Gents, why are we surprised? Havent been able to score since january. Couldnt score in last year's playoffs. Virtually every non-goalie on the team not named higgins has had a much worse yr than last. And gillis decided we needed less scoring, not more.
Kassian and booth are horrible. Anyone defending those trades, especially with 20/20 hindsight, is crazy. At the end of the day, how many top 6 forwards do we have? Now go look at most other teams.
LAs top 6 destroys ours.
Kopitar and Richards aren't even playing spectacularily and they make Kesler look like a plug.
Duyyyyy. Ehrhoff was a huge part of our team for the two seasons he was here. I love how a lot of you just brushed off losing a 50 point defenceman like it wasn't a thing.
Oh, I was firmly on record last summer as thinking it was absolute lunacy not to bury Ballard in Switzerland and give Ehrhoff the 5.25 he wanted to stay here. I'm just suggesting that Edler looked so lost defensively this year that maybe Ehrhoff did more for that pairing that just bulge the twine.
Edler even made Salo look like an unsteady defender for large stretches, which is very difficult to do.
Kassian and booth are horrible. Anyone defending those trades, especially with 20/20 hindsight, is crazy. At the end of the day, how many top 6 forwards do we have? Now go look at most other teams.
There's nothing terrible about Booth. He was probably the 2nd best forward tonight after Henrik. Same thing games 1 and 2, also one of our best forwards. Anyone blaming Booth is just looking at the stat sheet and not watching the game.
This might sound like lunacy, but I'm starting to wonder if Ehrhoff's speed and strong positional defense (weak physically, but strong positionally) covered up for Edler more than Edler covered up for Ehrhoff, as I originally presumed.
Right now Edler doesn't look like a guy I'd be comfortable giving a lengthy, high value extension to.
As a Sabres fan I can say his positional play was really good this year. In fact, when he was out of the lineup Buffalo's D fell apart.
But...Edler is the better D man, he is just having an awful stretch of games at the moment. Vancouver misses Ehrhoff the most on the PP
Even last year, Kesler just didn't produce enough offense at ES. He has never produced that much offense at ES and Gillis should've recognized it. People have brought it up as a strike against him for a while.
Yeah, all I ever hear from all the experts is how much Kesler sucks and how he is not a second line centre.
Cmon. the Kesler stuff? The guy was incredible player last year who single handedly won them a series. I think any team in the NHL would gladly have him as a second line centre. This year has been tough, for sure. But you can't criticize Gillis for Kesler.
Malhotra is a 4th liner and almost irrelevant. He is useful for draws in his own end.
Salo has not been good this playoff at all, I agree.
The argument revolving Kesler is: Would you rather a dependable consistent 2ndline center? Or a center who is incredibility streaky, where when he's hot he's amazing, and when he's not he's terrible.
I take the consistent 2nd line center every single time, just because it would compliment the team much better.
this is so classically, tragically canucks....
now on a 5 game playoff losing streak, with the presidents trophy in the middle of it
its basically the same team that ran over everyone last year until breaking down in the final 4 games, lol ...
i dont know what to think..
i dont agree with all those saying this team needs to be blown up or doesnt have the personnel ... i do think they're prone to terrible meltdowns, like games 4&5 in round 1 last year and latter SCF games ...now this, but ironically the last 2 games they havent played badly, they have just had horrendous breakdowns at the worst possible time.
Did Alberts get drunk and slip on #23 tonight? Unreal how bad Edler was. Why was he over on the left side for the goal?
are we really going to now win a single game in this playoff?
I won't say that this hurts as much as last year did, but this is definitely the most disappointing season in franchise history. It seems like none of the lessons from last year have sunk in at all. While I'm not saying that it's easy to win a series when your best goal scorer is sitting in a dark room, good teams find ways to win games. Other players had to step up and nobody did. In fact, several actually managed to regress from the shaky end to the regular season.
Winning the Boston game was the worst thing that could have happened to this team. That was it. That was redemption, and since then they've been a mediocre to average team that has been carried by their goaltending. Alex Edler just cost himself a massive pay raise by coming out with such a horrible series. He's been the team's worst defenceman over the last three games, and this is a team that is playing a rusty Keith Ballard in the lineup.
If they had lost that Boston game, the fire would have only gotten stronger. Instead, it was smothered with a hot blanket made of false security and the team folded like a cheap tent. Our fans have every right to criticize anything and everything after the heartbreak we all went through last season. Vigneault and his staff are all but gone, and it's been long overdue. Hopefully, the window isn't shutting completely. But there is absolutely no way to put a positive spin on this.
You guys just won the Presidents Trophy, thats not an accident... You went to game 7 last year, also not an accident...
You're losing for 2 simple reasons.
1) Daniel Sedin is hurt. The Twins playing together is clutch, everyone knows that. So huge problem right there.
2)Quick is playing lights out hockey. The kid posted amazing numbers & a ridiculous amount of shut-outs during the season. You hit a uber-hot goalie.
Its not like youre getting worked, losing 5 to 2 or getting outshot 40 to 20. You guys simply need Daniel back & to hope for a chink in Quick's armor..
Thats it. No blowing up the team, no firing people. I know its frusterating as all hell to see this happen but seriously, You guys have an amazing team you just a double wammy of bad luck...
Man Gillis is a ****ing idiot. This past year has made me lose all faith in him.
I kinda agree with you here.
The kassian trade has ended up proving devestating for this run. We really are missing Hodgson now, even if he did play "soft minutes".
The worst part of shipping out Hodgson, was moving Higgins down to "balance" scoring. Because the Amex line was great, and Booth and Kesler without Higgins are entirely useless. AV put that line together far too late, and they haven't had time to gel.
The Kassian trade in time may prove to be good for the team, but as far as this year is concerned, it could not have gone worse.
Lapierre took some really selfish penalties tonight.
The penalty he took, should have at least been coinidental. Lappy is a pest and he got under Dough boys skin. Dough boy should have got a slashing penalty on that play and the Canucks shoould have got a PP.
There's nothing terrible about Booth. He was probably the 2nd best forward tonight after Henrik. Same thing games 1 and 2, also one of our best forwards. Anyone blaming Booth is just looking at the stat sheet and not watching the game.
I agree. Really liked Booth's game. Obviously he couldn't contribute offensively, but that could be said about pretty much everyone.
The argument revolving Kesler is: Would you rather a dependable consistent 2ndline center? Or a center who is incredibility streaky, where when he's hot he's amazing, and when he's not he's terrible.
I take the consistent 2nd line center every single time, just because it would compliment the team much better.
Who are all these second line centres in the NHL that are so much better?
There's nothing terrible about Booth. He was probably the 2nd best forward tonight after Henrik. Same thing games 1 and 2, also one of our best forwards. Anyone blaming Booth is just looking at the stat sheet and not watching the game.
I agree.
First line has been decent, but only because of Henrik. Burrows has been invisible.
Kesler is playing some of the least inspired hockey of his career.
He had his opportunity with the Canucks and gift wrapped the series for Chicago. No thanks. Moved on.
Agreed. He is very strong defensively but his big goofy stick doesn`t allow him to move the puck up the ice quickly and crisply. We are a team built around puck movement, so he doesn`t fit the bill with what we need.
I've been saying this for a couple of years now and your fans have consistently denied it. The missing ingredient the Canucks lack is real character leadership. It's the same problem the Sharks and Caps have. They just don't have a real leader to rally the troops when the time comes. You want to see what a real captain looks like look no farther than the guy in the Kings sweater who's been burning you guys in every which way.
