09/29/07 Canucks at Oilers (Pre-Season) 5-4 W

I finally got to see my first game of the season and of course it was the only one to not have a ton of dirty play. It was still a doozy though, as the Sedins looked even better than last year and both Raymond and Shannon made good arguments for staying with the club. Raymond especially made a great linemate with the Sedins and seems a bit better fit than Pyatt. The only problem with that is that Pyatt-Sedins=No Goals. Raymond could probably put up numbers with anyone. Linden looked a little slow and I never even noticed Isbister or McGillis. Rypien laid a borderline check on Edmonton's Roy that resulted in a 5 minute power play for the Oil (on which they failed to score). Anson Carter suited up for the Oilers and I longed for the days when he scored 30+ goals for our side. Byron Ritchie also played pretty well and I hope he is ahead of Isbister on the ol' depth chart. I liked the line of Kesler, Naslund and Shannon but just can't see Kesler as anything but a third line center. After not seeing a game for four months, seeing two (the season officially opened in England this morning, don't you know) has left me in hockey overload. I can't wait for the season to be in full swing. Four days. Four long days.

The Nucks D will be the story that I will pay the closest attention to, as they seem to have a pretty deep roster this year in that area. While experience is nice, I do wish that guys like Edler and McIver could get some time this year instead of McGillis and Miller. Edler is NHL ready and needs the experience this year since the top 5 is so strong. On a completely unrelated note, I really hope that Jannik Hansen can come back up to the bigs this year after his injury. He looked great in the playoffs last year and I would love to see him on a third line with Cooke and Kesler. We shall see. We shall see. Come Oct. 5th, I will be in Nuck Country, population me. Thank God.

Sedin-Sedin-Raymond
Naslund-Kesler-Shannon
Cooke-Rypien-Brown
Linden-Ritchie-Isbister

Mitchell-Bieksa
Ohlund-Miller
Krajicek-McGillis

Luongo
Sanford

09/28/07 Canucks at Flames (Pre-Season) 3-2 W

Curtis Sanford is a stallion backup. A big improvement over shaky Sabby. Sanford had a great game and was the deciding factor in the victory. Great to have Rypien back, I almost forgot all about him. He had a champion fight against Peters in which he landed multiple lefts. Not really a top line in this game, and really a pretty impressive win considering the Nucks lineup vs. the Flames near-opening night lineup. Dion Phaneuf continues to be his annoying "I'll pick the fight but not finish it" self. This game also contained Iginla/Kesler 2, with Iggy pulling out the obvious victory. Krajicek netted the game winner and Edler suffered a minor injury. With Bourdon continuing to not impress, could McIver actually make the team? This is starting to get interesting...

Burrows-Kesler-Raymond
Pyatt-Linden-Brown
Isbister-Ritchie-Cowan
Jaffray-Rypien-Grabner

Mitchell-Edler
McIver-Krajicek
Bourdon-McGillis

Sanford
Luongo

09/26/07 Canucks vs. Sharks (Pre-Season) 3-4 (so) L

The Nuckers came 57 seconds away from winning this one in regulation. Instead, Ryan "I copied Cheechoo's gold chain" Clowe scored on a power play to tie it up. Vancouver couldn't get the job done in OT and the Sharks came out ahead after a 10 player shootout. Ohlund and Edler make a perfect D-pairing and I hope that Edler can stay with the club. He is steady, big and makes very few mistakes for a young guy. Bourdon continues to play nervous and make everyone nervous when he is on the ice. The Mitchell-Bieksa pairing makes all tingly inside and makes me anticipate the regular season even more. Let's do this thing already!

Naslund-Kesler-Shannon
Cooke-Morrison-Pyatt
Jaffray-Linden-Grabner
Cowan-Raymond-Isbister

Ohlund-Edler
Mitchell-Bieksa
Bourdon-McGillis

Luongo
Sanford

09/23/07 Canucks at Ducks (Pre-Season) 0-5 L

Well, what does one say about a 5-0 drubbing like this. This one was never in question. Even Tom and Shorty sounded depressed at end of this one. This was probably our last look at Brown, Labrie, Simek, Fitzgerald, Fortunas, Macintyre and hopefully not McIver, for the season. Plenty of fights, the highlight being McIver dropping the mits with the Ivy League Heavyweight himself, George Parros. Not bad young padawan. Not bad.

