CrashingTheGoalie

by desertdawg
Back in the dawg days of summer, many pundits predicted the Oilers would be one of the highest scoring teams in the league. They were sure to take the Northwest Division by storm and finally return to their traditional role as a powerhouse in the National Hockey League. Led by the newest NHL superstar Ales Hemsky, along with young guns such as Sam Gagner, Andrew Cogliano and Robert Nilsson, and backstopped by the Great Wall of Garon, the Oil fans were openly debating how far they could go in the playoffs this year.

The future looked bright indeed.

The only problem might be what to do with an under-performer like Dwayne Roloson who often acted like a coked-out supermodel when anyone skated near the blue paint. Could Rollie be packaged, the fan base wondered, with a fifth round pick for Malkin? Or maybe throw in an over-paid, often injured Fernando Pisani and get Sid the Kid as well.

Well, what the heck happened?

The young guns played more like the three stooges, often confused by their defensive assignments and seeing nothing but goalie pads when they got the occasional scoring chance. Yesterday’s hero, Mathieu Garon was thrown under the bus early on by MacT…and Garon had lots of company under the rear axle as the coach began to make it a habit to publicly flay individual players. As far as MacT himself, he apparently has the job security of the Pope so the worst that has happened is that Kevin Lowe pulled the string in GM Steve Tambellini’s back and a press release was issued assuring the fans that MacT’s job was safe.

As for the histrionic Rollie the Goalie, well, the truth is, he’s been one of the better Oiler players this year. And certainly Hemsky has racked up some points, although it must be frustrating for players and fans alike watching him circle endlessly, looking for a winger that could finish at least one of his cute plays. But Eric Cole, brought into play huge…and tap them in from four feet out, often plays like he is on Ambien…which fortunately has the side effect of sleepwalking so at least he can still dress for games. And the plump Dustin Penner started out the year like his Gatorade bottle was full of gravy, so he was another one that MacT decided to isolate with a public flogging.

Well, who will lead this team then? Not Ethan Moreau I’m afraid, who is once again injured. Shawn Horcoff? Handed a long term contract extension for $5.5 million starting next year he has been MIA since game five? Sheldon Sourray? He has a shot like an intercontinental ballistic missile coupled with the defensive awareness of a Bryan McCabe. And he is their best D-man…but on good teams he’d probably be nothing more than a PP specialist. The result of this is that the fans are in full revolt with a team that is mired in mediocrity…which is perhaps the worst possible outcome. Not bad enough to get into the draft lottery, but so far, not near good enough to make the playoffs.

And don’t we Canuck fans just love it?

Of course, we’ve been plagued with our own inconsistencies this year because as we’ve seen, no game is a lock for us. And as much as we can criticize certain individual Canucks at any given time, Coach V. has avoided singling out any one player. I‘ve always hated a coach doing that…singling out players in a team sport. I believe it’s often a sign the boss is losing the room.

So what do we expect tonight? Well as usual, your guess is at least as good as mine. Are we the Canucks that bitch slapped the Oilers around in the pre-season and then stole their lunch money a couple of times when the games counted? Or are we the Canucks that played one of their worst games of the year in losing 3 zip in a Roly-poly shutout special?

To the game:

Well the truth is, there were more dead turkeys than a Sarah Palin press conference in the first period. Did everyone on the ice over-eat? Outside of a couple of near-misses from both teams, the period was double ugly hockey. A completed first pass was cause for high fives. Successful breakouts were as rare as a Tom Cruise hit movie. It was just hard to watch. Shots were 6 to 4 and it didn’t really matter who owned the stat. We can only hope that the Oilers thought it was a moral victory and that we felt shame so we can come out with a nasty attitude in the second period.

But if you were looking for redemption in the second, you would have been more than a little let down. The Canucks lacked discipline so many times that we made the Oilers look like an eighth grade class torturing a substitute teacher. All over the ice, lazy penalties coupled with lead feet. So we take two 5 on 3 penalties in a row. The end result is the Oilers go up three zip and suddenly the last 8 goals over 2 games have been scored against us. Yeah, us.

But this is the season of hope and goodwill.

With 33 seconds left in the second, Mason Raymond capitalizes on one of the few gifts the Oilers leave under our tree, whipping in his own rebound and we are not quite out of it. When the Oil took us three nothing in their barn a few weeks ago, it felt like an aberration…one that was quickly corrected the next time we played them. The five zip debacle against the Sharks was erased from memory as soon as we could collectively call up our powers of repression and denial. But tonight is a bit harder to explain. It’s not like the Oilers own us out there. They’ve had their own share of bollixed plays and neutral zone giveaways. But they’ve had a couple of five on threes and made us pay both times. And it doesn’t help that we look like a team from southern Thailand taking their first skate around on frozen water.

In short, not pretty.

But finally we find the passion that eluded us in the first two periods. Where was it all this time? Well, if I knew that, I’d be behind the bench and some other schmoe might be writing this column. We owned them in the third; treated the Oilers with contempt and didn’t allow a shot on Sanford until a little more than six minutes left. The Oilers try and capitalize on a pinching Canuck D, but Sanford keeps Cole at four goals for the season when he slides the leg back on the Forsbergian drag.

We fight until the last seconds but…

Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

We had our chances but they had the goals.

The Dawg’s Three Stars:

1) Dwayne Roloson…hurts me more than it hurts you, kids.
2) Curtis Sanford…kept us in it.
3) Ales Hemsky…ran a couple of nice five on three PPs.

Unsung hero… Mason Raymond…the only Canuck to move his legs through all three periods.