Stanley Cup Playoff Pick'em 2010

[Ben Kenobi]

The difference between east and west is phenomenal.

That said, and agreeing they were undermanned on defense, I would suggest that a couple of those 5 goals were a bit on the soft side. Looked to me like Luongo was fighting the puck and didn't show the fluidity and balance I saw in Game 5. But hey, what do I know? I just try to watch and learn.

Luongo was pretty sharp, he just got no support from his defense. Not much you can do when you have a 3-1 and a breakaway on the powerplay, both inexcusable mistakes.

[Ben Kenobi]

How the **** did he have a sad season this year.

He's sitting at home playing golf.

Kiprusoff, AT 33 (not 34 like you keep saying), had a .920 sv% with 2.31 GAA.

And despite those numbers, he wasn't there when his team needed him. If he plays this well and still doesn't make the playoffs, what does that say about Calgary? Speaks volumes.

Much better than Luongo's numbers. If Kiprusoff's season was sad, how would you describe Luongo's?

A much better season because they made the playoffs despite injuries to their top scorer and to Luongo. They won their division and lost to the probable cup winner. Not as great a season as I would like, but among the top 5 Canuck seasons, which isn't too shabby. Luongo's had 3 of the top 5 (behind only '82 and '94 in the 07,09 and 10 seasons.
Sure it ain't a cup but it's a better season than last season where they were the top seed and lost.

WTF?

Well according to you Luongo is too old for his position at 30.

If Kiprusoff was Canadian, he'd have been the started over Luongo and he'd have a gold medal too.

If it's and but's were candies and nuts.....

The fact is he hasn't, and he won't. He won't get a cup either because he's just not good enough.

Luongo has. He took over the team and won a gold medal, on a team that without him proved they were not quite good enough. They lost to the Americans without Luongo. With Luongo in net, they won, and took home the Gold.

I don't know why you find it so hard to understand. Luongo made the difference on Team Canada.

Second most pathetic argument ever. Any SCF that goes to 7 games and includes a fight between two of the biggest stars in the league (Iggy vs Lecavalier) obviously could not be worst SCF ever.

I repeat, Tampa Bay Lightning. The WORST franchise in the history of the league, beat the Flames. I don't know what to say other than that Calgary manned the failboat there.

We've all seen how inept the Canucks are without Mitchell. He's a UFA this year. Why would he sign in Vancouver again?

Gee, they didn't lose anything from last season and all of a sudden they are 'inept'?

What does that say about Calgary who didn't even sniff at anything the Canucks achieved last season.

I'm not sure what they will do with Mitchell. I think they should go for Hamhuis and let Mitchell and Salo go. They need someone to eat up the minutes and Hamhuis has a better opportunity with Vancouver than with the Preds.

Vancouver may keep making the playoffs for a few years, but with a team loaded with perennial playoff chokers, it's not going to matter.

Well sure. Pretty sour grapes there.

Bottom line is the only thing that matters is the Stanley Cup. Canucks are still cupless.

Better than a fluke run in '04 unmatched by any similar performance before or since the time Lanny Macdonald was a star and dinosaurs walked the earth.

[-Jrabbit]

Boys, the name of the thread is "Stanley Cup Playoff Pick'em 2010."

Not that this isn't somewhat amusing, but even I have heard these same tired points repeatedly in the past. Catfighting about two franchises that are not involved deserves its own thread.

[Asher]

I've got a stressful day at work today so I don't even want to look at what Ben posted in reply. I'm sure it'd send me into the stratosphere.

Projected Summary: Luongo's 17/19th overall ranking in the league is why Vancouver did well in the regular season this year, "Kippersoft" (LOL!!) sucks and didn't pull through for his team despite being one of the top goaltenders in the league, Vancouver is going to win many cups with Luongo, Linden was a better player than Iginla in his prime and still is now, Roberto Luongo single handedly won Olympic Gold for Canada.

It's a shame they won't move the Canucks to a city with fans that deserve a team.

Has anyone met a sane Canucks fan? If so, who?

[Asher]

Leader material.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/luongo-questioning-his-captaincy/article1568441/

Luongo questioning his captaincy

The Vancouver Canucks drew criticism when they made Roberto Luongo an unusual choice for captain in September, 2008, and now the goaltender is questioning his anointed role after another playoff disappointment.

Luongo says he will review his captaincy later this summer as calls heighten for the NHL team to strip the “C” off its goalie.

“I love being captain,” Luongo said Thursday as the Canucks cleaned out their lockers. “I’ve enjoyed it, and I haven’t had any problems with it. That being said, right now is not the time, after an emotional loss like that, to be thinking about decisions like that.”

Luongo’s captaincy touched a nerve with Vancouver fans this week after a second successive loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup playoffs. It will no doubt be raised Friday when general manager Mike Gillis and head coach Alain Vigneault take the stage – in the Captains Room at GM Place no less – to explain what went wrong, and how they propose to fix a team that has failed to advance beyond the second round in three of the past four postseasons.

