RECAP #1: Canucks WIN! 1ST Point Of The Year in 1ST LOSS. Lose 3-2 in SO.

It’s a NEW Season! Or as some claim an extended preseason road trip. Whatever.

Welcome back to the Nucking game of missed chances and new names. So many new names that we need to update the NM Book of NuckNickNames. Or burn it and start fresh.

Starting fresh. That’s all we want. A fresh start with 6 5 2 freshly won road wins. Or fresh ties.

Are we happy to get a loser point in LoserTown? Happiness is fleeting and fickle. But we endured a long dry hockey drought and we’ll take the point, with our poker faces poking just a little out of our poker masks.

THE GOOD

Myers lays out Keith. Sedins are in the front office and appreciate that vengeance is served early. In the season. Late by a decade or so... but oh well.

SN

Comeback kids have come back to make game threads longer and more tense. And NM needs more tension. Because tension is a key ingredient for making rum. Or drinking it. I forget.

1ST NUCKS PP GOAL of the Year.... goes to our new Swedish D. OEL!

Seeing Duncan get dunked is great. Watching Smith get angry with Smith is also great fun.

Pete sweeps past those angry eyes and Huggie lets a seeing eye go. Go right through Smith.

Pete had the best puck possession numbers of all players in the rink - yes, better than even McD. Made some great sneaky Pete moves and didn’t look like he missed all but 2 calls from his agent in late August. This season is where Elias takes the season on his stick and puts up the numbers. The big numbers. No Faeries invited, thanks.

Burrows Burroughs looked very good as a depth D-man. Made some good solid plays and skates faster than the wind Schenn.

THE BAD

Chiasson on the 1st line? A bit slow.

Chiasson on PP1? Not a great Brock impressionist. Happy he made the team on the last day of PTOness. But, question Trav’s deployment.

Pearson in the SO instead of Hogz or Podz? Not a good look as Hogz was on fire. Had more points in the game than any other Nuck.

THE FUGLY

Mr. Miffler. JT didn’t look sharp to start. Whiffing and Miffing at the blueline on the early PP chances. On the PK, dropping his stick and picking up his stick instead of his man (who scores). Got better by near the end of the 3rd. And made good on the good 1 point game.

Bo needs a faster winger on his line than his trusted multi-millionaire buddy. Pearson is a great 3rd liner at this point in his multi-million dollar career. Don’t mean to be mean to Pearson - had a good feisty game - it’s his deployment, or Trav’s deployment.

Powerplay - despite OEL making the 5 X Futility one less futile, the PP looked too static and predictable. You could have predicted the predictability last year. But, it’s early and Brock isn’t on PP1. But why not try Huggie and OEL on PP1 while we’re waiting...

Carrying on the old Nucks top 5 bench minoring record, the NLN (New Look Nucks) had an old look PK. Still... the McOil PP makes most PKs look old and slow. And our 2 best PKers are still playing for the Faeries.

GAME STATS? So soon? Fine.

	SOG	FO%	PP	PIM	HITS	BLKS	GVA
Canucks VAN	38	36%	1/5	11	29	17	11
Oilers EDM	34	64%	1/2	25	21	17	16

How’d Huggie like his first presser messages?

It’s an all D-man presser... since it was only da D that scored. OEL gets his 1st Nucks presser.

In the Green room there’s a lot of belief we want to believe in - if you can believe that.

Game 1 of a possible 82 game season is off the air and into the record e-book. Only 5 more - are you kidding me, NHL Schedule Command! - only 5 more road-tripped games to go.

It was either a good fake loss or a good almost fake win. The best thing about it was the comeback. If the NLN are going to make us type longer and harder in every road game thread, we’re going to need harder beverages and tougher keyboards.

And tougher nerves. Like every season.

Still... with this huge sample size, we confidently state the NLN is a better team than the OLN one from last season.

The next sample is sizing up to be a dinner-missing tussle in Philly against our former old skool coach and his team of whimpering minions. Is AV still old skool? Or just old?

Enjoy your mid-week semi-happy bump - stay safe and healthy. Or at least drink safely.