Vancouver Canucks Messageboard

Fortunately, she seems to have recovered her figure after pregnancy.

For the benefit of anyone who became curious, I was able to learn her name through other sources : it is Sofia Zamolo. Possibly the most beautiful woman theoretically possible.

Can any of you identify the model in this picture ?

[img][img]http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/4382 ... er1.th.jpg[/img][/img]

Before they went off to training camp, all the would-be Canucks players underwent a fitness assessment. Are the tests they took, and the results obtained, available anywhere ?

If you ask me, based on statistics Vigneault does have a better feel on which goaltender is hot and should play.

You're right -- I had allowed Vigneault's Montreal track record to slip my mind.

The other half of that, which just occurred to me, is that for all we know, Vigneault is no smarter in this regard. Let's hope the Canucks always have one of the 3 best goalies in the world, and we never find out.

Well Bieksa never had the surgery he was expected to have. So I fully expect him to get hurt this year. For most people, surgery is a last resort. I think sometimes for professional athletes it's a short cut to getting back to a good enough state of repair to compete. Bieksa is still young enough t...

The irony is, in the current situation -- an obvious number one goalie who wants, and can handle, the vast majority of the games -- Crawford would be fine. It was under just that scenario in Colorado that he had success.

More importantly, from my perspective, does the young lady whose photo graces the "30 minute Hit" page actually train there, or is she a model ?

Besides, I never said he had to be traded. You wrote: What it's about is trading him away & getting better value in return. That should have been done a year ago. He could just as easily be cut. $6M can and should buy a hell of a lot more than him. I won't pretend to be an expert on the new CBA, bu...

I don't think SRsez is hateful so much as bitter. Vancouver has had a franchise longer than Edmonton, Calgary, Colorado, New Jersey (Tampa Bay, Carolina, Anaheim...), and fewer Stanley Cups than any of them, and it's wearing on the guy. I also suspect (and I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong) tha...

I know it makes for a pretty lame post, but I just wanted to say that

I agree with Cornuck.

I agree with Fred's comment above.

Yeah, it's disappointingly quiet on this board, but summer always ends sooner than you might have hoped. As for the article, let me get this straight : the Wild essentially stand pat and get a "C", while the Canucks, who also essentially stand pat and finished ahead of the Wild , get a "C-". I don't...

It's been said enough that I am reluctant to repeat it, but defence is a position at which you need a lot of depth. Recall that, historically, Salo can be expected to miss about 20 games again this year, and I think just about everyone in the top six missed at least a few games last year. It may be ...

I think this thread has, to some degree, morphed into “where will the needed improvement in offence come from ?â€￾

I think Farhan has one good idea in the form of signing a one-dimensional (and therefore presumably inexpensive) goal scorer to be something of a power play (and perhaps shootout) specialist. Another is the frequently cited hope that some of the forwards (many of whom were battling injuries) will experience something of a return to form. I have another idea, although I do not expect to see it implemented.

Pretty much every member of the Canucks’ deep, talented, and valued-priced defensive core has, at some point in his career, shown offensive upside. Ohlund, for example, has mostly been used as in shut down role (or as the more defensively responsible partner to a more free-wheeling defenceman) for most of his career, but I think he has a disproportionate number of over-time winners (i.e. can score when it is made his job to do so). Even in the heyday of the WCE, the CBC pre-game graphic would usually focus on what a large proportion of Canuck goals came from the defence. Vigneault could give more of the defence the green light to press offensively more often – perhaps all the time except when the opposition’s most dangerous scorers are on the ice.

To my way of thinking, this is the real value of having an all-world goaltender. Rather than asking Luongo to make 19 saves out of 20 shots a night, most of which could have been made by any NHL goaltender, let him really show his stuff making 27 or 28 saves on 30 shots, with the exchange being that the Canucks get more chances, too. Trading chances as a strategy essentially posits two propositions:

1) our goal scorers are better than your goal scorers -- questionable, I admit, unless Naslund’s wrist shot comes back

And

2) Our goalie is better than is better than your goalie, which should be true almost every night !

The advantage to such an approach (apart from improved entertainment value) is that it is significantly more robust. A carefully nurtured one goal lead can be destroyed by a momentary brain cramp, or an unlucky bounce, but if the plan was to win 5-4 rather than 1-0, then each goal is much less important.

This in no way necessitates abandoning the hard work and discipline portion of Vigneault’s formula, nor the perfectly reasonable position that the forwards have a defensive role to play, too, and will be held accountable for it. Just turn the D loose a little more, and watch your superstar goalie bail you out of the odd 3 on 2 (where one of the 2 is a forward covering for a pinching defenceman).

P.S. Blah, blah, and defiantly, Blah !