2007 playoffs
After the Canucks won in the two most exciting periods I'd seen in a long time (the second and the third), I'm still left with a few questions:
- who's playing hurt? Remember when Naslund played hurt and resorted to slapshots in the previous playoffs? People are saying Sami Salo is banged up, but I think that's just because of the trip in Game 7, which looked to me like it knocked the wind out of him (and no doubt bruised his back). Naslund seems okay, playing the role he played all season, stepping up the defensive and physical game possibly at the expense of the offensive game.
- I read in the papers that Cooke might make it back for Round 2, but when? And are we going to see Kesler at all this year?
- are the Canucks going to change their game like so many predict? Obviously you adjust to each team, but can a team have more than one system?
- are we going to see vintage Brian Burke, master of misdirection?
I can say with 100% confidence that one of either the Dallas Stars or the Vancouver Canucks will move on to the second round of the 2007 NHL playoffs. It's a coin toss, as Dave put it on Saturday's Canucks Outsider Live, but Vancouverites win both ways: if the local hockey team moves on, we dance on the streets; if they lose, then we enter True Vancouver Daylight Savings Time, that is, the gain of two and a half hours every two days of sunlight where we would normally be watching the game. I usually try to be downtown during the game in which it's possible for the Canucks to move on, but never a Game 7. Since it's essentially a 50-50 chance as it has been all series, I can't bear to watch among the possibly dejected (and almost certainly inebriated) fans. Yet I cannot look away: I'll be watching, but at the same time I'll get some long-needed ironing done.
Everybody I talked to thinks the Canucks are going close out the series against the Dallas Stars tonight, but nobody thinks they're going to win by as much as I think they are, 4 goals to 1. (The consensus is 2-1, maybe 3-1 with an empty-netter.) Also I'm going with Cowan for the game-winner, despite my two wrong predictions that he would score the overtime winner in Games 1 and 3.
Game 2 wasn't a lot of fun from a Vancouver Canucks fan's perspective: seeing Turco shut us out and the opposing team dominate the home team so thoroughly for at least 2 periods was frustrating to watch. Same goes for Game 3 in Dallas: I fully expected the Stars to shut the Canucks down after they scored on the power play, but at least they pulled it out with a Jan Bulis garbage goal and Taylor Pyatt's easy one. (Turco should have had it, but I'll take it.) In both overtime games I chose Jeff Cowan to win it, and was wrong both times.
Just a few seconds before Game 2 between the Dallas Stars and the Vancouver Canucks, and during the game on Wednesday, I tried a little experiment. As much as I like Jim Hughson's competent play-by-play, it's a lot more fun to get swept up by John Shorthouse and Tom Larscheid. More so than Hughson, Shorty and Larscheid are homers, in that they're fans who have an obvious bias towards the Canucks. You can hear it best after the Canucks score, with Larscheid exclaiming, especially when it's a tie-breaking goal. So on Wednesday I tried watching the game with the volume down and TEAM 1040 turned up, but couldn't go through with it, because the radio was a split second ahead of the play as seen on TV. I didn't want to find out from Shorty that the home team scored before it "actually" happened on my screen. I'm going to try listening on the web: maybe there will be enough of a lag that the online stream will line up with what I see.
So which do you prefer? Jim Hughson or John Shorthouse? The correct answer is usually "what I grew up with", and in my case it's Jim Robson, especially when games were "simulcast" on CKNW and BCTV.
Like many last night, I endured the over 5 hours of Canucks hockey, and was truly entertained by the first period before the two teams settled down into their "system". It doesn't seem to be listed in box scores, but the Canucks dominated on faceoffs. It wasn't even close. That said, the Stars dominated on shots, with Luongo providing yet another ridiculous save, this time off his forehead. I didn't even notice the Sedins until the second overtime, and even though they combined on the winning goal in 4OT, I got the sense that the Stars were letting them cycle but predicting where they would end up and breaking it. Naslund had at least two hits, a defensive play, and a goal (that shouldn't have counted). 4 overtimes was a little ridiculous, and the end of the game coming at 12:35 prevented most people from driving around hocking and celebrating.
The NHL playoffs are back in Vancouver after a three-year hiatus (including the lockout), and longer if you consider getting knocked out in the first round of 2004. I've got playoff fever, though only a case strong enough to put a Canucks sticker on my iPod and wave a flag on Hastings Street after the Canucks win. I'm no good with predicting anything, and plus it's better to put your money where your mouth is with a bet or, if you're really serious, a prediction market. But here goes anyway: I'm predicting that the Canucks will make it into the second round. After that, I have no idea: they are going to have a tough time with Anaheim or San Jose, or even Calgary, my second choice for Stanley Cup champion. The consensus seems to be Canucks in 6 games (though The Dallas Morning News blogger Mike Heika is predicting Vancouver in 7), but I'm going out on a limb and saying they'll win it at home in 5.
You don't have to login to comment on Urban Vancouver anymore, so let's have your prediction! Either a link to your blog or your prediction below will do. Any unusual bets being made?
