CrashingTheGoalie

By Bill Heintz

Well, here we are: after hungering all summer for the slightest shred of hockey information. After reading numerous daffy trade proposals. After endlessly arranging and then re-arranging the line combinations, And finally, after enduring the early season gaffs, injuries and slumps, we’ve reached a mini-milestone.
The Quarter pole.

And now we have to endure the early report cards…

Digression Alert

…that’s right report cards…and papa went to school in a day when positive bromides were only handed out to the worthy – the rest of us got scathing indictments…it’s where papa learned he was not living up to his potential. Not once.

Ever.

Back to reality. So, I’m not one for report cards. I’ll let the righteous make those decisions. But I still have some thoughts to offer about hockey in general and the Canucks in specific.

First, let me say, I’m happy to just be watching hockey again. It is still the best sport on earth and we get to watch it nearly every day. The best players in the best league in the world.

Beauty, eh.

Not to say that the league is without its problems. The officiating is uneven and in this day of high def video replay, every lousy call, every missed high stick, every blown offside is shown to us endlessly by the hometown broadcasters. But then so is every close goal that is obscured by the speed and traffic around the net. Except in the rarest incident, there are no more illegal goals. The rare inconclusive…well, we’ll just have to live with.

The management of the league is pretty decent, but there are serious problems. It seems pretty harsh to call the southern expansion a failure. But hockey is completely marginalized in the southland. In southern California, the game has enough support to appear regularly in the sports pages…although the hockey beat doesn’t carry the prestige like it does in the northland. But it does have visibility. The south east is a different animal. Hockey is on life support there. It’s hard to believe many teams east of Dallas will survive the economic recession that lingers here in the US of A.

But the league as a whole will survive.

As for our guys…well, I’m generally pleased.

The injuries we’ve had have been serious and lengthy. And most teams would not be floating just above .500 after having had major injuries to their star core. Check the teams that are surprising you with their poor starts. Some are crappy (cough Leafs cough), but some, with playoff potential (the Oilers), have been struck hard with major injuries and influenza.

And not doing too well.

So the fact that we’ve come through looking as decent, as we have, pleases me…but…

I’ve said previously that I can’t understand what has happened to Bieksa and Wellwood. We’ve all had slumps…but Jesus Christmas! The game has all but disappeared for both these guys. I guess some players thrive on the existence of high expectations. Some shrivel. Bieksa and Wellwood apparently are shrivelers.

Edler has not been much better. Edler is a reminder how long it can take most defensemen to develop. There are a few D-men that have emerged immediately (Lidstrom/Neidermayer), some that take a few years (Pronger/Chara) and some that just never seem to get over the hump (McCabe/Sopel).

courtesy of canucks.nhl.com

The jury is out on Edler.

But…Christian Ehrhoff has been a revelation. He is calm under fire, skates effortlessly, makes a great first pass and gets lots of shots…and some of them even hit the net…okay, cheap shot. But the Ehrhoffian one has been a pleasant surprise.

Up front, we lost much of our goal scoring as Demitra, Dank and then Grabner were all taken from the roster. That’s a potential seventy goals out of the line-up. Split hairs on that number if you will, but take a minute to look at their per game totals. It’s not much of a stretch.

Fortunately,  Kesler and Hank stepped up big time and Mason Raymond has been the kind of player that we all hoped he would be. That potential that flashed brilliantly but just occasionally in his first two years seems to have found some level of consistency.

Samuelson has been more than I hoped for as well. He still has a maddening habit for putting shots into the goalie’s crest but he makes smooth passes and back checks effectively. However, we need to see more from Bernier and Burrows. Both have produced for short periods…but we need to see consistency that we expect from top nine, million dollar plus forwards.

Raycroft has proven to be a good back-up…better than many of us expected though he still has those house league performances sometimes. Still, he had a couple of stellar appearances and got us some wins.

Finally, Luongo has been more vulnerable than we once believed possible.

Hey, it happens. But he’s still the kind of goalie, if he gets hot at the right time, he can dominate and win. And he wants it.

We want it.

So, some decent signs…but the talk of a Stanley Cup has been mercifully silenced. And that’s for the best. This team will have to work it’s ass off just to make the playoffs.

Best we accept that.