The Canucks lost another game in the shootout on Thursday night, losing the game 4-3 to the Detroit Red Wings. While they didn’t deserve to win the game based on their play in regulation time and overtime, the shootout is a different animal. It usually has very little to do with the run of play. They lost the shootout because Detroit is a much better shootout team than the Canucks.

The Canucks are one of the best teams in the NHL but they are one of the worst in shootouts. One would think that a team that boasts a Vezina trophy finalist and a lineup filled with offensive talent would be good in shootouts. Instead, Vancouver has a 3-5 record, are 19th in shooting percentage and are 5th worst in save percentage. And this is not a new problem for the Canucks, it has gone on a few years. They were 4-5 last season and 4-4 the year before and 3-7 the year before that. So what gives?

No Go-To Guy

The shooters that beat Roberto Luongo on Thursday night were Pavel Datsyuk and Jiri Hudler. That should come as no surprise, as these are the Red Wings’ go-to guys in the shootout. The Wings have played in 6 shootouts and Datsyuk and Hudler have shot in every single one of them. If they needed a 3rd shooter, Todd Bertuzzi would have been called upon.

The Canucks quite simply don’t have a go-to guy in the shootout. Mason Raymond and Alex Edler were given the assignment on Thursday, but they don’t shoot all the time. Alex Burrows and Cody Hodgson have shot most often, but they have only shot in 5 of their 8 shootouts.

Alain Vigneault

Alain Vigneault does not stop pucks or score goals, and if he had a guy like Pavel Datsyuk in his lineup he would get questioned a whole lot less. But with that being said, Vigneault has done a poor job of giving his team the best chance of winning in the shootout.

Vigneault needs to recognize who his best shootout performers are, and stick with them. Too often he has played hunches or given opportunities to players just because they are having a good game. What he ought to be doing is identifying his top guys and turning them into shootout specialists. The Canucks’ shooters were never more consistent than when Kyle Wellwood and Pavol Demitra were trotted out in each game, despite their play in regulation time. Last year AV failed to recognize Jeff Tambellini as his best shootout option, as he didn’t select him every game despite his excellent career shooting percentage.

This year, Vigneault needs to realize that Cody Hodgson and Alex Burrows are his two best shootout specialists. Burrows and Hodgson are each 2/5 in the shootout this year and consistently put forth a great effort. A lot of fans and media have been suggesting that Vigneault give Daniel and Henrik Sedin another chance. Perhaps Daniel should get the odd opportunity (after Hodgson and Burrows), but Henrik has put forth some of the worst shootout attempts I have ever seen (including this one).

Roberto Luongo

Quite simply, Roberto Luongo needs to be better. He is too good of a goalie to perform this poorly in the shootout. Luongo has a respectable career shootout save percentage at .663. Currently this year, Luongo has a .476 SV% in the shootout.

Luongo is 49th out of 57 NHL goalies in save percentage. He appears lost in the net, biting on every fake and getting beaten by any decent shooter. But it didn’t used to be this way.

In Luongo’s first season in Vancouver (2006-07), he was pretty good in the shootout. He had the 25th best shootout save percentage out of 71 goalies. Lu was even better the following two seasons (07-08, 08-09), but has seen his shootout save percentage drop in each of the last three seasons.

It appears that either Luongo’s reactions are starting to slow down with age, or shooters have a book on him.

Luongo might want to consider shifting the way he approaches the shootout. Unlike some other goalies, Luongo treats a shootout attempt the same as a breakaway. He stays reactive to the shooter and doesn’t make the first move or keep the shooter guessing. While this is probably the best way to play a breakaway, it leaves him prone to shootout attempts when players walk-in with pre-planned moves in mind. A lot of the successful shootout goalies keep the shooter guessing by utilizing the poke check or mixing up their positioning.

Shootout Philosophy

As I have already outlined, I believe the Canucks should identify their top shootout players, and run with them. This should be done with at least 2 of their first 3 shooters. Even though the Canucks don’t have a stud in the shootout like Pavel Datsyuk or Jonathan Toews, they can still identify a specialist or two.

Maybe above all, the Canucks need to treat the shootout seriously. That means practicing it and scouting it. The Canucks ought to be scouting goalie and shooter tendencies. It boggles my mind every time I see Alex Burrows walk-in and score with the same old move on opposing teams. I mean, if I know the move he’s going to do, how is it that NHL teams don’t?

Perhaps the Canucks already do a lot of scouting for the shootout, but it doesn’t appear so.

