Canucks‘ centre Henrik Sedin broke a 32-year-old record tonight as he broke Andre Boudrias‘ long-standing record for most assists in a season by a single player. He potted his 61st, 62nd and record setting 63rd assists of the season.
Sadly, the four goals weren’t enough to net the team more than a single point as they lost to the Av’s 5-4 in a shootout.
I did my part though, made the update to wikipedia! 
Acquired by the Vancouver Canucks on December 30th 2006 after claiming him off waivers from the LA Kings, Jeff Cowan has suddenly become an offensive force to be reckoned with scoring five goals in his last three games (after not scoring since last season).
The Canucks acquired Cowan primarily to be a role player, to add some grit and toughness to the Canucks’ lower lines. In his first few games, it was clear that Cowan was going to make that difference.
In listening to Brook Ward and Dave Tomlinson last night on the Team 1040, they raised a good point. Even the knuckle-draggers of the NHL were at some point in their hockey career the most skilled player on their team. That’s why they made the NHL. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when we find people like Jeff Cowan, or former-canuck Gino Odjick, being able to score some very skillful goals.
I’ve just had to edit the first paragraph, Cowan scored again. Wow.
The new myNHL advertising campaign has a couple of new spokesmen: the Sedins! Starting next week a new commercial for the NHL will debut on national TV. It was shown for the first time tonight on Hockey Night in Canada.
Check out the “Swedish Twins” spot right now on Canucks.com!
This ad is quite amusing. Kelly Hrudey speaking on HNIC said that the way they got the twins to perform in this spot was that they lied to them. It wasn’t until they were in the middle of shooting that they twins found out about their little dance routine.
Edit: 2007-02-20 :: I’ve redirected the link to YouTube as the Canucks.com link no longer works.
In its infinite wisdom, the NHL has decided to allow the fans to select the starting lineup for the All Star Game. This in itself is nothing new, and has been going on for years. However this year, the process is being conducted entirely on-line… As with any first version of software, there is a bug: Anyone can vote as many times as they want for the same (or a different) player. The result? Someone has decided to try and get a write-in nominee to make the starting lineup.
Steve Schmid has created the site VoteForRory.com in an effort to get a fans’ choice write-in candidate into the starting lineup of the All Star Game. After three weeks of voting, his efforts, and those of dedicated voters have managed to get Rory Fitzpatrick into 5th place.
Personally, I think this is a brilliant opportunity for the fans to have a more direct impact on the game. If Rory manages to garner enough support, perhaps the NHL will 1: fix the bug which allows people to vote all they want, and 2: allow the selection of the All Star Team to be performed by people more attuned to hockey than your average web monkey.
So go, visit the Vote For Rory website and do your part to change the face of Hockey.
Tonight, in what should have been a hard-fought, tight-checking, spirited hockey game, the Vancouver Canucks collapsed. Again. Averaging barely over 2.1 goals per game, Roberto Luongo has been the key to the Canucks’ limited success so far this year. However, for the third time in less than a month, they’ve been shut out, and in those games the opposition has scored a total of 16 goals! This is not the kind of goalkeeping Vancouver was expecting from Luongo.
That said, this is not a one man show. There have also been five games in the past month where the Canucks have lost in regulation by only one goal. In those games, they have a combined goal total of 9. If you can’t score more than 1.8 goals per game, it won’t matter if you have a brick wall playing goal; you’re not likely to win the majority of your hockey games.
The effort is there most nights (with the exception of the three blowout shutouts). Vancouver is outshooting the opposition almost every game (tonight vs. Edmonton the shots were 36-18 Vancouver). So was Anson Carter really that important? Does Nazzy miss Bertuzzi that much? Will Alain Vignault promote some other hot shot from the Moose to become the saviour of the season? Only time will tell… lets just hope it tells of a team with more than two goals per game…
The Canucks‘ top line of Naslund, Morrison and Bulis each managed to beat Washington Capitals’ goaltender Olaf Kolzig in a 3-2 SO win for the Canucks tonight… but don’t let that fool you.
The top line looked disorganized for most of the game. Though they did get a few chances now and again the number of times that Naslund and Morrison bobbled the puck or tried to make one cute move too many was somewhat disturbing.
Admittedly, had the line been facing most any other goaltender the outcome would likely have been different. Kolzig managed 42 saves against the Canucks’ shots-on-goal juggernaut. I’m sure we’ll all be watching carefully to see whether or not Naslund’s line can retain their “#1″ status. With the way the Sedin’s and Taylor Pyatt are playing, we could see a changing of the guard before too long…
I heard an absolutely brilliant plan a couple of nights ago for re-doing the NHL schedule. Driving home listening to Brook Ward on the Team 1040 and he said that he could solve the NHL’s scheduling problem with one simple realignment of the way the games are organized. After listening to what he had to say, I was in complete agreement. Here is what he outlined:
At first blush this makes total sense; and Brooks suggestion would also load as many of the 30 games from the other conference at the begining of the season which would save as many of the critical intra-division “four-pointers” as possible for the stretch run.
So while I agree the theory is sound, the math is weak… But I still hope that Gary Bettman will actually take some advice, and read this post (or listen to Brook’s show). This would greatly improve the satisfaction of the fans as they would have the opportunity to see each team’s elite player in action in their own buliding.
Well done Brook!
A couple of months back (when we were in the middle of all the wedding craziness) a story came out about Bell Globemedia pondering a large bid for the Hockey Night in Canada franchise. I found a piece on VancouverCanucksOpEd.com that I found tonight researching another article that talks about this story and a few fans’ reaction to it.
OK, none of us is too impressed with the thought of HNIC becoming a property of the Toronto Sports Network, but what if it were to go somewhere else, like SportsNet?
With their actual national coverage in all regions, this would make a great home for HNIC and take the multi-million dollar burden of producing hockey broadcasts off the taxpayer. Add to that some of the quality issues CBC is having with its broadcasts (namely reliable play-by-play teams during the playoffs) and the whole Ron McLean business and I think it might be time to consider a new home for HNIC.
So here we are the day after Game #2 of the 2006/07 NHL season and our Vancouver Canucks have managed a couple of very solid games the past couple of nights. After spoiling the home openers at Joe Louis and Nationwide arenas, the boys from GM Place are sitting pretty atop the Western Conference, in fact as of last night they’re tied for first overall with their expansion cousins the Buffalo Sabres. But two games in what does this really mean?
The obvious answer is: not much, except that this is a very good start. Are the Canucks destined to play for the Cup against the Sabres? No. Are they even destined to make the playoffs? No. So why are fans so willing so stake a review of the entire season on only 120 minutes (give or take) of game play?
Callersto Dan Russell’s Sportstalk show on CKNW last night seemed willing to guarantee a great season based on a couple of fairly solid road games. But there are still many unanswered questions.