Tonight’s game actually motivated me to write a blogpost, as I wanted to go over something that has been infuriating me for a while now.

Specifically, Alain Vigneault’s treatment of Keith Ballard. I could go back even further and trace this into his attitudes about Brendan Morrison, but that ship has sailed, fought in a few wars, been decommissioned and is now used as an artificial reef somewhere off the coast of Australia. A digression.

A lot of talk is being made about Aaron Rome’s hit on Nathan Horton. While I don’t want to get into that, as it’s going to be discussed ad nauseum over the next couple of days, I will say that I hope that Horton is okay and makes a full recovery. Bruins fans have already had their hearts torn from their chests with Marc Savard’s concussion woes and it wouldn’t do to see another talented player get sidelined. Imagine losing Ryan Kesler and Daniel Sedin to injuries. Yeah.

Anyway, I found Alain Vigneault’s decision to put Andrew Alberts into the lineup to be an intriguing one, mostly because I really didn’t get why a sometimes effective, bottom pairing defenseman was getting put into the Stanley Cup Finals over Keith Ballard, a guy who has shown he’s capable of being a second pairing defenseman. I guess Vigneault was getting cute and figured what’s the worst that could happen? Andrew Alberts could log significant minutes if needed…right?

Well, with your top blueliner, Dan Hamhuis, out potentially for the entire series and another defenseman getting ejected tonight Canucks fans got the answer to those questions. Respectively, 8-1 and no, absolutely not.

Alberts was on the ice for 4 goals against, 2 even strength, bringing his +/- to -5, tied with Henrik for second worst on the team. (Christian Ehrhoff, who hasn’t had the best playoffs this season, has the worst at -10.) He looked slow and ponderous out there, with shades of his whistle chasing behaviour rearing it’s ugly head in front of Luongo’s net.

This makes me wonder: why is Keith Ballard not seeing any icetime? Ballard has been on the ice for 2 even strength goals against in 9 playoff games. The Canucks are 7-2 with Ballard in the lineup. He’s played more hockey than Alberts has, both in the regular and post-season. Heck, Alberts hasn’t seen regular icetime since February.

Ballard has provided huge hipchecks, including an awesome one on Jamie McGinn in the Sharks series. He’s a guy who can log more icetime than Alberts and, in a situation like tonight where Rick Bowness was forced to shuffle his lineup because of Rome being ejected, could have handled those minutes, even if Vigneault is loathe to give him any playing time.

Vigneault’s fascination with grinders and guys with size has been one of the things that has annoyed me immensely since he’s been the Canucks bench boss. I don’t know if Alberts being 6′5 and Ballard being 5′11 is one of the factors in Vigneault’s decision making process, but frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

Unfortunately, this is the Stanley Cup Finals. This isn’t a regular season game where a single loss can be shrugged off and adjustments can be made. Everything matters. One win can swing the momentum back in favour of your opponent and you can’t take chances in putting questionable players into your lineup when there are better options available to you. It’s not as though Ballard has been injured or is off rescuing kittens from burning buildings in Madrid. He’s right there on the team, has shown he can contribute and be a positive addition.

So the question is, why doesn’t he play? Your guess is as good as mine. It could be size. It could a personality clash with him and Alain Vigneault. But, barring a serious injury of some kind (and there has been nothing to indicate that such is the case) Ballard should be playing, especially with Ehrhoff looking like a mess and Dan Hamhuis being out of the lineup.

Instead, Vigneault opts to go with Andrew Alberts and Aaron Rome. Potentially burning bridges with Ballard. Maybe eroding some confidence.

And now, with the Canucks getting a thorough jolly rogering from the Bruins, Vigneault may just have to turn to a player he has alienated for no discernible reason or purpose and expect him to provide a high level of play in most important set of hockey games in Vancouver Canucks history. This, while leaving his star goaltender to languish out on the ice for the entirety of those 60 minutes, leaving two huge question marks/messes on the Canucks hands going into Game 4.

The word that comes to mind, when thinking of Rome and Vigneault? Stupid.

Let’s hope it’s not too late.

So the news came out today that Cody Hodgson will not be participating in the Young Stars tourney this weekend after a medical evaluation yesterday did not clear him to play. Unfortunate news, given that Hodgson has now been injured for over a year and has missed a lot of hockey in between then and now.

