Vancouver Canucks at Florida Panthers - Sunday March 16 - 12 noon - Sportsnet Pacific, Fox Sports Florida
Vancouver Canucks - 30-29-10 - 70 points - 10th in Western Conference
Florida Panthers - 25-35-7 - 57 points - 15th in Eastern Conference
The Florida Panthers are 1-0 against the Vancouver Canucks already this season. Shawn Matthias scored a come-from-behind goal to tie the game at two in the third period, then Jonathan Huberdeau scored the only goal of the shootout on Roberto Luongo to give Florida the 3-2 victory back at Rogers Arena on November 19.
At that time, the game was a burn because Tim Thomas picked up the victory for the Panthers. A lot has changed in fourth months.
Now, Matthias is the Canucks' second-line center and Luongo will be in net for the Panthers, facing the only team he has never beaten in his NHL career.
He and Eddie Lack don't look a lot like vicious foes, do they?
If anything, I bet Lack, Luongo and Cory Schneider all take a degree of comfort from each other. The three of them are the only ones who know how it feels to be caught in the eye of the hurricane.
Eddie continues to do his best to approach the situation with his patented sense of humour:
Torts' interview from Saturday's practice is interesting. I'm amused that it opens with him saying "I don't have any thoughts." Sounds like the question was about his team facing Luongo.
Is it just me, or has the answer on the Eddie Lack question shifted a bit? Now Eddie's evolution is "a process." Didn't they say "He's our guy!" when the Luongo trade came down?
Even with the back-to-backs and the heavy emotional toll of the weekend, Torts still sounds reticent to put Jacob Markstrom in net:
What's this about? He can't be judged this harshly from one period in an out-of-reach game in Dallas. Is Rollie Melanson so concerned about what he has seen from Markstrom so far in practice? Is it part of Melanson's master plan to set the stage for his former pupil Jaroslav Halak to sign with Vancouver as a free agent this summer? Has Markstrom somehow become the scapegoat for Torts' frustration over the whole goalie debacle?
Until we fans get a chance to see him perform in a game situation, we have no opportunity to gauge Markstrom's readiness for ourselves.
It has been just two weeks since the Canucks' last Sunday afternoon game—the fateful Heritage Classic matchup that set all these wheels in motion. I'm torn about what kind of outcome I'd like to see today but for the sake of the players' psyches, I hope there's less emotional shrapnel flying around by the time the final horn sounds.
More on Naslund:
Elliotte Friedman has an interview with Markus Naslund surrounding the rumours of a possible return to Vancouver.
Click here to read.
In my mind, he's keeping the door pretty wide open. He says he didn't resign from Modo *because* he wanted a job back in North America, and says that he has a few possibilities he wants to consider, but also doesn't insist that he's planning to stay in Sweden:
I want to stress: This is nothing I am pushing for. Last year, friends asked me about some other opportunities outside of hockey...the timing wasn't right there, either. I'm considering that too.
I'd say he's definitely willing to talk to the Canucks, so that question of "What job?" becomes a little more important.
Since this appears to be a Gillis initiative, and they have a past relationship from when Gillis served as Naslund's agent, I'd assume that Naslund could move into a new role. Here's a reminder of how management currently lines up behind Gillis, from
canucks.com:
• Lorne Henning - Vice President of Player Personnel and Assistant General Manager
• Laurence Gilman - Vice President of Hockey Operations and Assistant General Manager
• Stan Smyl - Senior Advisor to the General Manager and Director of Player Development
Could they make another position for Naslund, or would one of those three have be moved aside? Would a shuffling of the deck just below the top jobs be enough to bring about the change this franchise needs?
Judging from yesterday's comments, it's interesting to see that Naslund hasn't been remembered especially fondly here in Vancouver. In the big picture, he captained the team out of the dark times of the Messier era and up to a level of respectability that fans came to take for granted. Maybe he's exactly the kind of man that the team needs to bring back into the fold.
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