Knock knock...who’s there?

Good morning. How was that slap to face last night? The Canucks went winless in the state of New York. It seems after the Boston game that the Canucks have run out of goals to support their terrible defense. And let’s not sugar-coat it, the defense is fucking terrible.

We shouldn’t be surprised. If you go back to September and the previews of most NHL related sites, the Canucks were ranked near the bottom when it came to their defensive core. And while some of you want to hang this on the goaltending and Marky’s soft goal a game strategy, I want to remind you that Luongo did the same for many years. It was just that the defense was better.

It would also be convenient to put all of this on the just the defensemen, but it is truly a team disaster. For all the Twitteratti cheering about Goldy and Jake’s improvement in their 200 foot game, I would say that they had nowhere to go but up. And while they are better, the forwards are not doing their job in their own end. This goes for Petey last night as well.

Last night also showed the weakness of the Canucks when it comes to forward size. Petey and Leipsic on the ice together weigh a combined total of a wet dog. They were pushed off the puck and knocked down a lot in the offensive zone.

It may seem by my words and font that I am mad about the Canucks play of late. I’m not. I expected this at some point. The injuries that have hit the Canucks have shown the importance of players that most of Canuck fandom ridicules (me included). Brandon Sutter is most definitely missed on this Canuck team, which continues to take so many stupid penalties. His icetime on the PK and sometime ability to win a faceoff is sorely needed. Alex Edler has led me to yelling at a computer screen more than should be allowed in a civilized society. But without Edler, we have been left with Pouliot on the PP and Del Zotto on the PK. There was also a guy named Boeser that just getting hot before the fairies cooled him down.

The injury fairies have given us a gentle reminder of what our team really is. One major injury away from multiple losses. This month is the make or break month for the Canucks it seems. This road trip has been bad and it only gets worse next week when the Canucks play 5 games against division opponents. If they can’t win 3 of those games, I will stop mentioning playoffs this year.

The only reason the Canucks can talk about playoffs still, is the fact the division itself seems to have been pillaged by the injury fairies. The Canucks are only 1 point better than their were last year at this time, but are still in 2nd place in the division. I think the amount of shotgunning going on has distracted the masses from seeing what the Cnaucks really are, a streaky team with some skill, but a below average defensive team with average goaltending. All of that under the best conditions, leads to a .500 team.

That .500 team is your Vancouver Canucks.