The Two-Line Pass

Here’s a story you will read in every Canadian newspaper tomorrow.

VANCOUVER — On the game’s biggest stage, and in the most important game of his life, Roberto Luongo ____________ (answered his critics/imploded horribly), spilling thousands of Vancouver fans into the street in paroxysms of ____________ (sheer joy/blinding rage).

Luongo, who in many ways was the crux of the series’ bizarre and numerous turning points, played ____________ (extremely well/mind-bendingly poorly) in allowing ____________ (0/12) goals and turning aside ____________ (14/three) shots in ____________ (60/eight) minutes of action.

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The Lead

If past performance is indicative of future results, and we have at no point in the history of performance-to-result comparison been given any reason to find that this is not the case, then Antti Niemi is going to concede roughly 213 goals on 214 shots in the next game and Chicago will lose and therefore it will be all Niemi’s fault.

Hell they talked about it at length on Versus tonight so it must be true.

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Don’t forget about the prizes!!!

The Lead

The Edmonton Oilers have won three straight games.

I’ll say that again: the Edmonton Oilers have won three straight games. Against NHL teams.

And not just any NHL teams either, if that’s what you’re thinking. They’ve beaten the Sharks, Red Wings and now the Canucks. From last Friday until right this very minute, the Oilers have picked up literally 1/8th of their entire win total.

I don’t know why this is happening. Every day, another Oiler seems to come down with some sort of crazy injury — I think I read Andrew Cogliano contracted a case of Fisherman’s Madness or something — and another tragedy, beyond even living in Edmonton, befalls the squad itself. Today’s hysterical mishap saw Devan Dubnyk (who has a girl’s name) get an “infectious gastrointestinal disorder” which in my medical opinion basically means his butt is infected.

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The Lead

And you thought the circus wouldn’t be showing up at GM Place for another few weeks when the Olympics came to town and “circus” had the word “media” in front of it.

Saturday night brought us Lasergate, which sounds like some sort of bad Jean-Claude Van Damme straight-to-DVD sci-fi movie, but it was, instead, some Canucks fan attempting to shine a laser pointer into Miikka Kiprusoff’s eyes during play and generally making everyone upset.

It continued tonight, only nobody used any Nikola Tesla-type inventions. Instead, it was the referees who performed in Ring 2 of this particular three-ring fiasco. The entire third period of what had been a good, hard-fought game between the Canucks and Predators, was turned into a joke by Stephane Auger and Dennis LaRuse, who, you may remember, screwed the Red Wings earlier this year.

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The Lead

Andy Murray knows a lot about hockey. You can go ahead and ask him about that sometime.

Maybe you haven’t heard about how Andy Murray gets things done. Getting a team with a ludicrous amount of injuries to key players into the playoffs last year? Yeah, that’s him.

Andy Murray is a brilliant coach. Know how he keeps his guys motivated? He tells them they suck. Really. He makes up brilliant sayings all the time, like, “Arrogance breeds complacency and complacency means you are going backwards.” Don’t want that, can’t have that. Not on this Blues team.

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The Lead

Sentence I’d never thought I’d type ever: “Andrew Raycroft was considerably better than Roberto Luongo tonight.”

Indeed, it was that Raycroft made 11 saves on 12 shots, while Luongo made eight on the same number. Really. I don’t want to start making wild assumptions here, just three games into the season, but there’s got to be something seriously wrong, physically, with Bobby Lou (more like Bobby Loo, and that’s a joke for all my British readers), right?

He might have been helpless on the goal from Antoine Vermette, and it looked like one of his defenseman got a piece of the Rusty Klesla marker, but the goals from Kristian Huselius and Nikita Filatov? Yeah, he’s gotta get those. The Huselius goal especially was just ugly. An unscreened wrister from the circle, no matter how hard, shouldn’t be beating Roberto freaking Luongo middle glove. It should be a physical impossibility. He barely even reacted as it rocketed past him.

Luongo just doesn’t seem himself, as the Raycroftian stat line this season more or less bares out. Granted, the defense hasn’t been helping him much, and his run support to this point has been virtually non-existent, but this is the guy Hockey Canada wants repping the country on its home turf come the Olympics? The way he’s playing right now, Belarus would give them a game (and by that I mean lose 11-1, not 11-0).

Hockey Canada should really consider having a look at Steve Mason, the kid at the other end of the ice who made a number of spectacular saves and isn’t making Andrew Raycroft appear to be a viable option as a starter. At least he couldn’t be any worse than this Luongo joker.

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The Lead

It has been four months and one day since the 2008-09 NHL season wrapped up with Sid Crosby raising the Stanley Cup above his head and while Gary Bettman wept with unbridled joy, wiping away his tears with $100 bills that would later be earmarked for use in the purchase of the Phoenix Coyotes.

But with tonight’s tape-delayed game between the Islanders and Canucks from some inland backwater in Northern British Columbia — there was SNOW on the ground! — NHL hockey began its 103rd “official” season.

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The Lead

Was hockey kidding? How can two consecutive games be THAT freaking awesome?

In 126:22 of hockey tonight, we were treated to 21 goals on 135 shots and more lead changes than any normal person could possibly consider rational.

Take the Penguins/Capitals game for example, the sixth in a now-seven-game series that has lived up to every inch of its lofty billing and will make the Conference Finals (be they against Boston or Carolina) look like the worst kind of anticlimax. It was 1-0 Pens after one. Then the Caps score twice. Then Geno Malkin levels inside of 30 seconds to go in the period and it’s 2-2 through two. Then all hell breaks loose.

Kris Letang scores on the power play at 4:40 of the third. Brooks Laich answers 58 seconds later and Viktor Kozlov puts his team up just 29 seconds after that (with a special tip of the hat to Hal Gill, who’s pictured above). But then Sid Crosby, clearly the best player on the ice in this series, scores with just under five minutes to go in the period to force overtime. That’s where The Steckel came in to pop in his second goal in this series, both of which have been game-winners.

Then go have a peak at that Chicago/Vancouver game. No Game 7 necessary there, eh? Nah, Patty Kane took care of that. Hat trick for the kid. Lead changed five times in that one. Home team won before their huge home crowd which, for the year, officially topped one million fans tonight, a good fifth of which might’ve turned up to see them play last year.

And that game was a lot like the Pittsburgh game in that many of its goals came in bunches. The two goals in the first were scored exactly two minutes apart. Three of the four in the second were scored in the space of 4:32. The first two in the third came 1:58 apart, and the last four were in 4:02. It was nuts. And despite having three separate leads, Vancouver only actually found itself ahead of the Blackhawks for 4:43.

There was just no unseating the Blackhawks or Caps tonight. Awesome night of hockey.

The Lead

Would that we were all as outstanding as Alex Burrows was tonight.

In the Canucks’ extremely fun, outstanding 3-2 overtime win to complete a sweep of the St. Louis Blues, Burrows stood as a man among boys. He scored the Canucks’ second goal, as well as the overtime winner with just 19 seconds remaining in the period, plus did just about everything else you’d want a second-line pest to do.

In addition to the goals, he also dished out a few hits, blocked a few shots and even drew a penalty in overtime. Big night outta the kid, and not bad for a guy making less than $500k this year.

Actually, the entire game was pretty excellent, and even though it didn’t have quite the same amount of bad blood as last night’s Calgary/Chicago game (a 3-0 series deficit for the home team will do that to ya), it did have enough end-to-end action to keep Gary Bettman satisfied even though neither team is Florida- or California-based, and the game didn’t end 9-8.

A lot of that had to do with Chris Mason and Roberto Luongo standing on their heads though. The Blues should’ve won it about 12 times in OT, but Luongo made 18 saves in the extra period and 47 overall. At the other end of the ice, Mason made several ridiculous stops and finished the hard-luck loser with 33 saves.

So much for the hottest team in the NHL. Out in four games. And the Canucks, instead, are through to the next round, and they did it not because of the Sedins and obviously not because of Mats Sundin. They did it because of a guy that does hilarious impressions of Marc Crawford and spent three seasons in the ECHL.

And that, like Burrows, is pretty goddamn awesome.

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The Lead

It must be confusing as hell to cover the Sedins. The Stars had a bit of trouble with it tonight. It’s like the opening of the Patty Duke Show, only with Swedish guys. And goatees. And less choreography.

Those rascally boys combined for three goals and two assists as the Canucks pounded Dallas tonight 5-2.

The best part was when Mark Fistric high-sticked Daniel right in the kisser, knocking out a tooth or two and bloodying him up. Daniel then scored on a very nice redirect on that same power play before heading to the dressing room to get stitched up. That’s badass. Earlier in the game, Henrik caught a stick in the noodle as well. I’d like to see Patty Duke pull that off.

Another rad part of the game was when Steve Ott stepped out of the penalty box and low-bridged the absolute piss out of Taylor Pyatt (as he is wont to do), and Kevin Bieksa basically threatened to murder him in the resulting scrum. I wish more people would deal with Ott this way.

But then Ott did not get much in the way of retaliation, unfortunately. Marty Turco did instead, mainly because he came out to play the puck along the sideboards, turned his body to protect it from a coming forechecker (I believe it was Darcy Hordichuk), and promptly got cleaned out from behind. It was hilarious.

Then the Canucks broke it open in the third period and Ryan Kesler scored a gorgeous goal, his second of the night after getting his head stepped on, and Dallas completely imploded. Turco ended up giving up four goals on 21 shots.

I know that, as a Flames fan, I shouldn’t be rooting for the Canucks to win, but this game was so awesome I don’t care.

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