“There are other things around it [the captaincy], obviously, that are extra things I’m going to have to make sure I can handle,” Luongo said, citing media requests to be the team spokesman and be available before and after every game. “I’m going to think about a lot of things.”

The Canucks became the first NHL organization in 60 years to appoint a goaltender as team captain. League rules forbid goalies from wearing a letter, and being the designated communicator with on-ice officials, so Luongo is a captain in name only.

It was the brainchild of Vigneault, and backed by Gillis. The team wanted a player who was accomplished, inspirational, respected and an example of the organization’s core values.

But as Luongo’s play sagged this season, especially after the February Olympic break and into the playoffs, his critics grew louder. This week, Don Cherry joined a Vancouver radio station and crowed that Luongo’s captaincy was a stupid idea because the solitary nature of the position does not give goalies the credibility to lead a group.

Clearly, there are elements of Luongo that fit the captaincy neatly.

He is one of the biggest rink rats on the team, religiously working on his craft.

He commands respect from his teammates. When Alex Burrows was going too far in his famous rant against referee Stéphane Auger earlier this season, the goaltender shushed him with a stern word.

By most accounts, Luongo’s off-ice vices can be reduced to fantasy sports and poker. While some of his teammates celebrated Canada’s gold-medal victory in private hospitality suites, sheltered from the public glare, Luongo took his family to dinner, posing for pictures with admirers.

Last year, a source said that Luongo was so touched by the captaincy, that it prompted his Floridian wife, Gina, to become more active with the Canucks, organizing events for wives and girlfriends. Gillis is trying to foster an environment where families feel welcome at GM Place, and the Luongo’s participation is viewed as an important endorsement.

But there is another side of Luongo that rankles Vancouver fans.

He will say that he is his harshest critic, but somewhere along the way, he only began acknowledging his most blatant gaffes, the indefensible goals and performances. That hesitancy to take full responsibility each and every time hurts Luongo’s credibility on two fronts: when he’s telling the plain truth about poor play in front of him and when he feigns humility.

There were two examples Tuesday, after a 5-1 loss to Chicago that ended Vancouver’s season.

He pointed out turnovers, but not soft goals.

He joked that “improvement was made” because he didn’t allow seven goals, a reference to a 7-5 playoff knockout last spring. The sarcasm came off as disingenuous because confidence is Luongo’s defining characteristic.

Canucks management has much invested in Luongo, including a 12-year, $64-million U.S. contract extension that triggers next autumn. If a change is made, it is less likely to be a top-down directive, and more likely because Luongo surrenders the “C.”

[Flubber]

Not to wad too deeply ito the latest Ben-Asher crapfest but

1. Ben -- goalie level of play is NOT equal to their teams record-- Goalies can be average/mediocre/sub-par and have a "good" record when playing on a strong team whileanother goalie may have a stellar year and have far fewer wins

2. Kipper was better this year than last. His stats reflected this. He won less because the Flames scoring dried up. This is no reflection on Kipper but I do absolutely agree it is a larger issue for the Flames. I don't know that I liked many of the trades Sutter made around the deadline and am questioning his inability to find the guys that make an immediate impact.


3. Luongo. I agree he made several nice stops in game 6 in the first period. But the big problem is that he didn't make very many nice stops after that. I also agree the first goal was very very difficult and very few goalies would have had even a chance. But my recollection of the rest were that while none of them were super soft, none were impossible either. They were shots from the slot area, that he could completely see and which beat him cleanly. Soft no ? Do I think a Halak would have stopped them? Actually four of the five yes--- Goalies can be difference makers and Luongo is paid to be a major difference maker--- He wasn't

[Flubber]

AS an aside , I am getting increasingly unimpressed by Canada's clutch goaltending

Brodeur--Olympics was awful and departing from playoffs early again and again
Luongo-- was only OK at Olympics and two playoff departures where he gets lit up
Fleury- That game 7 performance was baaaadd and he wasn't making the big stops throughout

Luongo to me was the heir apparent to be the number one type guy but this year he just wasn't good enough

[Kontiki]

Luongo definitely needs to stop being captain. I never liked the decision to begin with. Assuming Mitchell gets re-signed, he should be given the C. I always thought he should have had it in the first place.

[Fake Boris]

AS an aside , I am getting increasingly unimpressed by Canada's clutch goaltending

Brodeur--Olympics was awful and departing from playoffs early again and again
Luongo-- was only OK at Olympics and two playoff departures where he gets lit up
Fleury- That game 7 performance was baaaadd and he wasn't making the big stops throughout

Luongo to me was the heir apparent to be the number one type guy but this year he just wasn't good enough

Carey Price?

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm indifferent to Luongo having the C.

