Blackhawks 5 Canucks 2: Uh-Oh...

Terrible game. Friday cannot come soon enough.

I’m not a fan of Tim Peel as a referee. A friend of mine, a fan of another team, ripped Peel apart at the beginning of the season, and every time I’ve seen him call a game I’ve ended up annoyed at something. It’s gotten to the point where if I see a call I think is absolute junk, I mutter “must be Tim Peel reffing,” and sure enough it is. He can’t keep a game under control. He can’t make the right call. Half the time he can’t even make a call at all.

Not a fan of O’Halloran, either. But Peel? No thank you.

Anyways, first experience at GM Place for a playoff game was a rousing success. Far better intensity than regular season. Guys in our section resorted to making immature, loud jokes at a guy wearing a Chelios jersey when the chips got down, but other than a few idiots it was a really good time.

Sidebar: not a Canucks fan. Or a Hawks fan.

“The better team won let’s face it. Back to the drawing board.”

WTF? Are you kidding? The Hawks played like pieces of shit tonight, and barely showed up. Van dominated them more than any other game this series, and got served with a ridiculously undeserved loss.
Bad penalties, Lou’s strange inability to cover the puck, and some terrible shots cost us the game. They were all direct results though of Van screwin up rather than the Hawks forcin them.
If i’m AV tonight, I don’t change a thing. 9 times out of 10, the Nucks win with that kind of effort.
I am pissed though that it will take at least 6 to win now though. I truly expected a Van sweep or 5 games max.
And don’t throw the Sedins under the bus again, they battled hard, won the puck possesion game and even mixed it up physically.

Ps- ain’t that Vancouvers curse. We shut down Toews, Hossa and Kane and get beat by Bufglugluein, who quite possibly is the shittiest and fattest player in the entire western conf.

dustin buttugly is actually 240 lbs, not the 280 he really is. not that it mattered, the canucks had already shit the bed but seeing random assclowns get hat tricks against the canucks really really frosts me. seriously, byfuglien is a terrible player, did nothing during the season, did nothing in the nashville series but he’s the second coming of cam neely against vancouver.

if gillis doesn’t put a priority on getting some players with more size second round knockouts are going to be the perpetual ceiling for this team. they aren’t built to grind it out against bigger forwards in the playoffs, and somehow aren’t good enough to play the speed/skill game and win.

Watching the highlights right now. Terrible rebound control by Luongo on the first two goals. And holy shit Byfuglien’s 3rd goal was absolute babytown frolics. A complete joke.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. Maybe Canucks should get in Niemi’s space more. Match what the Hawks do to Lou? And Lou does need to cut down on the theatrics. I’m talking past tense here. All his showmanship and exaggerating over the past years can’t be helping his reputation. Just saying

Guess I’m alone here, but I fucking loved how Vancouver played this game. Relentless forecheck. Physical. Kept everything outside. I can’t complain about anything except getting sucked in to the chirping and lack of discipline they have, up til this point avoiding.

The game changer here is showing respect for the goalie. Burish said straight up in the press they need to run Luongo. We all laughed and called him an idiot because obviously the NHL will be looking for it. Well I feel stupid. Thet have done exactly that and earned their goals that way while the Nucks do everything in their power to avoid contact with Niemi.

Time to run him, and run him often. Trying to put the puck upstairs and over him is pointless when you can push him straight into the net or make as much contact as possible. Fuck it. Run him or lose the series.

How can a player be so hot in one series, and disappear in the next? I really hope the come back and stomp the Hawks! I’m not worried right now, but if they go to 3-1 then I’ll start biting my nails

The good news is I called the score! Just had the damn teams backwards, and picked the wrong team’s resident stone handed douche to score the winner. Sigh.

I agree with kesrows tho, and I said it in the game thread too…the team played great, and we lost due to stupid errors by people; it’s a game of inches, it doesn’t take much blah blah blah…it’s all true. If bieksa wasn’t mentally handicapped and if Burrows doesn’t take the dumbest penalty in the history of burrows taking dumb penalties, and if demitra puts out a 4 million dollar effort instead of that Taylor Pyatt type thing he did tonight (you all know what I mean…lazy assed underperforming cap suck…) that’s a different game.

I want to call out Burrows big time. I don’t care if he got a goal, that roughing penalty he took was the game changer.

The Canucks had just scored, the Hawks had just iced it with a non top defensive pair/line out, the Sedins were ready to come on, we had all the momentum…and then HEY GUYS LOOK AT ME I’M GOING TO BE A TOUGH GUY HUH HUH.

Absolutely the dumbest, uglier than Byfuglien, assfucking penalty to take. Negate the icing, go a man down, go back down by 2, lose the momentum, send my blood pressure to 200/180 as want to throw things at my friend’s nice TV.

Seriously, where the fuck was the composure? They’re playing right into the Hawks game, letting the chirping get to them. Do you think the Hawks care that you go after them? NO BECAUSE THEY GET PPs AND SCORE. How about we play the “ignore them and just score on them” method of chirping. Anyone?

That being said, I still have confidence they can pull this off. We went down 2-1 to LA after 2 bad losses and still came back. Granted Chicago is a better team (yes/no?), but I still believe. Just fix the composure issues.

Remember what they were writing after game 3 of the Kings series, a 5-3 loss. I believe one of the headlines was season torpedoed or something to that effect. They look for the most dramatic angle but don’t let it suck you in. For the most part, even last night, the Canucks have been getting more scoring chances and have been the better team.

I certainly would agree that these two teams are evenly matched.

Shane O’Brien said pre-game that the Canucks were too passive in the first 2 games of the series and wanted them to push back. Well, pushing back in Game 3 only led to boneheaded penalties and a lack of composure

Me yesterday:

I hope O’Brien realizes that all he’d better do is hit people on the boards, because shit after the whistle will kill us.

Fuckin’ Shane.

That game was an adventure live.

Which has to stop, now. Focus on, you know, the good players.

….and he’s a shitty, lazy player during the year.

Something about Vancouver riles him up to play better, and I think it’s a crowd that comes into the building hating him before he even steps onto the ice. He wants to rub it in the face of every fan in the building.

If he would play like this every game during the year, Chicago fans wouldnt be begging Bowman to toss him in the great salary dump of the 2010 summer.

The fact is that Buff can be a good player when he wants to be.

He gets in people’s faces, causes shenanigans after the whistle and refuses to fight afterward….which is pretty much what Kesler and Burrows do, plus score some goals to boot.

When he stands in the crease and fights for space, that’s all legal and good hockey play. Its when he elbow-drops Luongo that he needs to get penalized.

Niemi gave up way more juicy rebounds than Lou did last night, but the Chicago defense and back-checking forwards were always there looking for them, scooping them out of the way before they turned into chances and goals.

It all comes back to Van’s D. They arent fast or skilled enough to content with Chicago, and they arent big and strong enough to move Buff. It is a dilemma.