Canucks At Panthers Preview: Respect, Walk

Time	Sunday 12:00 PM	TV	Sportsnet Pacific
Season Series	1-0 Panthers	Last Meeting	3-2 Panthers, Nov.19/13
The Enemy	Litter Box Cats	Scoring Leaders	H. Sedin: 10-31-41 Upshall: 13-20-33

CANUCKS	CATEGORY	PANTHERS
30-29-10	SEASON RECORD	25-35-7
70	POINTS	57
10th	CONFERENCE POSITION	15th
Lost 1	STREAK	Won 1
3-6-1	LAST 10	3-7-0
14-18-4	ROAD RECORD / HOME RECORD	13-15-4
-24	GOALS FOR / AGAINST DIFF.	-51
0.91 (21)	5 ON 5 GF / GA DIFF.	0.89 (24)
14.1 (28)	POWER PLAY %	10.0 (30)
83.6 (11)	PENALTY KILL %	75.0 (30)
159 (25)	GOALS SCORED	159 (26)

The media was all over Luongo on Saturday, naturally:

Eddie Lack talks about Luongo and the game:

There, enough of the goalie bullshit from me. You won't hear the end of it during tomorrow's game anyway.

Torts understands the bottom line:

Still only 5 points out of a playoff spot, a few believe the Canucks still have a chance to get into that 8th spot. The majority, myself included, look at these final Canucks games as a chance for the young guys like Nicklas Jensen and Jordan Schroeder to get more ice time. Those 2 did well last game vs the Capitals. I like getting a look at how much of an impact they can make with bigger minutes. So far so good. I no longer expect the team to win enough games to get into the dance. I'm looking ahead to next season already.

This will be like a giant family reunion, seeing the Mike Gillis has Dale Tallon on speed dial and seemingly can't make big trades with any other team.

YOU MADE MY SHITLIST

-Daniel Sedin has begun skating! He may not be done for the season. Prior to his injury, he had no points in 12 games. The Canucks went 2-9-1 in those games. He had 1 assist in his last 17 games. He had not scored a goal in 23 games.

-David Booth has not scored a goal in 29 games. He has only 4 assists in that span. He former teammate Shawn Matthias is clearly outshining him.

-Zac Dalpe gets sweet tweet for ice time so I am not going to pick on him for only having 1 goal and no assists in his last 14 games. I blame Sarah McLachlan.

-Alex Edler: 1 assist in his last 9 games. He gets the PP time, he's gotta make it count.

-Dan Hamhuis: 1 assist in his last 14 games. Still sick of him shooting wide...2 assists in his last 22 games. Has not scored a goal since November 9. I shit you not.

-Brad Richardson had 1 assist in 20 games prior to getting injured. He could play vs the Panthers.... I like Brad.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

-The Panthers are shit this season. Look at the table above: they have the worst power play and penalty kill in the NHL.

-In their last game it was Luongo vs Cory Schneider and the Devils. The Panthers erased a 3-1 deficit and pasted New Jersey 5-3.

-The Panthers had lost 3 straight prior to the Devils game.

-Notable Injured Panthers: Tomas Kopecky, Aleksander Barkov, Erik Gudbranson, Jesse Winchester, Sean Bergenheim.

So the Panthers' roster looks something like this:

Upshall - Bjugstad - Boyes

Fleischmann - Trocheck - Huberdeau

Howden - Pirri - Hayes

Barch - Gomez - Crabb

Campbell - Gilbert

Kulikov - Jovanovski

Petrovic - Olsen

Lots of young guys there.

They play fast, up-tempo style. Canucks better eat their Wheaties.

The title of this preview post has been brought to you once again by Pantera:

SCORE-PREDICTING WIZARDS UPDATE

Jes Golbex cracked the list, and a few other peeps got points for predicting 4-3 Caps, or 4-3 Canucks.

Zanstorm: 19

Bobby Canuck: 18

marcness52: 17

Nathaniel Perlow: 16

Passive Voice: 15

Geordie Nuck: 14

FormerHab: 13

gmonk33: 13

Coach Ryan: 12

Tengeresz: 12

nucksandpucks: 11

Azzy Mahmood: 10

Twitchy2010: 10

The rest of the list can be seen HERE.

GO CANUCKS GO! BEAT LUONGO AND DRINK HIS TEARS!