Canucks At Flames Preview: Fragments Of What Used To Be

CANUCKS		LAMES
	AT

Time	Sun. 5:00 PM PST	TV	Sportsnet Pacific
Season Series	2-0 Canucks	Last Meeting	5-1 Canucks Feb. 9/13
The Enemy	Matchsticks And Gasoline	Scoring Leaders	D. Sedin: 8-13-21 Tanguay: 6-11-17

First of all:

Blake Price ‏@blakeprice1040 Just heard flights are being turned away from Calgary, Canucks won’t be arriving tonight. likely not to arrive until a few hours before game.

Huh. Well the boys can sleep with their women of choice tonight then.

Hat tip to raincity for sharing that tweet in the LA Game Thread.

Secondly: Where is Keith Ballard? I know Andrew Alberts has been good in his first 2 outings but has Ballard been bad? No. He must have some kind of injury or he really is dwelling deeply into Alain Vigneault's doghouse...OR he may be getting traded / waived. I really don't know.

Thirdly: What an excellent performance against the Kings. Best outing of the year. Go figure, hey? Ryan Kesler goes out to injury and the others step up. The power play definitely sucks without the KesLord though. That is very apparent.

Ok, so are the Flames an abortion of a team or what? They continue to toil in mediocrity with whatever GM runs the shit show not willing to blow up the fallacy, but rather keep adding pieces that just are not working. I almost feel bad for Flames fans. ALMOST. But you know those Flames fans. They never shut the fuck up in the past about how good their team was. Sure, they wear bags over their heads in embarrassment now but don't feel bad for them. Fuck that. Throw stones at them!

I don't blame Jay Feaster for taking a stab at Ryan O'Reilly. But that was a huge payout that he had planned for the kid. Damn. Big gamble. As for the waivers oversight thingy.....fuck it I don't care. Not gonna judge Feaster for that.He desperately needs scoring. Or....to blow the team up and hit the reset button. But who better than with O'Reilly.

The Flames currently sit in 14th in the West with a 7-8-4 record. 5 points out of a playoff spot. That's the problem with these goofs....they are never totally out of it. It would take a GM with brass balls to blow the team up. Right? I mean, what would YOU do if your team was in this position on NHL 13? Don't bullshit me. You aren't Mike Keenan. Then again, most people would not pay Jay Bouwmeester $6.78 million dollars per year...

Facepalm. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh.

PROJECTED LINES

Luongo

Sedin - Sedin - Burrows

Booth - Lapierre - Kassian

Hansen - Raymond - Higgins (love it)

Sestito - Schroeder - Weise (what the fuck is Schroeder doing there?)

Edler - Bieksa

Hamhuis - Garrison

Alberts - Tanev

For the Flames:

Joey MacDonald

Tanguay - Stajan - Iginla

Glencross - Cammalleri - Stempniak

Hudler - Comeau - Baertschi

Aliu (shit disturber) - Begin - Jackman

Giordano - Bouwmeester

Brodie - Wideman

Butler - Sarich

YOU MADE MY SHITLIST

Nobody, except AV for putting Jordan Schroeder on the 4th line. WTF, man.

I LOVE YOU MAN

Dan Hamuis.

He was solid against those damned Kings, wasn't he?

TRENDS

• Canucks are 8-2 in their last 10 games playing on 0 days rest.
• Canucks are 42-12 in their last 54 vs. Northwest.
• Canucks are 16-5 in their last 21 after allowing 2 goals or less in their previous game.
• Canucks are 6-2 in their last 8 games following a win.
• Canucks are 10-4 in their last 14 after scoring 5 goals or more in their previous game.
• Canucks are 37-17 in their last 54 when their opponent allows 5 goals or more in their previous game.
• Canucks are 0-7 in their last 7 Sunday games. This needs to change, RIGHT NOW DAMMIT.
  
• Flames are 5-0 in their last 5 games playing on 2 days rest.
• Flames are 6-13 in their last 19 when their opponent allows 2 goals or less in their previous game.
• Flames are 1-4 in their last 5 after allowing 5 goals or more in their previous game.
• Flames are 1-5 in their last 6 vs. Northwest.
• 62% of the folks at Covers.com have the Canucks winning this one.

SCORE-PREDICTING WIZARD LIST UPDATE

Lots of people picked Dank to score the GWG and were correct. Nobody picked a 5-2 Canucks score though.

Twin Terror: 8

Bobby Canuck: 6

andrew21nz: 5

FormerHab: 5

patrik e: 5

Meat Mayos: 4

raincity: 4

marcness52: 3

westy99: 3

ChuckinNux: 2

EvianBubble: 2

gmonk33: 2

Nathaniel Perlow: 2

PeaceJo: 2

Sean Zandberg: 2

seedvt: 2

YorkAveOrca: 2

beardstache: 1

BW79: 1

dshaps: 1

Geordie Nuck: 1

Kent Basky: 1

KYCanuck: 1

missy: 1

NS_Cix: 1

nucksandpucks: 1

radepalma: 1

Tangent: 1

Thursday: 1

Twitchy2010: 1

vancitydan: 1

Vancouverguy: 1

VIDEO

The Canucks suck on the power play. Period. One thing I noticed last night was the Kings' puck movement on their PP:

Pretty quick puck movement, hey? Canucks need to move that black thingy quicker.

There is something else I want you to watch for with the Canucks. They are in the league basement in blocked shots. Watch how they get out of the way from point shots when the opposing team is on the PP. Planned so the goalie has sight of the puck? Just being a bunch of chickenshits? Saving the madness for the playoffs, unlike Kesler? You be the judge.

The title of this Game Preview is in reference to how good the Flames used to be, and is brought to you by:

Hell yea!

GO CANUCKS GO! KICK SOME MORE ASSES!