Compounding the issue is the fact that team doctors, as well as the doctors Hodgson consulted for a second opinion, completely missed the source of his injury: a muscle tear in his back, rather than the bulging disc that was originally thought to be the cause of his problems. I think it is important to note that both the Canucks medical personnel and Hodgson’s doctor misdiagnosed things. One, it allows the online contingent of Canucks fans to start calling for trainer Roger Takahashi’s head again and two, it unfortunately justifies Hodgson’s decision to seek further medical treatment for his injury. Something was going on and he had the foresight to try and do something about it.

At any rate, while it is disappointing that Hodgson won’t be playing soon, Canucks brass are still expecting him to show up at the main training camp, where he may be able to carve out a spot for himself on the main roster. With Alex Burrows out of the lineup and a potential third line spot available, there is a chance, however small, that Hodgson could make the team straight out of training camp.

That’s putting the cart before the horse, though. The first thing Hodgson needs is to get cleared to actually play. Once he’s reached that point, he needs to have a strong training camp to justify his spot on the team. I’m working on a longer blog post right now talking about the Canucks and the big thing that’s jumping out to me right now is that, outside of the very top players on the team (Sedins, Kesler, Luongo) things are wide open in terms of availability, especially since both Burrows and Salo are expected to miss the start of the season. Thus, simply being a talented and highly regarded prospect isn’t going to be enough for Hodgson, although I don’t think he’ll have problems putting forth the effort.

Hodgson has shown that he is willing to work hard: his decision to ‘work through’ his injury at last year’s training camp probably resulted in a major setback in his recovery, but shows that he’s willing to put in the work necessary to make the NHL.

I also have to wonder if the decision to not have Hodgson cleared to play was up to Mike Gillis. I will add a disclaimer right here and say that I am a fan of Cody Hodgson and am feverently hoping that he’s more or less healthy, so take the next bit here with a grain of salt. Anyway…

One word that could probably be used to describe Gillis, admittedly only based on what’s been presented in the media, is meticulous. He likes planning things out and constantly refers to plans or strategies in interviews, moreso than other NHL GMs who like to talk about the job they’re doing.

There was the Off-Season Plan, the Defense Plan, the Bottom Six Plan, the Road Trip From Hell Plan, the Planning Things Out Plan, the Flan Plan, etc. it’s a nice trait to have for an NHL GM (those who doubt me probably went to the Darryl Sutter ‘Seat of Your Pants’ School of Business) and I don’t mind it, even if he manages to ruffle a few feathers here and there (see: player’s opinions on the sleep experts.)

Gillis has shown that he likes to be very involved with running the Canucks, the introduction of the sleep experts being a team-wide example of such. He’s also shown a knack for micromanaging things: see the Kyle Wellwood Blowaway Diet for an example of what I’m talking about. Gillis clearly likes to remain in the loop when it comes to his players and isn’t above stepping in when he deems it necessary to do so, even if it may be contrary to the player in question’s wishes, such as Gillis’ decision to change goaltending coaches without first consulting Roberto Luongo, or the rumour that Luongo is going to have less of a say in when and how much he plays this coming season.

Hodgson was described as being ‘upbeat’ yesterday prior to his medical evaluation and said he felt ready to play. I’d imagine that if the choice were up to him, Hodgson would probably be suiting up this weekend. Unfortunately, the last time he made a judgment call like that it didn’t exactly work out for him and he missed most of last season due to an injury. Thus, it’s not a huge stretch to think that maybe, just maybe, Mike Gillis decided to intervene here. Take a few more days to fully go over everything and make sure Hodgson is 100% ready to go for training camp and go from there.

Go over every single test, check and re-check things and make sure everything is in order. Don’t leave anything to chance. Everything looks fine? Test and check again.

Yeah, it may sound a little too focused on the details, but it also fits Mike Gillis’ MO.

Hey! Long time no see. Sorry about the general lack of blog updates as of late…summer can be weird about taking oneself away from the computer. But I found myself with some downtime and thought I’d give my thoughts on what looks to be a fairly important day for the Canucks.

