CrashingTheGoalie

by desertdawg

The first few games back from the long road trip can be quite daunting. First off, there’s the business of jet lag and travel fatigue. If you’ve ever been on an airplane flight for longer than an hour, you know what I mean. Airports and airplanes are not built for relaxation. Even first class seating doesn’t give you that much room…okay, actually Air Canada is pretty good, but after that…well, let’s just say I’d rather be a chicken in the Colonel Saunders’ organization. And the truth is, I’m not familiar with the Canucks charter plane situation. But make no mistake. It’s a plane. And when you are doing eight games in eight different cities on 16 different nights…well there’s going to be some deleterious affects on both your physical and mental systems.
And the first game back is a killer.

So let’s get those excuses out of the way right off the bat. But let’s also be honest here. The Canucks did not look great against Toronto and we looked positively flat against the Habs. We have not been playing well these last two games. It will be a big job tonight. And even though Tampa Bay has not had a very good season, they have been playing better lately. They have some very good players. Any time you can throw Vinnie LeCavilier and Martin St Louis out on the same shift (and also throw in Stamkos, who really can pull the trigger) with maybe Ryan Malone doing the scut work, well you do have a team that can score.

But, as I watch the first period, I realize that the Lightening do not have a clue about team defense. As a matter of fact the best thing I can say about them is than they look disorganized playing team D. Every shift in their own zone is like a scene from the movie Rat Race. Everyone is running around with no idea what anyone else is doing.

We get a couple of great scoring chances, but don’t bury it. The chance by Burrows produces a long groan. Watch the replay. All Burrows has to do is shoot the puck from his forehand. The net is wide open. Ahh, but Alex is too clever and he pulls it to the backhand. Unfortunately, the Tampa Bay goalie is already hopelessly out of position…which is where Alex pulls the puck to. A quicker goalie would have jumped to the other side and Alex would have pulled the puck around him. But Ramo just stayed where he was and Alex deked the puck right into him. Oh well. And then Bieksa launches a mighty shot on the first PP but it clanks off the inside of the post.

Like I said, Tampa Bay has no idea how to play team defense…but they have a couple of offensive skills out there. Every time Martin St.Louis is on the ice he causes havoc. I wonder what he’d be like with a decent team. No wonder TB considers him untouchable, but entertains numerous offers on Lecavalier.

Our second PP looks to be going nowhere when Ryan Kesler does a beauty set-up for Edler and the one timer hit’s the corner. We are up one to nothing and I don’t care about the shots, the score flatters TB.

I wrote my friend and fellow hockey aficianado, Gord Kerster recently, and said that I hope Gillis sends a message to his team before the trade deadline (Vaanenen doesn’t count…that was just a great waiver wire pick up) and says something like “I love this team. I believe in this team. I’m not going to risk team chemistry with a rental trade. But a pure goal scorere, a tru triggerman, would really be a boost. We thought we had it in Demitra…but, nope. He has been invisible.”

The second period was a series of great Canuck chances, near misses and the odd Tampa Bay chance. The distillation of the entire period can be seen in 40 seconds. Henrik puts a backhand shot 94% over the line…ahhh #%^&%…and then Stamkos gets a bounce and buries one. The review shows that Henrik’s chance was not quite over the line but Stamkos scored the clean goal.
Thank god, the first game back from the road trip isn’t against Columbus…they’d bury us tonight. But with TB we have a fighting chance. We are tied (and it feels like we are down a goal) but we have been getting chances. One good period and we could pull the double U out of this one.

But long time Canuck fans have seen this scenario too often. We are tired, we are playing against a bottom feeding team and we are making their goaltender look great. We are one unlucky goal from a mini-disaster. If we lose this game, we are not out of the playoffs, but we will have lost a golden opportunity. Edmonton and Dallas lost last night. Minnesota lost earlier tonight. And if Tam Bay gets one lucky bounce…

And then the hockey Gods smile down on us and Steve Bernier gets a lucky bounce. We are up by a goal and all we need is big Bob Luongo to close it out. But Roberto, being Roberto, decides to handle the puck behind our net. This leads to the two minute Bolivian fire drill with all the juice squeezed out of our souls. We end the misery by icing the puck. Every Canuck fan stands in unison and yells “Call a Time Out, coach!”.

And coach V again listens to number seven. He calls the TO and we get a rest. From here to eternity…it is out of our hands. We’ve done everything we could. We all believe that any one of us could have scored on the two on one that the Sedins had. And it was even the right Sedin pulling the trigger!!! But the fact is, the game was left to a higher power tonight. The one that said, Dawg, you were holding the remote control when Bernier scored. You shall hold the remote control for the rest of the game.

Thanks for that.