Canucks At Ducks Preview: Lock Up Your Wife And Children

The Canucks take their aggressive and vengeful act back into Anaheim to face a Duck team that still has not lost a regulation game at The Pond. The Quacks have won 7 in a row.  They have won 4 in a row since beating the Canucks a week and a half ago. The Canucks last beat the Ducks at The Pond almost a year ago (January 25/13, 5-0 score, Mason Raymond scored 2). The Ducks are really, really good. Let's BUUUURRN them!

I think a question that may burn in many Canucks fans' minds is what kind of aggression do the Canucks bring against the Ducks? It's not like any of them were injuring our goaltender. OK, Kyle Palmieri ran Eddie Lack, but he was guided in by Dan Hamhuis. Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry are dirt munchers, but still. John Tortorella talked about the Canucks needing this kinda fire in the second half of the season. Perhaps the Canucks wait for someone to deck one of their star players or pull some evil duck shit in this one before all hell breaks loose. I love the notion of sticking up for your buddies. I have felt for too long that they have not done that very well, dating back to the 2011 Finals.

But the Canucks need to play with more aggression without crossing the lines. Tortorella knows that. He's making that clear to the team before playing Anaheim. They can talk about killing all those penalties last game all they want. You just cannot keep doing that and expect to win games. That was a major rolling of the dice by the coaching staff and team last game and it perhaps got looked at in a positive manner partially because the Canucks only lost 1-0. What if it was 5-0 or 6-0? Statement still made? Yea..I think so. The team has to take all the positives from the LA game (and there were many) and play like a team on fire in order to stop the Ducks. Maybe we start seeing the fruits of their LA labor. God, I would love to see them hand the Ducks their first loss on home ice. That could propel them out of their January slump.

Speaking of slumps, no more of this shit:

A bunch of freaking out from the team defensively, and inability to clear their zone. Embarrassing. Lesson learned I hope. You know, up until that game winner, the Canucks had held Perry and Getzlaf off the scoresheet entirely. Bummer!

We almost got the fortunate break of not even having to play Getzlaf in this one as he suffered a lower body injury lately. But he looks ready to go.

-No offence to Lack, because he's playing very well, but I was hoping to see Roberto Luongo play in this one. Apparently he's not quite ready yet.

-The Canucks sent Darren Archibald back to Uttica, and David Booth will play vs the Ducks. Coach called the scratch last game a "maintenance day" because Booth was "banged up". Yeaaaa right. But it's good to get Booth back. I'm pulling for this guy. It must be hard playing on such a short leash.

YOU MADE MY SHITLIST

-The last time Ryan Kesler scored a goal was against the Ducks 4 games ago. But he beat Brown's head in so he gets a pass.

-Chris Higgins only has 1 goal and 2 assists in his last 9. 2 of those points came in one game (vs Shitsburgh)

-Mike Santorelli has 1 goal and 0 assists in his last 7 games. He has 2 goals and no assists in his last 10.

Folks, what the hell happened to our second line? These guys are so cold that they need to go into a freezer to warm up!

SCORE-PREDICTING WIZARDS UPDATE

Only kiwinuck registered a point last game by picking Dustin "Punching Bag" Brown to score the winner. The updated wizards list can be seen HERE.

The title of this game preview post has been brought to you fittingly by Metallica:

GO CANUCKS GO!