The Fan In Van Podcast & Blog - Matt Lee

Alright, so some thoughts and reflections on last night’s tilt featuring the Vancouver Canucks and Detroit Red Wings:

• Pretty obvious one here: The Canucks looked two times better than they did against the Wings a week ago. More shots, more pressure and a little more tenacity. The Red Wings didn’t get this one easily.
• That being said, the score still says Wings 3, Canucks 2. And at the end of the day, the Canucks didn’t come up with a good enough effort to steal the game. It may be a case of puck luck but the Canucks desperately need to get out of the hole they’ve dug thus far.
• I liked the effort from the bulk of the Canuck forwards: Ryan Kesler continues to impress me with his two-way play and energy, Pyatt is showing some flair and Naslund’s fire is burning a little more with desire to score.
• Again, that being said, WHERE ARE THE SEDIN TWINS? Namely, where is Henrik? One point in his last five games is not the reason he’s getting premium minutes. The Sedins have got to be the 85+ point players we saw run circles around the defence in the early going this year.
• Staying with the Sedins, it seems like when Naslund and Morrison are producing (6 points in five games combined) the Sedins are not (4 points in 5) and vice versa. Is this team ever going to get a balanced attack from two separate lines?

• The Canuck defense are playing like they’re skating in quicksand. The best Canuck blueliner has been Lukas Krajicek (1 goal, 5 PTS) and Mattias Ohlund has also played well, showing that no-quit attitude we’ve seen throughout his career. And, while I can excuse Sami Salo (return from injury) and Alex Edler’s (new guy) poor play last night, I can’t excuse Willie Mitchell and Kevin Bieksa’s play.
• Mitchell and Bieksa were downright horrible. Bieksa did another one of his brutal pinches which cost the Canucks a 2-on-1, a play which Willie Mitchell used to thrive in and ultimately bombed at, letting Tomas Holmstrom and Pavel Datsyuk make him look completely foolish.
• The goal after that, Bieksa allowed Mikael Samuelsson to dig the puck through his unsuspecting legs and put a quick one past Luongo. Either bad luck or an act of foolishness.

Plain and simple, the Canuck defense has to (and will) get better in the coming games. They’ve got an (almost) gimmie against Nashville on Thursday before a pretty hefty test in the Avalanche on Saturday.