Canucks Dominate Maple Leafs with 6-2 Victory

Leigh Ramsden lives in Vancouver and is an avid Canucks fan, having been a partial season ticket holder for over 10 years. He's old enough to have witnessed all three Stanley Cup losses, as such, his prime goal is to remove those scars by seeing a Cup brought to Vancouver. Leigh is Fighting For Stanley's (www.fightingforstanley.ca/vancouver) west coast correspondent, and will also blog after all Canuck games for The Nelson Daily.

The Vancouver Canucks hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night in the second half of their season series at Rogers Arena.  The Canucks left the Leafs empty-handed for another season, winning easily by a score of 6-2.  The win improved the Canucks’ record against the Northeast division to a perfect 6-0-0 this season.

The Canucks were dominant in this game from start to finish.  Alex Burrows, continuing his trend of playing huge when playing in the early game on Hockey Night in Canada, opened the scoring at 7:49 of the opening period after a nice play by Daniel Sedin. 

Less than two minutes later, Manny Malhotra scored his sixth of the year after a great play by Byron Bitz at his own blue line and a tremendous cross-ice saucer pass from Maxim Lapierre, and the rout was on.  Vancouver outshot the Leafs 11-4 in the opening period.

The teams traded goals early in the second, on goals by Burrows and Dion Phaneuf, who shot the puck past Vancouver netminder Roberto Luongo after Kevin Bieksa had slid into him.  The Canucks were on their heels for a few minutes after the Leafs got the game back to 3-1, assisted by a dubious penalty call against Cody Hodgson. 

The Canucks effectively ended the game on goals by Daniel at 11:14, and by Sami Salo at 12:48 of the middle period.  The Sedin goal ended Leaf goaltender James Reimer’s night, as he was replaced in favour of Jonas Gustavsson.  It was difficult to fault Reimer on any of the goals, as the Leaf D was invisible most of the night.

Bieksa stretched the lead to five, eight minutes into the third period, after a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play in the Leafs’ zone.  Nikolai Kulemin rounded out the scoring with only 20 seconds left in the game, as he shoveled a rebound past Luongo.

After seeing so many close Canuck games lately, this game was a sight for sore eyes.  It was comforting to see a good, old-fashioned rout, as the Canucks were able to capitalize on literally every Toronto mistake. 

At the end of the night, the Canucks had a huge game from the first line, as Daniel (1G-3A-4P), Henrik Sedin (4A), and Burrows (2G) provided enough offense to win the game by themselves. 

There have been too few of these kinds of games for the Canucks, in contrast to last year when it seemed like they had an easier time through the regular season.  Not only were they able to light the lamp six times, but they were very effective in limiting the Leafs’ scoring chances, or even letting them get into their zone with possession. 

With the exception of that five minute stretch in the game in the second period, after they had scored, the Leafs hardly threatened the Canuck goal at all – and when they did, Luongo was there.

As I have said many times this season, Luongo’s contribution to the win should not be ignored.  The only two goals he allowed were on broken plays, one where Bieksa had slid into him and the other on a goal-mouth scramble where he’d already made three or four saves. 

Barring those incidents, he made a number of other good saves to preserve his team’s lead. 

While it’s unlikely that a goal allowed here or there would have changed the end result of this game, he made all the saves he had to – and that is all anyone can ask of their goaltender.  Luongo’s been going very well now for almost three months, and has been a big part of the Canucks’ ascension up the standings.

THE CANUCKS WILL BE SCARY IF ALL LINES CAN GET GOING AT THE SAME TIME

Recently, the engine that has been propelling the Canucks offensively has been the second line of Ryan Kesler, David Booth, and most recently Mason Raymond, as the Sedin line has been struggling. 

Tonight, the Sedins came alive in a huge way, as they both got back into the top ten in league scoring where they belong.  Burrows added his 22^nd and 23^rd goals, and overall these three players were in on five of the Canucks’ six goals.  They were truly dominant.

Of course, in maddening fashion, the Kesler-Booth-Raymond unit, while effective defensively, weren’t able to add anything to the scoresheet, due partially to decreased icetime.  Coach Alain Vigneault was able to spread the minutes around more liberally tonight, as the game was well in hand – this resulted in Kesler’s line losing a couple of minutes to Cody Hodgson's third line.

This isn’t a complaint – the game was in control, and there was really no need to score more goals – it’s more an observation that if both of these lines can get going at the same time, the Canucks will prove more difficult to beat, and will return to the way they were playing before Christmas.  There have been positive signs lately, and tonight was definitely a major step in the right direction.

The fourth line was dangerous on a few occasions (scoring the one beautiful goal), and the Hodgson-Hansen-Higgins line was good as well, taking advantage of their increased opportunity.  It appears Hansen has returned from being MIA for most of the last 20 games.

