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| Time | Wednesday, 7:00 PST |
TV | TSN |
| Season Series | - |
Last Meeting |
5-4 Canucks, Jan. 10/12 |
| The Enemy | Raw Charge | Scoring Leaders | D. Sedin: 13-12-35 St. Louis: 17-21-38 |
LIGHTNING |
CATEGORY |
CANUCKS |
| 23-12-4 | SEASON RECORD | 23-11-7 |
| 50 | POINTS | 53 |
| 3rd | CONFERENCE POSITION | 6th |
| Lost 2 |
STREAK | Lost 1 |
| 6-2-2 | LAST 10 | 7-1-2 |
| 9-8-2 | ROAD RECORD / HOME RECORD | 11-5-4 |
| 1.27 (6) |
5 ON 5 GF / GA | 1.13 (9) |
| 16.3 (21) | POWER PLAY % | 14.7 (24) |
| 82.0 (14) | PENALTY KILL % | 89.7 (1) |
| 48.0 (24) | FACEOFF WINS % | 51.1 (13) |
| 820 (22) | HITS |
769 (27) |
| 475 (28) | BLOCKED SHOTS | 621 (10) |
| 139 (8) | MINOR PENALTIES TAKEN | 142 (10) |
| NHL.COM |
The last time the Canucks played the Lightning, Tampa players like Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier Steven Stamkos and Ryan Malone had 2 point games, but still lost:
Right, and it went to a shootout where Mason Raymond did the spinaroonie move on Dwayne Roloson to win it. Well we don't have MayRay anymore and we generally bloody suck at shootouts now. It's actually embarrassing. So how about you just avoid the damned skills contest, boys? Win or lose in OT? Sure! Just stay the fuck out of the shootout for god's sakes!
I have one more gripe about about the Canucks and then I'll stop, because really, they have been kicking some serious ass for about a month now and don't deserve to be shit on, OK TONY GALLAGHER? We get it! You want more goals scored! I swear, that guy has written THREE articles about that in the last month, DURING an 11-1-2 month of December. Anyway, I noticed the power play is cooling off. Philadelphia, as predicted, handed the Canucks a lot of chances with the man advantage last game but the Canucks failed to capitalize. Even one power play goal would likely have sunk the Flyers so we could have avoided that damned shootout in the first place!
Aside from that, you kick ass, Canucks. Keep up the great work!
**No word on whether or not Roberto Luongo is ready to play.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
I gotta keep this quick as we are celebrating Xmas Russian style.
The Lightning have lost 2 straight games, but prior to that had won 5 in a row. 3 of those wins were on the road, so I won't make fun of their 9-8-2 overall road record this season. It didn't matter that the Flyers' road record sucked now, did it?
PROJECTED LIGHTNING ROSTER
Ondrej Palat - Tyler Johnson - Martin St. Louis
Alex Killorn - Valtteri Filppula - Teddy Purcell
J.T. Brown - Nate Thompson - Nikita Kucherov
Tom Pyatt - Richard Panik - ????Maybe Martin St. Louis is playing there too.
Victor Hedman - Andrej Sustr
Matt Carle - Radko Gudas
Mark Barberio - Dmitry Korobov
In goal: Anders Lindback
Injuries: Sami Salo (questionable), Mattias Ohlund (knee surgery), Brian Lee (knee surgery), Steven Stamkos (tibia surgery), Ryan Malone (broken ankle), Erik Brewer (questionable, arm), Keith Aulie (hand surgery). Wow, so that explains all the names that I do not even recognize, especially on defence.
In regards to Salo:
Welcome back, Sami! If there was one fucking guy that would fix the Canucks' power play woes it's SAMI. He didn't screw around. He is a Canucks legend, whether we bag on him for being oft-injured or not, the Canucks won more games WITH Salo than without him back in those days. He was a rock. I raise my glass to Mr. Glass, haha.
TOP 5 LIGHTNING SCORERS
1. St. Louis: 17-21-38 (just keeps on ticking, doesn't he?)
2. Filppula: 14-16-30 (Detroit's loss)
3. Stamkos: 14-9-23 (in 17 games...thank god he's not playing against us)
4. Purcell: 8-13-21
5. Killorn: 9-12-21
HAPPY NEW YEARS, TB STYLE
But how about we kick the shit out of them and ruin their New Years Day?
TORTS MEMORIES
I really don't despise the Lightning team and never really have. How do you hate a guy like Martin St. Louis? Or Stamkos?
SCORE-PREDICTING WIZARDS UPDATE
Only canuck89 and Azzy Mahmood got a point last game for correctly predicting a 4-3 score. The updated list can be seen HERE.
The title of this Preview post has been brought to you by Anthrax:
I love that song. One of my fave Anthrax songs.