Sorry for no post after Friday’s game. There wasn’t really a whole lot to hash over on that game: everyone was brilliant and the Kings played like hot garbage. I hate blatant cheerleading (just subtle, restrained cheerleading, durrr) so no point in doing a wrap-up.

I gotta write about tonight’s game, though. First off, I’d just like to get something out of the way really quickly. Some of you may have noticed I participated in a roundtable over at Canucks Corner. In that roundtable, I made a couple of predictions. Regarding the Canucks, this is what I wrote on April 14th (scroll down to 8:47 or so):

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.

There are three things which the Canucks should be looking at, all of which are of varying importance and had an impact on tonight’s loss.

The first, clearly, obviously, is the penalty kill. Allowing three straight goals on essentially the same plays is problematic, regardless of this the preseason, regular season or postseason. More worrying is the fact that the bulk of these goals came with the Canucks top penalty killing unit out on the ice. People can start pining for Ryan Johnson all they want, but the problems transcend any sort of contribution he could be making on the penalty kill. Kesler and Burrows are supposedly the Canucks best guys on the penalty kill and they were on the ice for 2 goals against, Burrows was on for 3.

Normally if a goalie makes 50 stops, you’d figure that they won the game after putting up such an impressive performance.

Not the case tonight for Roberto Luongo, who may felt like he was back in Florida playing for the Panthers. It was in Florida, you’ll recall, that Luongo set a dubious record for most shots faced in a single NHL season. The fact that the Canucks defense was having, and this is putting it charitably, an off-night must’ve had him thinking he had fallen asleep in a hot tub and gone back in time.

I know, I’m late. Furthermore, I’m like two weeks behind with the Week That Was. Unfortunately, paid work trumps unpaid work.

I’m going to do a 2 in 1, sort of, for this, considering I missed blogging the Sens game as well. (That sound you hear? Google Analytics dying of crib death…) I thought this was probably one of the best games, top to bottom, from the Canucks in a long time. Kevin Bieksa looked good coming back in his first game since his calf was sliced and diced, Luongo was in fine form and just about everyone was doing their job. Even guys like Ryan Johnson.

Bret Hart once said, who are you to doubt El Dandy?

I guess it’s my turn to say, who are you to doubt the Canucks?

Let’s get one thing out of the way really quickly: I think Martin Brodeur is an excellent goaltender, arguably one of the greatest of all time. I believe he ‘earned’ the right to start against the United States on Super Sunday: his credentials, along with a strong performance against Switzerland paved the way for Brodeur to start.

This blog post isn’t about Martin Brodeur. What it is about, though, is Damien Cox and his love affair with Martin Brodeur and the subsequent behavior that sprung out of said affair.

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.

What a fascinating game, today’s matinee affair was.

Partially because I’ve been high on cold medication all day and it took me a while to gather my thoughts, but also because this was pretty much the reverse instance of what went down with the Montreal game. The Canucks had a rather poor start (which saw the first goal being scored by the opposing team and which saw yet another early penalty leading to said goal) but were able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat thanks to an absolutely stellar effort from Roberto Luongo, who responded well after being sat Thursday in Ottawa.

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.