The good news out of all of this is that there are no shootouts in the playoffs. But the shootout can be the difference between finishing first, second or third in the conference, and that can be the difference in who hoists the Stanley Cup in June.

Hypocrite (noun):

a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.

Take it away Jon Stewart!

Two lackluster outings in a row on home ice as the Canucks continue to struggle without the concussed Sami Salo and Alain Vigneault has had enough. The Canucks announced on Wednesday that they would be re-calling defenceman Chris Tanev from the AHL.

Tanev is getting the recall despite the fact that the Canucks have seven other healthy defencemen on their roster. Salo has been out for five games and this move signals to me that Chris Tanev is not getting an audition as a spare part on the Canucks, rather he is getting an audition to be a major part of the team going forward.

The plan all along this season was to bring Chris Tanev along slowly. He looked calm and cool under pressure in 25 regular season and 5 playoff games with the Canucks, but he is still only two years removed from playing with the Rochester Institute of Technology. The Canucks wanted to ensure that he got a lot of ice time and got a chance to play in all situations in the AHL.

Now with the injury to Sami Salo, there is a gaping hole at right defence. Even when Salo returns, there will be a bit of a gap on the right side, as Kevin Bieksa and Sami Salo are the only right handed shots with the big club. Chris Tanev, as you might have guessed, also shoots right. Thus far the Canucks have chosen to play with one defenceman playing the ‘wrong side’ on their third pairing.

The Canucks ought to be in the market for a top 4 defenceman (as insurance if and when Sami Salo gets hurt again), but perhaps Chris Tanev can be that guy. Certainly they have big plans for him down the road, but maybe the future is now for the 22 year old. Just like how Ryan Kesler’s injury in October gave Cody Hodgson his chance to prove himself, this injury to Salo may offer the same for Tanev.

Alain Vigneault may choose to give Tanev time on the third pairing and play him sparingly, but I don’t think he will or should. This audition for Tanev should be to see if he can play with Alex Edler on the second pairing. Chris Tanev, your time is now.

The NHL announced the starters for this year’s All Star Game today. They are Erik Karlsson, Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza, Milan Michalek, Dion Phaneuf and Tim Thomas. Wait, what?? Obviously, Sens fans stuffed the ballot boxes. Of the four Senators named to the All Star game, only Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson deserve to be in the game, and only Erik Karlsson deserves to be a starter. The fact that four Sens are not only in the game, but named as starters, is a joke. But that’s not what bothers me most.

What is bothering me the most is the fan voting results. Daniel and Henrik Sedin finished 19th and 21st in voting among forwards! Yes, the reigning Art Ross Trophy winner from last year and the Hart Trophy winner from the year before had fewer votes than players like Jordan Eberle and James Neal. Did I also mention that both players are having yet another remarkable season? Henrik is leading the league in scoring while Daniel is in second. They don’t play in a small market, they had lots of exposure on a team that went to the Stanley Cup Final last season and they just keep on doing it.

I understand that some fans will stuff the ballot box, which is the reason why Milan Michalek received more than double the votes of Henrik and Daniel combined. Leafs fans were also doing a pretty good job of stuffing the ballot box, as evidenced by the votes for Phil Kessel, Joffrey Lupul, Dion Phaneuf and James Reimer. But not every group of fans is stuffing the ballot box. That’s why the only conclusion I can come to is that the Sedins are STILL underrated! Despite three straight amazing seasons, people simply just don’t give them their due.

When you go to a Canucks game at Rogers Arena, take a look around the crowd. How many Sedin jerseys do you see? I think there might be fewer Sedin jerseys in the crowd than Kesler, Burrows or Luongo jerseys. And I just don’t get it. Personally, I own a Trevor Linden jersey, but if I had to buy a new jersey tomorrow, I would get a Henrik jersey. These players are going to end up being the top two all-time leading scorers in franchise history and still people don’t appreciate them enough! Hell, I bet you there are still a few people out there saying “they’re not first line players, they would make a very good second line…”

The Team 1040 was asking callers all day today: who is the MVP of the Canucks to this point in the season? Keep in mind that the Sedins are #1 & 2 in the league in scoring! Instead of hearing 90% Daniel or Henrik responses, the responses were all over the map. The Canucks have other good players, but do you think anyone in Philadelphia is saying their MVP is anyone other than Claude Giroux? Were there a lot of different suggestions for the Canucks MVP when Markus Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi were lighting the league on fire? Of course not

To suggest that the Canucks’ best players this season are anyone other than Daniel and Henrik Sedin is not only lunacy, it’s taking them for granted. They’re remarkable players, and it would be remarkably stupid to forget it.