[Asher]

09-10 Canucks Eulogy

http://www.matchsticksandgasoline.com/2010/5/14/1471234/a-eulogy-the-2009-10-vancouver

People often ask me: "Why the hate-on for the Canucks?" and I just don't know what to tell them. Is it because, being in the Northwest Division, they are one of the Flames' natural rivals? Is it because they once fielded a team that included two of the league's dirtiest players in Matt Cooke and Jarkko Ruutu, or because the organization and its fans stood behind Todd Bertuzzi after he broke Steve Moore's neck and his career? Because the now infamous "Laser Douche," desperate to give his team any advantage possible, smuggled a green laser pointer into GM Place and attempted to blind Miikka Kiprusoff and nobody ousted him? Because of the insufferable "Loooooooouuuuu" chants, or that, despite never having won the Stanley Cup in their forty year history, the majority, or at least the most vocal majority, of their predominantly fair-weather fans continue to arrogantly boast about what little success their team has had with an inherent sense of superiority and formulate excuses and conspiracies to explain away its failures when the truth is uglier than a crack-addicted prostitute in withdrawal on East Hastings? Why yes, yes it is.

This year was supposed to be different for the Vancouver Canucks. This was supposed to be "their year." Some were so convinced of Roberto Luongo's the Canucks' prowess that they picked them as this year's Stanley Cup Champions. After all, they finished second in the league in scoring led by Henrik Sedin picking apart inferior competition en route to his Hart Trophy nomination, professional divers Alex Burrows and Mikael Samuelsson apparently touched by the graces of the Hockey Gods, and a goalie who allowed Brian McGrattan to score his first goal in 92 games in the season opener against the Flames. Brian McGrattan.

Surely, there would be no unceremonious second round flame-out at the hands of a younger, faster, all-around superior team this spring. Not after Roberto Luongo's famous "see you in the playoffs" remark to Patrick Kane in the handshake line following Canada's gold medal victory over the Americans, after he allowed the tying goal with under thirty-seconds remaining and crushed the dreams of thirty-two million Canadians, only to be redeemed by the heroic tandem of Jarome Iginla and Sidney Crosby. This Canucks squad had learnt from their mistakes, overcome their demons; they were ready. Instead of presumptuously asking fans to send in their Stanley Cup parade routes after a first round victory, the City of Vancouver merely declared "Canucks Day" after the local heroes unconvincingly ousted the L.A. Kings in six games. That, my friends, is progress.

Yes, this year's second round loss the the Chicago Blackhawks was different; for about 160 minutes. Vancouver dominated game one and made Antti Niemi look like the rookie he was in a 5-1 victory at the United Centre while the Blackhawks fumbled every pass and missed their defensive assignments. The same can be said of the first forty minutes of game two, until the Hawks, down 2-1 heading into the third period, stormed back with three unanswered goals to square the series before heading back to the previously friendly confines of GM Place, where the visitors were victorious twice more, helped along by the outright stupidity of the likes of Shane O'Brien and Alex Burrows, whose senseless penalties cost the Canucks dearly and earned them a new moniker. This implosion had many hoping the Blackhawks would dispose of our nemeses sooner than expected, but alas, on the brink of elimination, the Canucks secured a game five victory to delay the inevitable. Yes, Patrick Kane only scored once in game six rather than three times, Luongo allowed just five goals rather than seven, a marked improvement in his mind, and the Hawks closed out the series with a fitting 5-1 victory culminating not in tears, but boos and beer showers. Let it be known that Canucks fans, much like the Sedins in playoff form, can't aim:


Sure, the Canucks' blueline was decimated by injuries. Sami Salo played game six with one functional testicle and Willie Mitchell was sitting in a darkened room penning his pointed critique of Colin Campbell. However, that does little to account for Vigneault being outcouched by Joel Quenville, the team's incompetent penalty kill, Luongo's poor performances (prompting this Canucks fan to put the goalie up for sale on Craig's List), or the failure of Vancouver's best forwards to bulge the twine.

But the Canucks will be back next year; they have a whole summer to recuperate, providing Mike Gillis with sufficient time to piss away his budget without ever acquiring a defenceman. They'll climb to the top of a weakened Northwest Division, likely with little competition, and easily defeat whatever first round opponent comes their way before losing their composure and shooting themselves in the foot in round two, as seems to have become an annual tradition like Christmas or a birthday, and hockey fans everywhere will celebrate accordingly.

A final note to all you self-congratulatory Canucks fans who will repeatedly remind us that losing in the second round is better than missing the playoffs: Welcome to the world of perennial disappointment. Unrealistic projections, unachievable expectations, and the forever unattainable "potential."

You're going to hate it.

[Ben Kenobi]

I thought making this a Canuck/Flames thread was contrary to the topic?

Why don't we start a new thread?

[Asher]

It's a playoffs thread, take your lumps and stop being a little *****.

[Guynemer]

This game is fairly nuts.

[Asher]

Boston blew a 3-0 series lead, and a 3-0 lead in Game 7 too.