What an ugly finish. And I’m not talking about Kopitar’s grinning mug as he scored his very first powerplay goal. Fans serenading the on-ice officials as the Canucks lost in OT tonight wasn’t exactly what I was wanting in Game 2, nor was I looking for another instance of Kevin Bieksa getting sliced up by a skate blade or the Canucks taking a bench minor.

But it all happened, unfortunately. And as nice as it would be to blame the referees for the loss, as great as it would be to point to officiating as the reason why the Canucks were ’screwed’, you can’t really pin that on anyone but the Canucks themselves.

Yeah, I’m skipping the Islanders game. Don’t worry, I have a blog post forthcoming on that game! Chronological order? What’s that?

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.

So, is it premature to be getting excited about the playoffs?

On one hand, the Canucks have become the team that doesn’t die. Today’s win over the Nashville Predators marks nine instances this year where they have battled back from being down after 2 periods, winning the game. That sort of ‘never say die’ attitude and work ethic is something that will be incredibly useful going into the playoffs and I have to say it makes me optimistic about the Canucks chances. (Also, you have to wonder if the Canucks being so strong in the third period is reflective of some of the initiatives Mike Gillis has introduced, like the sleep specialists. Are the Canucks better conditioned than their opponents? Something to think about.)

I guess you could say that I called this game. Literally.

You had to know the Canucks were looking to avenge a rather ugly loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Roberto Luongo was overdue for a shutout and the Sedins/Burrows couldn’t be held off the scoresheet forever. Going up against a team that was short a few men (Nathan Horton was out due to injury and Dominic Moore had just been traded to Montreal) and really only had Tomas Vokoun going for them and you sort of figured that the Canucks had to win this game.

So I’ve made mention in a couple of other blog posts that I was going to be doing up a piece talking about the Canucks bottom six. And why not? There’s been a lot of talk lately about certain members of the Canucks third and fourth liners, most of it laced with profanities.

Steve Bernier needs to be shipped out of town, Kyle Wellwood should be benched and so on and so forth. While I’m not in disagreement that the bottom six players are bad, I would argue that there are reasons why our bottom six hasn’t really been performing all that well that extend beyond ’such and such player sucks.’

At least that’s what I’m hoping to get across here.

It comes down to six.

The bottom six, specifically. Tonight’s game was a frustrating one that saw the Canucks put forth a rather solid effort, but found themselves lacking a bit in the ‘puck luck’ department. Unfortunately, were it only that, the Canucks probably would’ve had something to show other than a regulation loss to the Bolts.

Hey, that’s a pretty good impersonation of a post-game Canucks fan, there Spezza!

…

Do I have to talk about the Canucks game?

Really?

Okay. There’s a lot of hating, complaining and wringing of hands going on with tonight’s loss. Oh no, we’ve lost two in a row. The end of the world is coming and the Canucks are sinking like the Titanic.

Another horribly late postscript. I apologize. My move from Toronto to Calgary has drained the hell out of me so I’m just getting things sorted out. I basically passed out after the game last night and had to run around doing errands today, hence the superlate post. I’m hoping things will be totally sorted come Saturday. We’ll see…

The Vancouver Canucks were facing a depleted, struggling Pittsburgh Penguins club. The Penguins were without the services of Marc Andre Fleury, who suffered a broken finger and regular backup goalie Brent Johnson. Star forward Evgeni Malkin was going through a 11 game goalless drought which can serve as a microcosm of the Penguins general offensive woes: 29th rated powerplay in the league.