playoff highs, like Morrison’s OT winner in the ‘04 playoffs, the ‘94 playoffs in their entirety or Games 1 and 2 from the ‘02 playoffs. There’s the heartbreaker moments, as well, like Game 7 of the ‘04 playoffs, Nathan Lafayette’s post clanking shot in ‘94 and Game 3 from the ‘02 playoffs.

Tonight’s game almost fell into the latter category. I don’t recall being this worried in a hockey game since the aforementioned Calgary series. Amazing tone to this game that had me worried until the very end, as the Canucks looked to be unable to extract themselves from the mess they had found themselves mired in.

With the Kings running roughshod over the Canucks it looked as though the Canucks were done and that Game 5 in Vancouver was going to be a mere formality.

There were plenty of reasons you could’ve used to explain why the Canucks should have and were going to lose this game besides typical Canucks fan neurosis: Alain Vigneault electing for the second consecutive off day to hold an optional practice letting the team’s woeful penalty kill continue to fester, Shane O’Brien losing his mind and beaking off at assistant coach Rick Bowness could’ve opened the floodgates for the Canucks to break down and play stupid, undisciplined hockey, the Sedins continuing to look ineffective against the Kings.

I was honestly worried about the lack of practice on the penalty kill and I think tonight’s game should vindicate me in thinking so: Vigneault stated that there was some video work done in lieu of on ice practice and I think that the Canucks did take to it as the game went on: they actually killed back to back penalties and I think they may have done better adjusting had there been a practice. I know what I sound like here, but I think that the lack of working on an off-day nearly cost the Canucks the game here.

The other big concern I had going out of Game 3 were the Sedins and boy, did they deliver tonight. I wrote last game that I thought they may have been getting a little too fancy, a little too cute and it was allowing the Kings to effectively crowd them out and render them ineffective. Tonight, I thought they played a much better, and less fancy game. What do I mean?

Well, Samuelsson’s tying goal was a good example of this. Gain the zone, simple pass to an open man not trying to force things, another pass back to the blueline to Daniel, get bodies in front of Quick, slide it laterally to O’Brien and then back to Daniel, shoot, redirect. It was far simpler than what the Sedins were attempting last game and unsurprisingly, it worked!

Henrik’s game winning goal was another good example of not getting too fancy out there. Simple offensive rush, Henrik has the option to pass to Burrows, risking Doughty picking off the pass. Instead, he shoots and scores.

I also thought that Luongo’s performance was looking a lot better than the prrevious game. While yes, he did allow 4 goals, none of them were stinkers like Ryan Smyth’s goal from Game 3 and there were no ’staring at the puck’ instances, again like in Game 3. I think Luongo continued to gain confidence as the game went on, culminating in his game changing save against Frolov. Not a statistically great game from Luongo, but he was part of that penalty kill that killed 2 in a row off (yes, I realize how ridiculous it is to be making such a big deal out of that) and had several huge saves that kept the Canucks in the game. So good game from Luongo.

The only other major issue and something I didn’t really think about when discussing the Sedins last game was that Burrows looks completely snake bitten out there. Greg Wyshynski from Yahoo’s Puck Daddy pointed out that Burrows looked spooked while Jim Hughson noted that Burrows hasn’t scored a goal in 9 consecutive games. I did mention that he had been bad on the penalty kill, but didn’t stop to think about his play offensively. Bad time to have a slump, but I think he was starting to rebound after Alain Vigneault bounced him off the Sedin line. Hopefully he’ll start to pick it up, as the Canucks PK woes aren’t over yet.

Game 5 is Friday, back at home for the Canucks!

Finally, I’ll close things off on this note: