Vancouver Canucks

World class win in Motown

The Detroit Red Wings are one world class organization.  Of course, that is no big revelation-winning a fourth Stanley Cup last summer in about 11 years and regularily displaying the finest scouting system.    With Steve Yzerman set to become Team Canada’s Executive Director for the 2010 Olympics and Mike Babcock a front-runner to be named Canada’s Head Coach, Hockeytown, U.S.A. meets the benchmark as an NHL franchise.  Add to that the class that Detroit shows in handling its alumni and the history the Original Six team is steeped in, and the Vancouver Canucks certainly had a mouthful to take care of Thursday night.

Detroit honoured long-time Captain and three time Lady Byng Trophy Award winner Alex Delvecchio before the game, unveiling a statue of his likeness on the concourse.  Saturday night the Wings will bring to life another statue, one of “Terrible” Ted Lindsay, the spark of the player’s union and on-ice rival of many.

It was the line of Ryan Kesler, Alexandre Burrows, and Jannik Hansen that stole the thunder though.  Despite losing the majority of the faceoffs and yielding to the vaunted Detroit powerplay, the dynamo line produced exciting shift after productive shift and spearheaded the Canuck’s spirit level in the game.  THe recognition Burrows used to seal the game in ovetime by banking the puck off of the end boards to himself before beating Chris Osgood was absolute gold, as the Wings have made it a practice to use the ‘lively’ end boards to create mayhem in front of the opposition.

I was leary of how Vancouver would match up to the Cup-defending Wings, how they would compete for the puck, and if they would be prone to the extraordinarily skilled red-and-white.  They showed me a fire and willingness to battle.  Couple that with the fact that only a select shot or three was going to beat Roberto Luongo (ie: Brian Raflaski’s blocker-side, top corner laser) on a focused night and you’ve got a recipe for success.

Detroit’s powerplay is plain scary.  The puck movement and elite skill level is enviable.  The Canucks did a admirable job of staying relatively penalty-free and they still burned Vancouver for two PP markers.  Niklas Lidstrom is as good a quarterback as in the league and the addition of Marian Hossa adds yet another finisher to the mix.  Henrik Zetterberg was sidelined with an injury, so young Medicine Hat Tigers alumni Darren Helm (whom I watched a ton of in the 2006 Memorial Cup and WHL playoffs) came in a performed a key role for Detroit, winning 4 of his 7 faceoffs and pickpocketing certain Canucks in his limited icetime.  Mattias Ohlund and Alexander Edler were monstrous in blocking shots and taking away time and space from in front and on rushes.

While they battled for the puck and the dictated the pace of the game at times on the road, had a clear deficiency.  Faceoffs were again a problem, with Ryan Johnson, Henrik Sedin, Ryan Kesler posting poor marks and being beaten outright all night.  Pavol Demitra who also displayed his enormous penchant for passing and puck handling in traffic, was the only decent centreman with 5 wins and 4 losses (okay, Daniel Sedin was 2 for 2 as well).  Kudos to Vancouver for battling to get the biscuit back though-its a tough deal against the Red Wings.

16 October 2008

Robin Keith Thompson