Canucks at Predators – 2/21/12 - Shacks’ Take

The Canucks haven’t lost in regulation in 13 games, which might coincide with the amount of reviews I’ve done without anyone commenting.  Burrows is playing career game 500 today, hopefully I don’t reach that number before someone notices I’m doing this.  Just like Alex, I’m going to keep plugging away. Here’s Shacks Take:

By five and a half minutes into the game, the icing count is at 3 – Nashville, 1 – Vancouver.  The blown high sticking calls are at one that favoured Vancouver and one for Nashville.  I hope at some point during the game there’s something more interesting to write about than counting icings.

Amazingly, Nashville is second in the NHL in power play percentage although when you look a little deeper it’s a little less surprising.  Nashville has two excellent power play triggermen and Shea Webber is definitely one of the two or three best.  Nashville wants to feed Webber and Suter for screened shots, deflections and rebounds.  Their abilities are key as they shift the focus of the opposing forwards out to them, giving their forwards more room to work.  It's pick your poison, take the defence away, the forwards get more space to work 3 on 2's and 2 on 1's low.  Defend the forwards, and Weber and Suter will kill you with their big shots.   

Weber and Suter's presence draws three Canucks above the hash marks leaving two Pred's on one Canuck down low. 

Notice how high the two Canuck forwards are trying to take away the big two.  This leaves lots of room down low for the forwards. 

Are those puke yellow Nashville uniforms some kind of punishment for being their fan?  The more I look at them the uglier they get.

I must be watching a different game than John Garrett (I usually do though), the shots on goal in the period were 12  - 11 in Vancouver’s favour and John says there were lots of chances and the goalies were great.  Here’s what I saw:

                                               

Screened Shots or with traffic in front:            Nashville 1 – Vancouver 0

Shots from a good scoring area:                        Nashville 0 – Vancouver 0  

Deflected point shots:                                         Vancouver 1 – Nashville 0

Times I thought someone would score:           Vancouver 0 - Nashville 0 

Vancouver had two great rebound chances to start the second, unfortunately the first went to Aaron Rome who’s low shot Rinne was able to get across to save and the second to Mason Raymond, who doesn’t score goals anymore.  Off the rush, Booth fired one and the rebound bounced right to Raymond with 6-by-4 to shoot at. Of course he absolutley whiffs on it.  Remember when we thought Raymond was going to score 30 a year?  Good times… Good times…

Nashville opens the scoring on their power play, with both Canuck forwards pressuring the points; some nifty passing got the puck to Suter in the high slot for a three on two down low.  As Edler and Salo drifted up to take him, Suter slid the puck to Fisher at the side of the net. Salo tried to whack his stick and succeeded which forced Fisher’s shot towards Luongo who was three feet out of the crease. Unfortunately the puck hit Lui’s skate and deflected into the net for a 1 – 0 lead.

Rinne has been spectacular in the 2^nd period, particularly when he stopped Burrows and Daniel point blank, as well as getting some help from his post off Booth.

Sandwiched between Rinne’s power play stop on Danny and Booth’s post, Nashville scores on a short-handed 2 on 1 caused by a bad Sami Salo pinch to take a 2 – 0 lead. Mike Fisher feathered a beautiful backhanded saucer pass to Kostitsyn for a one-timer Lui could only wave at.  Edler tried to lay out to prevent the pass but he was too close to the puck carrier and Fisher made him pay.

Fisher has the puck on the right side and Salo steps forward allowing Fisher to walk around him. 

This sets up a 2 on 1 with Salo trailing and Kostitsyn racing to give Fisher a man to pass to. 

Edler lays flat to block the pass but he should have let Fisher shoot and eliminate the pass.  He tried to stop both and got too close to Fisher. 

It’s funny that Nashville scored on a Canuck power play because during the two Canuck power plays, the Nucks looked awfully dangerous except for the short hander.  The first power play resulted in two uninterrupted minutes in the Nashville end and for the second one, Vancouver had at least three great chances, yet Nashville got the only goal on likely the one time they got the puck out of their own zone in the four minutes.

Dale Weiss gets the Canucks within one thanks to a couple of lucky bounces.  First Legwand trips losing the puck to Weiss in front, then Weiss’ shot deflects off Smith’s stick to the top corner of the net.  I’m sure Weiss will say this is just how he planned things.

The more I watch Mason Raymond the more frustrated I become.  Speed, skill, a good shot but he has totally lost the ability to put it all together.  He’s beginning to remind me a lot of Russ Courtnall, whose feet were always two steps ahead of his brain. I wish he was more like Geoff, a little less of everything, but he had the ability to score and a knack for timely goals.

The Sedins got a little too cute in the neutral zone— Shea Weber stole the puck and turned it into a breakaway that Lui had to make a great save on, reaching behind him to get his glove on the puck, deflecting it just past the post as Weber seemingly had an empty net to shoot at.  I’ll bet Luongo never expected Weber to deke but Weber never expected Lui to recover.  Weber should have scored but he didn’t bear down on his opportunity.

Weber looks like he has the whole net to shoot at.  Snap this high and Lui has no chance.  

David Legwand put the finishing touches on a perfect third period for the Pred’s, scoring the clinching goal on a high slap shot with 3:30 minutes left.  Nashville was full marks for this one, playing with the lead to perfection.  Vancouver had no real chances to tie the game as Nashville kept everything to the outside and generated several chances off turnovers from the pressing Canucks.  Before Legwand’s goal, Nashville had hit a post and a crossbar and generally carried the play in the third.

Vancouver’s streak is over and things just get more difficult as now they’re off to Detroit whose virtually unbeatable at home.  The Canucks will be hard pressed not to have their first losing streak in quite some time.