Prior to last night's 6-2 win over the Blue Jackets, the Vancouver Canucks had lost five in a row, their toughest stretch since an eight game losing streak in January 2009. It's obviously been quite awhile since this team has faced adversity like this and it's always interesting to see how teams respond especially when the problem is a lack of scoring on a team littered with scorers. Head coach John Tortarella tinkered with the lineup as he usually does, but didn't make any drastic changes and wanted his team to focus more on cashing in on rebound goals and while there was certainly enough traffic in front of Bobrovsky, that's not how they won this one.
They continued to shoot anything and everything and unlike their previous five games, the puck found a way over the goal line last night. It was a fantastic example of when you're playing the right way but just not getting the results you want, the best thing you can do is keep doing what you're doing and the tides will eventually turn, because that's exactly what happened against Columbus.
They continued to get solid goaltending, showed great team defense as they stifled the Blue Jackets transition through the neutral zone and blocked more than half their shots, literally. They peppered the Bobrovsky with shots, cycled the puck well, protected it along the boards and, in general, created havoc which proved to be too much for Columbus to handle. With another game tonight against the Blackhawks, there is no time to celebrate the end of this slump as they have to shift focus to extending this new winning streak…no easy task against Chicago.
The Canucks might have busted their slump in a big way, but they've still got some holes to fix if they want to climb their way up the standings and into a playoff position, primarily with their power play. They have scored the fewest goals with the man advantage in the entire league and, while that sounds rather bad, let's put this into perspective. They're one of the teams with the fewest opportunities, but one of the teams that has taken the most shots on the man advantage. So much like they needed to do to bust out of their losing slump, maybe they need to follow the same philosophy to bust their power play slump.
And this match up against Chicago could be just what the Canucks power play needs as the Blackhawks are seriously struggling on the penalty kill. On the flip side, they're cashing in 5-on-5 and are rather effective with the man advantage, but have been incredibly inconsistent as of late. Overall, I'm expecting a barn burner between these two tonight and it might even be a matter of which team scores last and I'm expecting special teams to play a big role. The important thing for the Canucks to remember is to stay the course, stick with their game plan and good things will happen.
Julie
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