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After having a day of to lick their wounds and discuss as a team that they need to be better, Vancouver gets to try and put it all together tonight and earn a split. Roughly 87 per cent of the time going down two zip means you're done, so this is pretty much a must win game for Vancouver.

Roberto Luongo will get the start in net tonight, as Schneider is still sidelined with a "body" injury. Despite the "C" word being thrown around by the Team1040, or the fans reports that it's a "middle body injury" I doubt either of those reports are true. If it was the later, I doubt he would have been taking as many shots as he did in practice and if it was a concussion I think we would have had something leak out.

The truth is Schneider could be sidelined with pretty much anything, but rather than focusing on who we don't have playing, I believe we need to focus on who we do have in goal.

Roberto Luongo was solid in Vancouver's first game and he's been solid in his last four playoff starts, not spectacular, but solid. He can get the job done as long as the guys in front of him get the job done. The team in front of Luongo has scored five goals in his last four playoff starts. That is s fact, and that has nothing to do with Roberto Luongo.

Lu can win, we all just need to get behind him. So would the media, fans and the guy down the streets dog stop worrying about the players we don't have and start supporting the guy we do have.

LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Now for the other elephant in the room, is Ryan Kesler hurt?

Some say yes, and point out he had ice on his wrist…ice on his wrist!

Some say it was just a case of the flu.

I'm leaning towards the later, but my biggest question is what kind of a coach puts a half-powered Ryan Kesler on the ice for more than a minute longer than any other forward? Alain Vigneault, that's who. I'm certainly no hockey genius, but I'm thinking Ryan Kesler at 50 per cent is about as good and Lapierre or Ebbett at 100 per cent.

If Kesler is still not 100 per cent tonight, scale his time back to about 17-18 minutes, let him recover and get more out of him. Because right now, with the way AV is playing Kesler, you're not getting anything close to what you need out of Kesler by over-playing him.

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I'm not sure what team shows up tonight, but I'm going to back them till the end.

Prediction- 3-2 Vancouver








P.S.- And AV, note you are at home. That means you should be dictating the matchups. You're making this way too easy for San Jose.

Well that's a wrap.

Ian


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