Like it or not, the book on how to beat the Vancouver Canucks is to push them around, to smack them around. The NHL is a copycat league, and when the spotlight was on the Canucks in the Stanley Cup Final, the Boston Bruins beat the Canucks on the scoreboard while beating them in the alley. Here’s what Henrik Sedin has to say about that:

You know what? I’m pretty tired of that question. We won the President’s Trophy last year, we went to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final. We didn’t lose the final because we were pushed around, we lost because we couldn’t score.

While I agree the main reason that the Canucks lost in the Stanley Cup Final (I watched game 7 again a couple of weeks ago) was because they couldn’t score, not that they got pushed around, it certainly contributed to it. The book on beating the Canucks right now is to push them around and beat them up, and that’s probably the most effective way of beating them (if you can do that while staying out of the penalty box). The book on the Canucks used to be to get in Luongo’s face and bump him (something that the Canucks mitigated last season by playing Luongo further back in his net).

The question is, does trying to beat up the Canucks actually result in winning/losing games?

The Canucks are getting hit and smacked around more than ever this year, with limited power play opportunities. The result? They’re 2 points away from being first in the NHL. The players that teams try to push around the most are Henrik and Daniel Sedin. Henrik is the current NHL scoring leader and Daniel is in fourth place. So I’m not sure the strategy is working as much as everyone thinks.

I think a lot of people are forgetting what actually took place in last year’s playoffs. The Canucks got beat up by the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final, sure. But the Bruins do that to everyone. I think everyone has forgotten how the Canucks absolutely dominated the Chicago Blackhawks with their physical play in round 1. They were not outmatched physically by the Predators in round 2 and in round 3, they outhit the Sharks.

The Canucks could certainly use some more toughness in their lineup, but not much more in my opinion. I think it would be nice to have a warrior like Chris Neil on their fourth line, and maybe a gritty winger like Andrew Ladd on their second line. But this is nitpicking. The Canucks are not a physically imposing team to play against, but they’re not creampuffs either. They’re currently ranked 11th in the league in hits and have a lot of players with underrated grit like Jannik Hansen, Chris Higgins and the Sedin twins.

The Canucks can win the Stanley Cup with their current roster, but they’re not without warts. And that’s a distinction they share with every other elite team in the National Hockey League.

The good people over at YouTube are now wise to people uploading HBO’s 24/7, so unlike for episode 1 and episode 2 you have to go elsewhere to find episode 3.

Luckily, the good people over at Puck Central have done the work for us. Enjoy!

It’s been a few years since Sports Page went off the air and it’s always around this time of year that I really miss it. Their Christmas special, ‘Yulin’ with the Page’ was the best year in a review/blooper show there ever was. The small budgeted CKVU station did a way better job than big networks like TSN or Sportsnet ever could. Nobody came close to matching it before, during or since.

Thanks to bimmer1919 on Youtube, we can watch a whole bunch of mid-90s Yulin’ with the Page clips (a few of them were removed from Youtube due to copyright reasons). Enjoy!

Episode 1 lived up to the hype. It featured a whole lot of swearing (as usual), John Tortorella ripping into Marian Gaborik and Ilya Bryzgalov telling us about the universe.

Episode 2 also promises to be good (I won’t spoil anything for you).

Enjoy!

Mark Messier and the Vancouver Canucks will be going to arbitration over money that is still apparently owed to the retired crook hockey player. Great, now he’ll never get his jersey retired in Vancouver.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “didn’t Messier steal $18 million from the Canucks?” Messier, if you remember, played an uninspiring three years with the Canucks from 1997-2000, earning $6 million a season.

If I were Messier, I’d shut my trap and hope that everyone forgets his days as a Canuck and remembers him as a Oiler and a Ranger. But that’s just me.

The second season of HBO’s 24/7 series debuted last night and once again it’s the best thing on television. Last year’s show featured the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals in the weeks leading up to the Winter Classic. It was quite simply the most in depth look behind the scenes of an NHL hockey team. And it was awesome.

I get more excited for an episode of 24/7 than most women do before an episode of the Bachelor.

This year’s show featuring the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers is well on its way to duplicating last year’s intrigue. If you missed episode one on Wednesday, you can check it out below. Enjoy: