Nucks WIN (again) - Flyers Grounded 5-2 in Philly

Welcome to the Wells Fargo Neverland Express: Road Edition.

After last game’s beating of the Blues (we outscored them - look it up here) at home, you just knew the Nucks would keep up their winning ways on the road. When I say ‘you’, you know who you are. Probably isn’t you, but no matter - you’re special in your own way.

If you thought the playing from behind gambit was a misguided strategy left in the wake of misguided memories you’d be right. Just not tonight. If you thought the missed calling would be missing you’d be wrong. And two wrongs only make a one-eighty anyhow.

1st Period

About 8 minutes into the tie game the Nucks would soon be leading - no, not some kinda feel good jimmi-hyno-prognosis - just wait for it - the Ghosts of Refs past made a call. No they didn’t. Instead they missed a call. On who? On Brock. Play the spooky foreshadowing payback music in your mind now.

Obvious interference on Brock. But only obvious to the camera and the human eye. Like bankers, refs often use glass eyes. Or just look away to check their twitter feed. Or just ignore stuff, because you can’t call everything or count everything.

Yeah. That’s what they in the NHL call a one goal lead. Enjoy it while it lasts, you adorable little Phillies.

Time’s up. Hope you enjoyed your little lead for the full two minutes. Because old age and treacherous skill is about to catch your goalie napping.

After a scrappy clearing play in the Nucks end and through the miracle of stretchy composite sticks, Hank pushed-passed the puck to Dank for a break away. And he deked the newly-woken Neuvirth for the tieing goal. Via the post and the still sleepy goalie leg. For those counting at home - that’s Danny’s 995th NHL point. Closing in Hank?

Order and beauty is restored to this tiny little corner of the universe. But, we’re not wailing on the rails to neverland for order. We’re hungry for more. Hungry for a little missed call payback.

And a mere 19 seconds later or one NY minute, Pouliot sprung Brock for his own breakaway. What a snipe.

“I love shooting. I like to make sure I get my shot on net.” - Brock the Shot Boeser

Not just on - it was in - before Neuvirth could say: “human reaction time”

And the 1st period ended just as forecast in the appendix of the Westy Destiny Playbook. Or might have been the spleen. Or the spline. It’s in the book and you can look it up when you get your own copy. Or download a bogus copy from the internet, cheapskate. The shots are 16-9 for Philly. The formerly important stat is now meaningless because...

The Nucks are leading on the official NHL Scorecard going into the 2nd. And that means...

2nd Period

The Happy Period. When the Canucks put a game away, this is where they like to put them. It’s like Goldilocks and the Three 2 Goals. To make the happiness even happier than we’d dare happy dream, the next Nucks tally is on the newly, re-powered power play. Stop giggling.

2 minutes in Sutter draws a painalty for slashing. That’s gotta hurt. Philly. And it does.

Within 40 seconds, on the PP rush from the Sedins - no, the rush didn’t take 40 seconds - stop being so mean! Across the b-line the Sedinery turns a shade of magic. Hank passes across the width and breadth of the Alls Well in the 2nd Fargo ice to his twin who feathers a sweet pass to our Boestest rookie, Brock who makes Neuvirth wish for nano-second reflexes and makes the NM NVL quiver with unequivocal glee.

For those still counting to 1000, Danny is just 4 away from the grand total. And the 2nd goal in the game from our Brocking monster rookie.

The Canucks are up 3-1. In the 2nd. So...as promised the show ain’t over. Not when the red(ish) hot(ish) 2nd power play unit gets the last seconds of the PP to create chaos in front of the net. The good kind of chaos, not that next day after the game hungover looking for the car keys in the cat’s litterbox because your chaotically hungover mind suspects the cat is joy riding in your car when you’re trying to remain in a vegetative state until the hung is fully over sort of chaos.

That chaos can lead to good things for the Nucks PP is just one of the seeming contradictions laid bare in illegible handwritten scrawl on the margins of the Westy Destiny Playbook Senseless Plays of Improbability chapter.

Where were we...oh...the good chaos...Neuvirth stops (sort of) the shot, the last shot he sees in the game btw - a hard point shot from Gagner rebounds out to Vanek and Loui grabs the rebound sends it skittering through the air a few inches above the ice where Baer de-skitters it and scoops the puck past the about-to-be-pulled Neuvirth. No video replay is available atm, hence the thousand words per frame description. Want to read my slowmo version? Me neither.

Canucks leading 4-1 in the second. Philly is pulling the goalie. These are the seconds we live for on the road. But first, we must play through the 3rd. It’s another stupid NHL rule. The Destiny is written. We know we’ve won the game - even Philly must know it by now, yet tradition dictates we wait another period to scream WOO! WOO!

3rd Period

What can we describe here that is more than fluffed-up puffcakes with a side of verbiage?

A false hope Philly goal? Check.

An EN for Gaunce Eriksson? Check.

Gagner unselfishly setup Loui for the goal, because he already has a point in the game and there’s no point showboating on the scoresheet even tho I predicted he would.

And that’s what a 5-2 Nucks win looks like on a Tuesday in Philly. Just as I predicted within +/- 1 integer place.

Great game? Hell Yeah! Despite the bad news today that Double D had returned to Vancouver for inspection of his possibly malfunctioning bionic neck parts, the Nucks took the DD inspired unstoppableness to victory. NM is wishing Double D gets a clean eval from the cyber docs and the pain in the neck was just from the annoying media snark that his shot percentage was unsustainable.

And so the neverland express fever puffs across the continent to infect even the official Canucks twitter channel with railroad talk.

Yes, Chattahoochee is an ancient rail travel term used to express happy road railing for generations.

Woo! Woo!

And before we know it the NVL is back on track steaming into Pittsburgh for some homemade penguin tears. It’s another afternoon game so west coast workplaces may have to adjust their productivity periods accordingly. Have an awesome back-to-back everyone!