Canucks At Flyers Preview: Dead Or Alive

Time	Tues. 4:00 PM PST	TV	Sportsnet Pacific
Season Series	-	Last Meeting	5-4 Flyers, Oct. 12/11
The Enemy	Broad Street Hockey	Scoring Leaders	D. Sedin: 2-5-7 B. Schenn: 2-2-4

CANUCKS	CATEGORY	FLYERS
3-3-0	SEASON RECORD	1-5-0
6	POINTS	2
11th	CONFERENCE POSITION	14th
Lost 2	STREAK	Lost 2
-	LAST 10	-
1-1-0	ROAD RECORD / HOME RECORD	1-2-0
3.25 (10)	GOALS PER GAVE AVERAGE	1.33 (29)
3.33 (26)	GOALS AGAINST PER GAME AVERAGE	2.83 (19)
0.71 (22)	5 ON 5 GF / GA	0.67 (24)
10.5 (25)	POWER PLAY %	7.4 (22)
90.9 (2)	PENALTY KILL %	78.8 (18)
48.7 (18)	FACEOFF WINS %	48.0 (20)
116 (16)	HITS	167 (6)
87 (7)	BLOCKED SHOTS	94 (3)
24 (17)	MINOR PENALTIES TAKEN	39 (30)
NHL.COM

I was going to point at the stat table above and laugh at the Flyers and their sucky ways. Then I realized that the Canucks are not so shit-hot either on many of them. That's what happens when you lose a couple in a row, score little, and get scored on a lot with a small sample size that is the young season.

I hope the Canadians had a solid Thanksgiving. I hope the Americans get a major plague for being the birthplace of 3 lousy Canucks players of late. Kesler-Booth-Higgins. Let me focus my anger in that general direction, even though I'm not that angry. Remember when the American Express Line was gonna be the shiz?

Yea...not so much. These guys are not even silver medal material. They don't even belong in the tournament, if ya know what I'm saying.

David Booth

1 goal and 1 assist in 6 games so far this season. But he's healthy! He's also a +2. Back to his futility. Booth has scored 2 goals and 3 assists in his last 18 games. He has scored a piddly 3 goals and 4 assists in his last 34 games. In his first 31 games as a Canuck, he scored 15 goals and 13 assists. Yea... he has not recovered from the injury woes, but we know he has it in him somewhere to put up points. If only he would put on the full armor of God and pretend the net was a baited bear snooping through his personal garbage. Then all would be right in the world.

Chris Higgins

Kiss Huggins has 1 assist in 6 games so far this season. You can see the look on his face. He's frustrated. Higgins was always a streaky scorer anyway. At some he will break out again. But back to the American futility. Higgins has scored only 1 assist in his last 15 games. He has scored 3 goals and 2 assists in his last 27 games. Dear lord...this is a huge cold streak for him. Maybe he's done like dinner! I'm not going to slander Higgy though. He works his ass off. He's always been a bit of a fave of mine. He's a bit like Dougie Gilmour, but with 98% less scoring ability.

/runs.

Ryan Kesler

"Don't you pick on Kesler, zanstorm! He wins faceoffs!"

Bite me! Don't be justifying the KesLord (now a peasant) with those stats. He is getting paid handsomely to to do that AND score a lot to take the heat off the Twins. Right now he's what Manny Malhotra WAS. Ouch!  He's not doing enough. 1 goal and no assists and a -5 this season so far. 3 goals and 1 assist in his last 14 games played. Have you noticed that Kesler isn't diving or embellishing this season? Must be a Tortorella rule. I like it. Kesler is just too damned good to be in a funk for much longer. Especially considering that he himself said he was 100% healthy to start this season.

If all 3 can get it going we can have the American Express line back instead of the American Depressed line. The Canucks are sinking $11.75 million into those 3 players, by the way. Expectations for results is the norm when spending that on player incomes. I know vancitydan will hack me for saying that but face it kids, he's dead wrong.

All hail the Sedins and Santorelli for putting out so far. But they need help, and fast if the Canucks are going to survive this 7-game road trip.

If anyone is saying: "Yay! We can get off to a good road start because we face 2 lousy teams in Philly and Buffalo!"..they are gravely mistaken. No easy games in today's NHL. Those teams want to get their shit in order. (Ooo! Can't wait to play against Cody Hodgson!)

PROJECTED ROSTERS

CANUCKS

Sedin-Sedin-Santorelli

Higgins-Kesler-Hansen

Booth-Richardson-Kassian

Sestito-Dalpe-Weise

Garrison-Bieksa

Hamhuis-Tanev

Stanton-Weber

Luongo

FLYERS

McGinn-Giroux-Voracek

Michael Raffi -Schenn-Simmonds

Talbot-Couturier-Read

Rinaldo-Newbury-Hall

Timonen-Schenn

Streit-Gustafsson

Grossmann-Coburn

Mason

So, the Flyers flogged Aaron Asham and Martin Biron on Monday. Remember when we wanted Asham? I still would prefer him over Sestito. Sorry Tommy.

SCORE-PREDICTING WIZARDS UPDATE

Coach Ryan: 2

Nathaniel Perlow: 2

nucksandpucks: 2

Passive Voice: 2

Tim Burke: 2

vancitydan: 2

Vancouverguy: 2

Zanstorm: 2

gmonk33: 1

Tengeresz: 1

Twitchy2010: 1

VIDEO

Hey, everyone's shit-talking Dan Hamhuis for putting the puck into his own goal against the Habs, but I have something to say about that. Jason Garrison drops the puck for Hammer in the corner. Dan takes the drop pass but Garrison's skate gets in the way as Hammer tries to take it:

So you know what that means, right:

"I'm free!"

The last meeting between these 2 teams:

The title of this game preview post has been brought to you by...Jon Bon Jovi:

It's a good road song about being on the road.

GO CANUCKS GO!