Ducks Look To End Losing Skid; Canucks Look To Stay Alive

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 30, 2009 1:48 PM PDT in Game Preview Comment 21 comments

Canucks: 7-6-1

Ducks: 3-6-1

Game Time: 7:00 PST

TV: Sportsnet Pacific

The Enemy: Battle of California (1 Niedermayer vs 1 Sedin. When has that ever happened?)

Anaheim Calling (No more cliches, just start winning)

How time flies. No, not during Canucks games lately. I'm referring to almost exactly a year ago when the Ducks and Canucks played in a freaky Halloween game that took the 13th shooter in a shootout, Mattias Ohlund, to finally end a 7-6 game. It was memorable, make no mistake. What are the chances of that happening tonight? You never know.

Anaheim (3-6-1) is in a world of hurt right now as a team. They find themselves near the bottom of the Western Conference / NHL and at nearly every statistical category. They have had 4 days to think about a 4 game losing streak where they:

-have been outscored 21-9 in the process

-were the team responsible for giving the Leafs their first victory of the season in their last game played.

Jonas Hiller had never allowed 6 goals in a game until that night. He is looking for redemption and will get his chance, as JS Giguere remains sideline with a groin strain.

This game is far from a walk in the park for Vancouver. I'm still scratching my head, creating a bald spot over last night's 2-1 grease win over the Kings. I love the defence and ability to shut down the opposition's top line, but managing only 15 shots isn't going to produce consistent favorable results.

While Andrew Raycroft played admirably last night, he received a lot of help from his mates, who really limited the quality scoring chances against. Like we've said over and over again, Raycroft leaves a lot of the top of the net open when he goes down in his butterfly position (which is all the time). Guys like Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry can expose that real quick. So Vancouver is going to have to play defensive again... but still manage more shots..aka, open it up a little. Is this team schizophrenic or what? You never know what's coming next.

Then again, Kevin Bieksa said today:

"We are just going to continue to try and do what we did last night, play very good defensively and take what they give us," said Bieksa. "We obviously have a lot of injuries right now and we'll play our style of game, a nice exciting brand like last night."

Love his sense of humor!

How about a Rypien-Parros fight? That I'd like to see.

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At least Raycroft seems to have a good glove hand and caught a few high shots with his glove last night. Hopefully he continues his solid play tonight and beyond.

by SJKel on Oct 30, 2009 2:04 PM PDT reply actions

He definitely looked better as the game went on. Gets caught out of position a lot though….freaky stuff.

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 30, 2009 2:15 PM PDT up reply actions

That I noticed too. It’s quite scary watching him leaving the net wide open quite a few times, say, when he went down but the shot missed the net and the puck came out on the other side from behind the net.

by SJKel on Oct 30, 2009 3:18 PM PDT up reply actions

yeah, that play was on my mind as well!

Nucks Misconduct

by Sean Zandberg on Oct 30, 2009 3:21 PM PDT up reply actions

Oy...

Dan Murphy just tweeted “Getting word that Burrows may be injured. If he cant go tonight the Canucks will have to go with 8 defencemen”

'Nucks Misconduct - Housing Swedish Millionaires Since 2000.

by Yankee Canuck on Oct 30, 2009 3:39 PM PDT reply actions

You have got to be fucking joking. We are now almost averaging more injuries per game than goals.

by kesrows on Oct 30, 2009 3:54 PM PDT up reply actions

The way the Ducks are playing, so long as you send two forward lines I think two points are very attainable.

http://www.battleofcali.com/

by Earl Sleek on Oct 30, 2009 4:50 PM PDT up reply actions

I noticed he looked a little off his game last night. He’s usually hustling his ass off, but he looked a little lazy. Maybe he was favoring something.

by SteveNux on Oct 30, 2009 4:56 PM PDT up reply actions

oops

I meant Bernier… I misread the post. Oh well, what’s Bernier’s excute now? :P

by SteveNux on Oct 30, 2009 4:57 PM PDT up reply actions

Botchford is saying if Burrows is out—which is likely—then Rome’ll play on the third and Schneider will play on the fourth. This is amazing. It reminds me of my Bantam days when we had 9 players on the team and we just had to take one game at a time, not knowing who would show up and who wouldn’t because they were hung over.

by thelastjohnny on Oct 30, 2009 5:22 PM PDT up reply actions

Hung over in Bantam? Wow…our players weren’t hung over until Midget at least. And I thought I played in a tough town. (Revelstoke)

Johnny, I got bored and disillusioned playing with the Rep team when I was 15. That year, the house league I played in had only enough players to make up one team amongst Bantam and Midget players.

Our opposition was ALWAYS the Midget team from other towns. We did alright, but when you are the 15 year old and some idiot runs your 13 year old teammate…well, lets just say they were rambunctious games and leave it at that.

That team was similar to yours, and i guess the Canucks too, in that I played every position but goal that year, and rarely played with regular line mates other than when our coach wanted to send a message and send out myself, and his other two good Midget players.

Schneider and Rome should just enjoy the experience and have fun. If Schneids’ is coming down on Neidermayer tonight on the rush, I want to see the “A” deke.!

Should be interesting, to say the least.

vancitydan

by vancitydan on Oct 30, 2009 5:36 PM PDT up reply actions

Er yeah I was thinking of Midget, although there was the time in Bantam that our goalie came in high on shrooms. He played really well, too.

And wow, playing with Bantam players against Midget. It was my first year of Bantam when we had almost all first years, and two or so who were second or third year and we were never sure if they were coming. We’d have to call up Bantam players, too, but my coach was smart in getting the ones that would first bowl someone over before being run down themselves. We had good times, even if we often each had our own bench in the dressing room.

by thelastjohnny on Oct 30, 2009 5:42 PM PDT up reply actions

Some of our younger guys were the good players that year too.

We really did have a ton of fun. The Coach was cool, and treated myself and a couple other Midget players he had with a more “mature” attitude. He let us have beer in our rooms on trips, as long as we kept it cool and didn’t involve the young players who’s parents might object.

We went on more road trips than usual too, to find teams to play against. Mainly ones that tried to use us to tune up on. We won more than we lost though, probably something like 17-13 or something.

We only had one small guy. He could skate like the wind, and usually got away, but he got flattened once by this huge Native kid against Enderby…

Guess who got him back though? Without a fight though…just a solid hip check.

Good times…good times…

LOL

vancitydan

by vancitydan on Oct 30, 2009 5:48 PM PDT up reply actions