One must bear in mind Toronto did not put their best game on the ice and didn’t receive any huge saves from their goaltender.  For these reasons, it’s dangerous to draw too many conclusions from tonight’s game. 

That said, the team appears back headed in the right direction – where, ideally, every game won’t be tied at the end of regulation!

TANEV DRAWS INTO LINEUP

Vancouver recalled Chris Tanev from Chicago a couple days ago, as Keith Ballard went on Injured Reserve with "neck problems" (which may be concussion symptoms).  Tanev drew into the lineup and played on the third pairing with Aaron Rome, and filled in quite nicely. 

I didn’t notice Tanev as much tonight as I have other times he’s been up with the big club, but he was able to log 18:38 of icetime, and again did not look out of place in the NHL.  He plays such a quiet, simple game, he’s just hard to notice – positive or negative. 

However, he provides something the Canucks desperately need – a good option on the right side for the third pairing.  Ballard has struggled there in his tenure in Vancouver, and Aaron Rome played his best game tonight in recent memory, as he returned to his natural left-side position.

I won’t be surprised if Tanev is sent down again before the end of the season, but it’s a certainty that he’ll be here come playoff time.  Every time he gets a chance, he does nothing to screw it up.  He’s exhibiting that he’s a player that Vigneault can trust under pressure at the NHL level.

PARTING SHOTS

Comments on the Opposition:  Toronto has been reeling of late, with a record of 1-5-0 in their last six games.  Amazingly, they continue to hold onto the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Tonight their play was generally horrible.  The defense looked lost and out of sorts all night long, twice leaving Burrows alone in the slot.  Keith Aulie and John-Michael Liles, in particular, did not look good tonight.  Dion Phaneuf did as he usually does against Vancouver, which isn’t much. 

Contrarily, young Jake Gardiner looked decent, actually finishing plus-1 in a 6-2 loss – an impressive feat if ever there was one.

Their top line of Bozak-Kessel-Lupul was pretty good in the Canucks’ zone when they could get there, which wasn’t often enough.  After that, the forwards fall off pretty quickly for the Buds.  Their lineup has some names in it that have played well elsewhere in the past – Colby Armstong, Tim Connolly, Matt Lombardi – but they consistently did absolutely nothing tonight offensively or defensively.

If the Leafs make it into the playoffs, it will be because all the teams around them were worse than they have been – they really look like they have run out of gas after a promising first half.  If they do squeak in, I can’t see them being competitive with a Rangers, Bruins, Flyers, or Penguins over a seven game series.

I just love this picture.  While it was taken before the game, it pretty much tells the story of how the Leaf fans in attendance tonight must have felt at the end of the game.

Broadcast Observation of the Day:  Once again, Ron MacLean did his best to backtrack on his previous statements about Alex Burrows and, by extension, the entire Canucks team. 

However, throwing a couple self-deprecating comments in, all while praising Burrows for his stellar play, does little to alter the generally-accepted view that he’s a rat and a dishonest player – an impression that MacLean himself promoted last year in the aftermath of the Stephane Auger incident, and an impression that coloured much of the coverage the Canucks received from Hockey Night throughout the playoffs.

I don’t really see the point of MacLean playing this “nice guy” act at this stage – the damage is done. If it’s an attempt to win over the Vancouver fan base and get them back on board with Hockey Night in Canada, it’s misguided – it’s not going to work in this corner, anyway.

It’s very hard for me to watch a Hockey Night telecast and sit through an entire game listening to Craig Simpson.  I’ve railed against him previously in this space, and until he gets over himself and realizes that he doesn’t have to be right about everything all the time, his calls are going to suffer.  

He just comes off as a know-it-all – and I hate to tell him, but he doesn't know it all.

While not my favourite guy, I thought Elliott Friedman’s piece about Rick Rypien and his brother Wes Jr., which aired during the pre-game show, was very touching and well-presented.

It's worth mentioning here that the Sedins and Burrows seem to play well when featured on the early game on Hockey Night in Canada.  The twins stated earlier this year that only the early HNIC game airs in Sweden, so they like to play well for that showing.  

On the other hand, Burrows seems motivated to play well in these games, potentially due to MacLean's mistreatment.  

Given how these guys play when on the early game, maybe I shouldn't be so angry when the Canucks are moved into this timeslot merely to suit the TV audience in the GTA.

Looking ahead: Vancouver sets out on a six-game road trip, first visiting Edmonton tomorrow night.  The game makes me nervous – the Oilers have played the Canucks tough this year, and it’s only natural to have a let-down in the second half of a back-to-back, coming off a big win like tonight’s.