The Week Ahead:
The Vancouver Canucks will hit the ice for practice today at 11:00 after a well-deserved day off on Sunday.
The New York Islanders are in town and will be practicing at 1:15 after dropping a 5-2 decision to the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night (!)
If you haven't been paying attention, the Oilers are actually showing a pulse. Since Craig MacTavish abandoned his co-coaching strategy and returned to his general manager duties, new coach Todd Nelson has led his team to a 2-0-2 record.
That's six points in six days: prior to Nelson taking over, the Oilers barely managed six points in a month!
The Islanders played a good road game on Friday when they beat Calgary 2-1, so it's hard to know which version of the team we'll see at Rogers Arena on Tuesday night. Hopefully it won't be the one that rolled into town last March and scored seven third-period goals: six on Eddie Lack plus an empty-netter. And that was without an injured John Tavares in the lineup.
That period may have been the low watermark of one of the most dismal months in franchise history. I'll be trying to keep the flashbacks to a minimum through the first 40 minutes tomorrow night.
Also this week: Roberto Luongo returns to town!
We almost missed out on our chance to see him play as a visiting goalie after he got steamrolled by Alex Ovechkin yesterday. Did you see this play?
The Panthers will be in town starting tomorrow ahead of Thursday's game, so there will be plenty of time for the hype machine to get rolling.
"We'll probably do a press conference,'' Luongo said with a grin to Panthers beat reporter George Richards of the Miami Herald after Sunday's game. "Do it up big.''
Against all odds, the Panthers are currently flirting with a playoff spot—just two points out of the last wild card position. A lot of that has to do with the play of Luongo, who has a 15-7-7 record with a 2.28 goals-against and a .924 save percentage.
For the most part, the Panthers have been keeping games close and, more often than not, prevailing in the shootout.
If you remember Lou's shootout woes during his time in Vancouver, you have to watch this epic 20-rounder against Washington from back in mid-December. He's a changed man:
The Vancouver Canucks will have two players in the medal hunt today as the 2015 World Junior Championship wraps up in Toronto.
After a sound 4-1 defeat by Russia on Sunday, Gustav Forsling and Team Sweden will meet Slovakia for the bronze medal at 1:00. Then, Jake Virtanen and Team Canada will go for gold against those same Russians at 5:00.
The Air Canada Centre was uncharacteristically overflowing with joy as Canada steered home a 5-1 win over the Slovaks on Sunday.
Jake Virtanen has been shuffled back into the bottom six since the injury to Robby Fabbri in the quarterfinal. This would be the moment where we beam with pride that his replacement on the Lazar-McDavid line, Nic Petan, is a homegrown product of Delta, B.C.
Petan's hat trick in Sunday's game will be remembered for a long time—especially if Canada finishes the job today by breaking its five-year slump and capturing gold.
The last time Canada and Russia met in the gold medal game was back in 2011, in Buffalo. Canada had a 3-0 lead going into the third period before the Russians stormed back with five unanswered goals to seal the win.
This year, Russia has gotten better as the tournament has progressed. Should be a great game today!
Canucks.com has a good profile of Virtanen up on their website. Interesting that he cites Markus Naslund as his favourite player growing up, even though he plays such a different style.