For those unaware, Mason Raymond’s arbitration ruling is set to be handed down later today. This is important for a number of reasons: first, there is a lot of anxiety over exactly how much Raymond will end up with in his arbitration award. Atlanta Thrashers forward Clarke MacArthur ended up with a $2.4M award last week, a rather substantial contract for someone who only notched 16 goals and 35 points last season. The Thrashers chose to walk away from the ruling, something which Mike Gillis could do if he were so inclined. So, whether or not Raymond stays with the club and how much he’d cost were he to stay will be known today.

Despite Canada Day being a national holiday, Mike Gillis was hard at work for the Canucks, with 4 players getting signed to deals. Interestingly enough, this wasn’t a disappointing July 1st in terms of fan expectations: Mike Gillis said he was going to go out and find another defenseman and upgrade the bottom six and that’s precisely what he did.

Dan Hamhuis is clearly the centerpiece in today’s free agent signings. Hamhuis turned down more lucrative contracts in order to sign with the Canucks. The $4.5M/6 year deal looks pretty good, too. Hamhuis is 27, so his deal would take him until he’s 33. He also has potential to put up points: his rookie season saw him tally 38 points total.

Wow. Huh.

So Mike Gillis and the Vancouver Canucks opted to make a deal with the Florida Panthers. Unlike the Indiana Jones franchise, it seems that making yet another trip to the well has paid off for the Canucks, as they obtained defenseman Keith Ballard and forward prospect Victor Oreskovich in exchange for Steve Bernier, Michael Grabner and the Canucks 1st round pick in this year’s draft.

Many folks are screaming bloody murder over the deal, believing that the Canucks were ripped off or overpaid. I will admit that I was initially one of those folks, although I will attribute that to my being a fan of Grabner and being a little irrational when hearing that the Austrian had been traded. Having given it some more thought, though, I actually really like the deal. Broken down, it makes a lot of sense and isn’t as bad as one would think.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

So the Canucks season ended last night. Honestly, I want to say that it took me by surprise and bowled me over, but it wasn’t the case. Going into the series I was feeling strangely confident about the Canucks. Yes, they had been beaten by the Blackhawks last season, but this year was going to be different.

There was talk about the newfound purpose and focus the Canucks had and that they weren’t merely happy to have made it to the second round. Unfortunately, it didn’t do them a whole lot of good as Chicago slowly but surely took them over and curbstomped them.

Tonight was a very interesting game, if you’re a fan or have been following the Canucks.

The talk going into this series is that the Canucks ‘wanted’ the Blackhawks, who ousted them last year in the playoffs. There was talk from the Canucks that they weren’t going to let Byfuglien bother them and they were going to take a measured, disciplined approach.

Really? THAT was Game 1?

Against the Blackhawks?

The same Blackhawks that resulted in the Massacre at the Madhouse last playoffs, where Chelsea Dagger played the Canucks right out of the playoffs?

Where Dustin Byfuglien was this out of control rampaging monster that the Canucks couldn’t hope to contain him?

And the Canucks won 5-1?

Wow.

I know not everyone uses Twitter, but there might be a reason for you to do so. Beyond Twitter being where all the cool cats are these days, I mean. What do I mean? Well…

During the Los Angeles Kings series, I suggested on Twitter that folks wanting to talk about the series could use a series hashtag, an idea that came to me during the Olympics and World Juniors, when folks were coming up with ‘official’ hashtags for each game. Anyway, I suggested #Regicide and it caught on.

Anyway! That’s not important. What’s important is that the Canucks are in the second round and we’re in dire need of a series hashtag. So dire, in fact, that the Vancouver Canucks are offering up a stick that’s been signed by the team for the person who is successful at coming up with one! How do you get in on that? Well, easy,

- Come up with a hashtag. It should be something witty, humorous or smack talking. Poke fun at the Blackhawks, Chicago or their players. Just remember to keep it short, so it’s easy to use! Examples: #BlackhawksDown (c/o @7thCanuck0, #DaggerChelsea (c/o @taryneliza_beth) and #ToKillAHawkingBird (c/o @nucksandpucks.) Don’t like ‘em? Come up with your own!

- Send it to @VanCanucks. Since the Canucks are the ones who are gonna be deciding the winner, that’s who you should send your hashtag ideas to! @VanCanucks will pick the top 5 and you guys can then vote on the best one at Canucks.com.

For more info, you can also check out Brian Wawryshyn’s post over at Canucks Corner

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):