Canucks - Bluejackets Preview
It's opening night!  Are you ready to rumble???? Yes, it's the Vancouver Canucks home opener tonight, much welcome after a horrifying 2-game road trip to open the season, where they dropped 5-3 and 3-0 decisions to the Flames and Avalanche respectively.  Now they're home, licking their wounds and trying to figure out how to right a ship that was starting to list badly as soon as it came out of drydock. Canuck coach Alain Vigneault is mulling his options as far as line-up changes, but yesterday's

Canucks - Avalanche Review
Wow, that was worth recording. Apologies for the lateness of the blog on this, but we were gone most of the day yesterday and watched a recording of the game last night.  This is the first chance I've had to actually sit down and type.  And it's hard to sit back and reflect on the Canucks getting shutout 3-0 by the Avalanche. What has gotten into the Canucks?  I don't know if the press clippings have gone to their head, or whether they're still trying to "gel" as a team because they never played together as a team in the pre-season (even if you buy that, it should have ended mid-way through the Calgary game), but that game yesterday was horrendous!

Canucks Offered Dan Cloutier a Try-Out Contract?
Apparently so, according to the Province's Jason Botchford. Classy move on the Canucks' part, and I have to question Cloutier's decision making.  As Jason Botchford points out, "But in reality, the Wings have five goaltenders in their system."  Botchford speculates that Cloutier thought he might have a better chance landing an NHL back-up job with the Wings than with the Canucks, who were either going to be using AHL goaltender of the year Cory Schneider or free agent acquisi

Canucks - Avalanche Preview
The beginning of the Canucks' season didn't start out as everybody had hoped (or even expected), with a 5-3 loss to the Calgary Flames.  The Canucks are looking for redemption early in the Denver afternoon as they take on the Colorado Avalanche in a nooner at the Pepsi Center.  Look for goalie Roberto Luongo to bounce back from a sub-par performance, though his history in afternoon games is not good, at least in recent history (injuring his knee in an afternoon game against Pittsburgh).  Let's hope he's been stretching well and will avoid that problem.  Also, let's hope the team is actually awake to start the game, something none of us are too sure was the case in C

Andrei Markov out 4 months
Yikes!  That's not what the Montreal Canadiens needed. Defenseman Andrei Markov suffered a bad skate laceration from goaltender teammate Carey Price last night, and Sportsnet is saying that he'll be out 4 months at least. I didn't see it happen (was off having a beer and dinner at a local bar before the Canucks game started), but apparently it cut a tendon and he had surgery last night to repair it. What a scary injury.  I was there when Kevin Bieksa had his deep skate cut against Nashville two years ago, and that was not pleasant to see.  This sounds bad too. Poor Montreal. Markov