Pyatt-Morrison-Shannon
D.Sedin-H. Sedin-Isbister
Brown-Labrie-Burrows
Grabner-Jaffray-Simek

Fitzgerald-McGillis
Bourdon-Fortunas
Krajicek-McIver

Sanford
Macintyre

09/22/07 Canucks at Sharks (Pre-Season) 1-3 L

Just some short thoughts on last night's game. I was only able to listen to the first two periods of the game (I am married, you know) but they were great. Even though the Nucks lost, the obvious highlight of the game was the 2nd period 6 man fight, along with other scraps later in the third period. Burrows got ejected (for the 2nd time this season) and both Cowan and Labrie joined in the fun. The highlight player of the night though had to be Nathan McIver. The defenseman had the lone goal and, not one, but two fights. Heck, that's 2/3 of the Gordie Howe hat trick. Why did we invite Dan McGillis to camp again?

Naslund-Moran-Raymond
Cooke-Burrows-Cowan
Simek-Jaffray-Balej
Pyatt-Classen-Labrie

Ohlund-Sharrow
Heshka-McIver
Coulombe-Edler

Luongo
Schneider

09/20/07 Canucks vs. Oilers (Pre-Season) 5-4 W

Alright, another great game. Knowing the Nucks this will probably be their highest scoring game of the season so, even though it is pre-season, I will not take it for granted. Brad Isbisister won it in dramatic fashion with a 2-on-1 goal in the dying seconds. Maybe this will warm me up to him. Out of all of our new additions, for some odd reason, I am the most lukewarm about him. He doesn't come with the flash that a lot of our young guys have and he was playing in the East the last few seasons. I am excited to see what he brings when the season starts. I will be curious to see where he ends up. Shannon was relatively quiet with the Sedins. To be honest I don't think he has a prayer of playing with them. They need someone a little bigger on that line. Personally I don't see anything wrong with Pyatt staying with them. Raymond had another great game. Grabner sounded great. Balej had some great chances. Mike Brown threw some dukes (see above) and would make a suitable enforcer but I don't think he's going to steal that job from Cowan anytime soon. The D was super green with Krajicek being the only vet. I didn't hear too much about Bourdon so I am not sure if he didn't play much or if he just didn't mess up too much. My main man Patty Coulombe had a rough game, which is too bad. He is always one tip away from a goal in these games.

These pre-season games just make me more antsy for the regular season. It's nice to see the young guys and their tends to be more fisticuffs, but it makes me long for the real thing. I hope the NHL will eventually shorten the pre-season to 4 or 6 games and replace those with more Eastern Conference games. A man can dream, can't he?

22 Daniel Sedin- 33 Henrik Sedin- 26 Ryan Shannon
21 Mason Raymond - 17 Ryan Kesler - 40 Michael Grabner
42 Jozef Balej - 39 Brad Moran - 27 Brad Isbister
29 Jason Jaffray - 38 Greg Classen - 46 Mike Brown

28 Luc Bourdon - 61 Maxime Fortunus
5 Lukas Krajicek - 43 Shaun Heshka
50 Patrick Coulombe - 49 Zack Fitzgerald

30 Cory Schneider
41 Curtis Sanford

09/19/07 Canucks vs. Flames (Pre-Season) 4-0 W

It is a game like this that makes me FURTHER angry at this whole pre-season Center Ice debacle. Whatever. I shall move on. Tonight's game had 10 times more energy than Monday's and gave a nice look at some of the Nucks' top-rated prospects. While last year's pre-season didn't really feature any breakout performances by the younger guys, kind of a letdown, but this year's first two games have showed some real promise from the future Nucks.

Alexander Edler continues to impress me and I am starting to be annoyed at all this talk of Luc Bourdon being the second coming of Christ. When Bourdon played 9 games at the big show last year he was, for a lack of better words, terrible. Edler meanwhile, plays like a 5 year vet. The kid has patience, can shake off big hits, and as evidenced tonight, can score the occasional goal and assist. I have so much belief in Edler I would rather have him start than either Aaron Miller or Lukas Krajicek. I hope the Nucks give this kid a real chance.

Michael Grabner was on fire tonight. This was the first real good look at Grabner and he tore it up. Even though he is a smaller guy, he was laying checks on everyone. While he did score a pretty goal, his game highlight was somehow bodychecking the pretty much uncheckable Dion Phaneuf into the Flames bench.

