Slumping Canucks Are Hottest Team in the NHL?

The Vancouver Canucks are in a slump. Eight of their last 10 games went into overtime or needed a shoot-out to determine the outcome, and one of the two games settled in regulation over that period was a loss. The Canucks are being outshot routinely, in eight of the last ten games, and often by a wide margin. They are entering far too many third periods behind and needing late game heroics to salvage a point or two. Their game is so far off that coach Vigneault has resorted to a lot of line shuffling in order to light a fire under his players' butts. He's even broken the cardinal rule and split up the twins who could hardly have played together much more in their hockey careers if they were conjoined twins.

And yet, for all those signs of a mid-season malaise, the Canucks are the hottest team in the league right now.

Over their past 10 games the Canucks record is 7-1-2. Five teams (Devils, Penguins, Red Wings, Predators and the Ducks) have 7-2-1 records over their last 10 games, but that gives each of them 15 points in 10 games vs. the Canucks 16.

The goaltending, in particular Roberto Luongo, have been carrying the team through this period to a large degree, but last I checked goalies wore the same uniform as the other players and are part of the team. Funny thing, all the Luongo critics who wanted him on the trading block earlier in the year seem to have crawled under a rock while he's routinely stopping 40 or so shots to steal games.

Have to be happy when your team can dominate the league while misfiring on a couple of cylinders. Too bad most on-air commentators for the Canucks can only ever see the dark cloud and not the silver lining.