Low Expectations Exceeded
My expectations going into last night’s game against the Rangers were very low because I’ve been a hockey fan for a long time and I know the team can’t survive for long with six injured forwards and Roberto Luongo on the sidelines. When the Canucks won yet again – and won easily – with a ragtag lineup I was delighted, far more so than I normally would be after a November victory. (One of the only good things about cheering for a bad team is that low expectations are easily exceeded. The other good thing is cheap tickets.)
Full credit should go to coach Alain Vigneault who has a team with a ready made excuse prepared and ready to play. Vigneault impresses me because – like all good leaders – he keeps an even keel in trying times.
It helps that a big team strength – the defense – is intact. As a result the team defense is still very good. Andrew Raycroft has performed admirably in place of Luongo, but it is easy to see why he struggled so much in Toronto and Colorado. He gives up way too many fat rebounds. Fortunately for him, the Canucks are protecting the slot so well, opponents haven’t had the chance to cash them in.
The other thing saving the Canuck’s bacon is that Ryan Kesler has decided that he can carry the team offense for a while. He had another dominating game – at both ends of the ice against the Rangers.
(Aside: Could the league please figure out a clearer rule for kicking the puck into the net? There was no good reason to wave off Ryan’s goal last night. The rule is supposed to be about safety and there was nothing unsafe about the way Kesler got the puck into the net.)
Its not going to get any easier as the Canucks start a five game road trip tomorrow and it is unlikely many players will be coming off the injury list in the near term. All we can realistically hope for is that the Canucks tread as fast as they can and keep their heads above water.
My expectations are staying low, but I’m ready to be delighted.
we’ve gotten to the point where kesler is one of the best players in the league. what a freaking great hockey player. the closest comp is mike richards, except kesler is bigger, faster, tougher to play against, and not as much of a little whiny, cheap shot bitch. i would love to be kesler’s agent right now. speaking of kesler’s agent, how about that comment he made about how when kesler plays more than the sedins, the canucks win. talk about confusing causation and correlation. when the canucks are winning, they play kesler more, and when they’re losing, they play the sedins more. gillis should just hang up the phone if he ever tried to use that sorry excuse for a statistic in a negotiation. obviously, the media is too dumb to call him out on it in their pathetic attempt to get a quote.
what’s the deal with luongo, is he practicing, when’s he coming back? the canucks are one of four teams i’ve got some money on this season to beat their points over/under, and roberto’s got to be involved to make that happen.
has schneider played yet? i guess we were wrong about that raycroft is perfect because he’s so bad theory.
Schneider has played one period in the Anaheim blowout. If there has been any word on Luongo I haven’t heard it. I’m not sure we were wrong. Raycroft may have changed the plan with his play.
I can’t say anything about Kesler that I haven’t already said. (On national TV, yet.)
I think Luongo has skated but not with teammates. He said he’s not going to skate with teammates until he’s 100% pain free. But he’s traveling with the team during the road trip, and according to the coach, a player doesn’t travel with the team if there’s no chance that he’ll play.
If anyone can ever figure out goalies, you could make yourself a lot of money as a consultant. Raycroft looked for all the world to be totally finished as an NHL goaltender, doing the kind of career faceplant perfected by Jim Carrey. In the right place, though, under the right circumstances, he bounces back. Carey Price looks all world one night, and like an ECHL back-up the next. Tim Thomas didn’t play in the NHL until he was 29, and was bouncing around Europe as a free agent for years. The list goes on and on. It’s the most important position on the ice by far, yet trying to predict a career trajectory for goalies is notoriously difficult.
And yes, Kesler is the total package. When people rip the Canucks’ draft history, let’s not forget where we drafted Kesler, and the number of guys either side of him in the draft who long since washed out.
While I agree that Kesler turns out to be an excellent pick (really glad that Burke didn’t draft Jeff Tambellini) , I have to mention that it was a very deep draft. Mike Richards was drafted immediately after Kesler was, Corey Perry was drafted a few spots after. There way were more hits than misses in the 1st round, which doesn’t happen. Here is the amazing list of names from the first round of the 2003 NHL Entry Draft:
1 Marc-Andre Fleury (Goaltender)
2 Eric Staal (Centre)
3 Nathan Horton (Right wing)
4 Nikolai Zherdev (Right wing)
5 Thomas Vanek (Left wing)
6 Milan Michalek (Left wing)
7 Ryan Suter (Defence)
8 Braydon Coburn (Defence)
9 Dion Phaneuf (Defence) †
10 Andrei Kostitsyn (Right wing)
11 Jeff Carter (Centre)
12 Hugh Jessiman (Right wing)
13 Dustin Brown (Right wing)
14 Brent Seabrook (Defence)
15 Robert Nilsson (Right wing)
16 Steve Bernier (Right wing)
17 Zach Parise (Centre)
18 Eric Fehr (Right wing)
19 Ryan Getzlaf (Centre)
20 Brent Burns (Defence)
21 Mark Stuart (Defence)
22 Marc-Antoine Pouliot (Centre)
23 Ryan Kesler (Centre)
24 Mike Richards (Centre)
25 Anthony Stewart (Right wing)
26 Brian Boyle (Centre)
27 Jeff Tambellini (Left wing)
28 Corey Perry (Right wing)
29 Patrick Eaves (Right wing)
30 Shawn Belle (Defence)
If anyone can ever figure out goalies, you could make yourself a lot of money as a consultant.
True, but I think it is mostly because the team impacts on goaltending a lot more than we think. I think Raycroft is a pretty ordinary goaltender at the top of his game right now. Even at that, I can imagine the same performance could produce awful results on a team that was not particularly good at limiting opposing chances and not particularly good at getting to the rebounds first.