Ryan Shannon is barely even a "prospect" seeing how he played 60 something games with the Ducks last year, but since everyone is calling him that I will too. As far as forwards go, the 13th spot is his to lose. He was great last year for Anaheim and was great tonight. He is small but very fast and would make a nice Lombardi-like threat on any Nuck line.

I loved Jannik Hansen in the playoffs last year and he played pretty solid tonight. Unfortunately he broke his finger so this will be his last action for awhile.

Corey Schneider played great and will make a sweet tandem with Luongo in the future.

Jason Jaffray had a pretty solid game and also scored a goal. I think that they will give him a call later this year but I don't think he'll make the squad starting night.

As for the rest, Simek was obviously fighting for a job as he got into some rough stuff. Nathan McIver would make a great full-time enforcer if we had room. He had two fights tonight, the second one straight out of the box. What a stallion. I loved Patrick Columbe last year but I think the Nucks are just way to deep for him to have a permanent spot. He's quick and can shoot the puck. As for Sharrow and Labrie I they didn't make any sort of impression on me. Cripes, I didn't even know we had a guy named Labrie.

The vets didn't do too much tonight, it was definately the kid show. Hell, at least they can score goals.

Naslund - Kesler - Pyatt
Cowan - Shannon - Hansen
Cooke - Burrows - Labrie
Jaffray - Simek - Grabner

Ohlund - Krajieck
Edler - McIver
Coloumbe - Sharrow

Luongo
Schneider

09/17/07 Canucks vs. Ducks (Pre-Season) 2-3 L

Thank God hockey season is back. That was the longest 3 1/2 months of my life. This summer wasn't so bad as I discovered hockey podcasts. Listening to the weekly broadcasts of the Puck Podcast and The Face Off Hockey Show eased the hockey-less pain. So I have been looking forward to Monday for quite some time as it is the first Nuck game of the year. Even though it is pre-season it is still better than nothing. I usually listen to the pre-season games on the internet radio but then Monday afternoon I read a post on the Canucks board that said that the NHL was offering a free internet preview of The Center Ice package and this would feature pre-season games, including tonight's Nuck game. Needless to say I was excited, if not a little annoyed seeing as how I PAY for the cable package and they would not air there, but what can you do. So three hours of screaming at the computer later (the site immediately crashed, it didn't support Firefox very well, the site itself was extremely rinky-dink, I had to sign up EVERY time that it screwed up, etc) I am met with two options: The Thrashers game which was not working anymore and the Nucks game which said BLACKED OUT in huge black letters just like that. Nice, thanks NHL. It took me more research to find out that the game was basically reverse blacked out, only people in Vancouver could actually watch the game. Which is rad since they also have the option of going.This is doubly idiotic seeing as how Center Ice regular season games will be blacked out for them and only them. Once again the NHL has proved that it is probably the most poorly run sports leagues out there. I have seen more WNBA and Arena Football coverege on ESPN in the last few years than hockey. And this is why. They treat their fans like garbage. So yes, I pay a somewhat large amount of money (for me) for Center Ice and yet I can't get the "free" pre-season games that others can. Thank you. Thank you so much.

So obviously I listened to the game on the radio which makes it harder to make observations but I will give what I heard. Balej sounded like he fit pretty well with the Sedins but I don't see any way that he is going to make the starting roster. Shannon's name stuck out a lot during the game and it sounded like he had pretty good night. Of all the new guys we aquired during the offseason I think he and Ritchie have the best shots of making the squad. Speaking of Ritchie he left in the 2nd period for some reason. Burrows was ejected for fighting and having his jersey come up. What a stallion. Isbister sounded worthless. McIver had a few good hits and his name came up quite a bit. Sanford, as always, was strong in goal and he will make a much more reliable backup this season than old Sabby. Aside from that my favorite part of this game was the Ducks' George "The Stache" Parros scoring the first goal and assisting on the second. That's probably more points than he had all last year. Only 16 days to the first real game. Let's do this.

Sedin - Sedin - Balej
Raymond – Ritchie - Shannon
Cowan - Classen - Isbister
Burrows - Moran – Brown

Mitchell – Fitzgereld
McIver – Bieksa
Edler – Bourdon

Sanford
MacIntyre