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The Vancouver Canucks need a spark, and they may have just got the spark yesterday when Daniel Sedin appeared. Sedin has not played in about three weeks, and it is still up in the air whether he will play, but it may be now or never for the Swede.
The Sedins are often criticized for not being more emotional on the ice. Often Fans criticize and say they lack the passion to win. Believe me, these two have as much passion as any in the league. If they didn't have passion they wouldn't have two scoring titles. If they didn't have passion, Hank wouldn't have come back from Brown's Hit and play a shift that showed as much toughness and leadership as any player has ever shown.
I've been an athlete and I've had to watch my team. I can tell you that there is no more painful time then watching your team lose and knowing you can't do a dam thing about it. That is what Daniel has done for the first 3 games and my instincts tell me he's not going to do it again. Daniel would rather be on that ice risking injury than at home watching them.
Hank's comments when the injury happened should tell you all you need to know about Daniel's character. When the incident happened Hank said this "You know he must be hurt because there is nothing more that Daniel loves doing then playing hockey. It's tough to knock him out of a game." Daniel wants to play, I guarantee that. His team needs a spark, we all know that.
My guess is Daniel was at home watching his brother get his bell rung and come back strong, and he said to himself at the moment.
"If Hank can do it, so can I."
"Book me a plane to LA and tell Gillis to have my stall ready."
"There is no way my brother is showing me up again."
Even if Daniel isn't ready to go tomorrow night and can't imagine how every member in that line up doesn't play their guts out for him. Daniel is one of their leaders and one of the most respected members of the organization. If I'm AV I make sure every member of that team has to look him in the eye before they step on the ice and when they come off the ice. If that doesn't light the fire in this team nothing will.
Whoever doesn't give 110% on Wednesday night they are answering to Daniel.
The cliché "we have to just play one game at a time" gets tossed around, but that is exactly what Vancouver is facing. They need to win on Wednesday or they are done. There will not be a do over. There will not be another game. It's win on you're golfing. It's that plain and simple.
Thanks for reading.
Enjoy your day.
Ian
This write up on delay of game was subbmitted by Rubo1806 aka Eric. These are his thoughts on the delay of game penalty not mine. Feel free to send me your thoughts on hockey or anything else and I will post them as long as they are not too offensive.
Thanks Eric
After watching Game 3 of Vancouver VS Los Angeles, something happened that made me think long and hard about why we have automatic penalties for delay of game. Does anybody really think that Edler wanted to intentionally shoot the puck in the crowd with less than 2 minutes to go in the game when the Canucks are trying to mount a comeback? The puck just happened to roll on its side because of the bad ice and Edler is just trying to make a hard pass on the other wing and the puck barely just gets over the glass. This is where I hate that "automatic" penalty call. Refs can pretty much decide not to call anything in a game and let a ton of "clear" violations go but a nothing play like accidentally shooting the puck in the crowd, THAT gets a penalty. It makes no sense when you think about it. Same thing happened in Game 1 too. A non-deserved penalty on Kessler for the snow shower ends up turning the game around when Higgins accidentally shoots the puck in the crowd while trying to clear the zone to give the Kings a 5 on 3. And then, seconds after the Kings score, another accidental puck in the crowd gives the Kings another 5 on 3. In the playoffs, the refs almost never dare to give 5 on 3 situations to teams and they let go a ton of stuff in the process but of course, the biggest offense in a game is clearly "accidental" puck in the crowd so that HAS to be called. Forget about elbowing, cross checking, tripping, holding, shooting a puck in the crowd is the worst offense of all in hockey as its the ONLY automatic call you can get.
This isn't just something that happens against Vancouver though. Last year, after a standard penalty against them, San Jose got 2 straight "puck in the crowd" penalties, giving Vancouver 2 straight 5 on 3s. Canucks scored on both and it turned that game around completely. It's crazy in my mind that games and entire series can be decided on bad luck like this. That just shouldn't be. The irony of it all is that this penalty is called "delay of game" and it's clear that Edler didn't want to "delay" the game, they are losing the game and desperately trying to score a goal at the end!
The problem with delay of game penalties is that it's completely based on luck. No player now intentionally throws a puck in the crowd as they KNOW it's an automatic penalty. Every time it happens, it's a case of a rolling puck when somebody tries to clear, somebody missing their attempts and it goes in the crowd instead of hitting the glass, etc. As such, we keep seeing penalties being given for accidental things. When a player bumps into the goalie by accident, the ref might blow the play dead and say its incidental contact. No automatic penalties. When a player gives a high stick to a players face, it's sometimes ruled as an accident because he was in a shooting motion hence no penalties. Why does it have to be different for pucks in the crowd? Why not make it a judgment call by the ref? Everything else is. Why make an exception there? A guy could get a clear open net chance late in a game and miss because he's being held by a player and the ref will "let it go" because he's afraid to make the call and then seconds later he'll call a penalty on a guy for "accidentally" shooting a puck in the crowd when he turned around and hacked on the puck and because it was rolling it ends up in the crowd. How is that fair?
If a ref decides to stop calling penalties, then it should be the same for ALL penalties so that things are consistent. Why make one exception? Especially since this is far from the worse offense in hockey. Players constantly delay games in their zone by letting themselves fall on pucks to "freeze it" even though it's not allowed like Mike Richards did just moments after that Edler "delay of game" penalty. The irony here is delicious. Delay of game penalties should be like all penalties. At the discretion of the official. I know people are going to counter with: "but if it's left to the discretion of the ref it'll never be called and the ref will make mistakes!" Well, duh! THAT is what being a ref IS!!! Everything is judgment call! If you remove the judgment from the call, you might as well admit that you don't trust them to make the right call and in that case you might as well get rid of refs entirely! Right now, as an automatic penalty, these calls are almost always a mistake as I said since nobody throws the puck in the crowd on purpose anymore. A player might hook a guy and hold a guy on purpose with the hope of "getting away with it" since it happens all the time but not shooting a puck in the crowd. That gets called ALL THE TIME! So when a player does it, it's always accidental and yet they're penalized while other players get away with cheap shots, hooking, holding, grabbing, tripping, etc. Nothing is worse than a game being decided on a crappy call like "delay of game" and I've seen that happen too many times over the years. Give the ref the ability to make a judgment call on those. You can still tell them to call most of them since now players would try to do it on purpose and get away with it but in the cases of clearly accidental puck in the crowd where the ref clearly saw the puck rolling to change the trajectory of the clearing attempt, then at least there would be some justice and no need to penalize a guy for nothing.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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