So let's start off with some good news

You'd think I could just stop there, but although we did win last night, did the third period make you feel good about the team? Don't fret, the Canucks just ran out of gas. They came out strong outshooting the Flames 20-6 in the first period but wasn't able to register a shot in the third. Luongo did however, have a game where he didn't look shaky trying to smother the puck, so even with the pressure from the Flames, the Canucks still won 3-1. Coming off of the giant roadtrip to two back to back home games, it seems understandable that they would be tired. The Canucks had a break today, and will return to the ice tomorrow night to face the New York Islanders.

Jason Botchford write a great article in The Province about how this team could possibly be the best team in Canucks history. I'd have to agree with him in that the answer to that question won't be decided until the playoffs are over, but based on the stats, our team looks pretty good. And we're good even though we have have lost Kevin Bieksa and Willie Mitchell for a significant number of games of the season. Before the monster of a roadtrip, with a road record that we had, I don't think many Canuck fans would have predicted for us to come out in the spot that we are today. I had thought that it would be a success for the Canucsk to come out .500 over the roadtrip, but to come out with a record of 8-5-1, I was more than surprised.

Of course like Botchford said, the real answer to question about the Canucks as a team will come during the playoffs, but it's nice to see this break from the mediocrity that we've become so used to.

Game against the Islanders tomorrow at 7pm on Sportsnet

In case you missed the Jason Spezza end-to-end goal, I've hidden it after the jump

Photo from Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Finally! A home game! After finishing up that monster of a road trip the Canucks 8-5-1 and will now play the next 10 of 15 at home. The Senators on the other hand will play 9 of their 14 games remaining on the road

• Kevin Bieksa returns to the line up today (thank god) and will replace O'Brien (really? not Alberts?)
  
• The Senators were fantastic going into the Olympics, right now, not so much. They've only won 1 game since coming back from the break, and that was against the Oilers
• The last time the Canucks faced the Senators they beat us for their franchise record 11th straight win
• Leclaire will start in net for the Sens with Luongo taking the back to back for the Canucks
• Luongo will be on After Hours tonight
• Looking ahead the Canucks will play the Sharks three times, the Ducks twice and the Flames twice

Neat thing on Canucks.com that has the Canucks sharing the best moments from their road trip

Best meal according to Hordichuk:

“The meals you get for free are always good. On the road there we played a little credit card game, the last guy with their credit card pulled out has to pay. We had a couple real good meals that tasted especially good after winning.”

Ok Vancouverites, it's almost here....a freakin home game! After 41 days on the road, the Canucks will come back to GM Place on Saturday night to face the Senators. I cannot say how excited I am to have Canucks hockey back in Vancouver.

• Yes we lost in overtime against the Coyotes yesterday, but what's more important? Daniel and Henrik Sedin donated $1.5 million to help build a new BC Children's Hospital, go read it, then donate some money to BC Children's
• Steve Bernier has successful sports hernia surgery today. He'll be out 4-6 weeks and could be back for the first round of the playoffs. His hands of stone will not be missed, but maybe surgery can fix his ability to not put the pucks in the net...maybe
  
• Lukowich never reported to the Manitoba Moose after he was waived from the Canucks, instead he will be having shoulder surgery
• Roberto Luongo lights the Paralympic cauldron in Robson Square tonight
• The Caps have clinched the SE Division...but really that wasn't hard to do considering who else is in the division
• In some seriously ugly uniforms, the Calgary Flames win 2-0 over the Ottawa Senators tonight
• The Sharks come back in the 3rd period to score 6 goals to win the game 8-2 over the Nashville Predators. Dan Ellis gets pulled, and he tweets

Yeah I would say so Ellis

So we have two back to back games starting with the Senators on Saturday and the Flames on Sunday. For your Senator-centric reading before Saturday's tilt check out Five for Smiting (seriously funny) or the 6th Sens (has Kypreos in a cabbage and really good podcasts - was blown away when I listened for the first time last week)

The Canucks for Kids Fund will have their telethon this Sunday March 14th from 12pm-midnight, proceeds go to Canuck Place Children's Hospice. DO IT

The Canucks have really got to stop spotting their opposition goals.

A three goal lead at the end of the first? That's what the Canucks, and ahem, Luongo, gave the Avalanche. Luongo let in two goals from Duchene and one from Christ Stewart. By the end of the first I began to think that tonight would be like Friday night against the Blackhawks. But for the 10th time this year, the Canucks have come back to win the game after going into the 3rd period trailing. But really guys, we need to stop this need to come back in the 3rd period.

Recap after the jump...

So a week or so before the Olympic break I was asked to review the NHL's GameCenter Live and in exchange I would get use of the service for free for the rest of the season. Well do bloggers love free. I kid, ok we do, but I was actually interested in this one, I jumped at their offer. Since I got asked so close to the Olympics I held out to write my review till we got back into actual hockey since it didn't make sense to write it earlier. In retrospect I wish they had asked to review this product back in November when my giving a good review of it would actually make you consider buying the service for the entire year, maybe I will repost this again next season after I've seen what it looks like next season.

The NHL gave a similar free trial to anyone during the very early part to the season, and I had tried it out then, but since I wasn't in to hockey enough to want to watch many games of other teams, the service didn't have the same draw that it had about a month or two into the season.

First off, if anyone has seen what GameCenter looked like last season, this years version has made leaps in improvement in regards to features and quality. There are pros and cons with GameCenter, and it's not perfect yet, but it's definitely gotten better.

Now as a fan of more than one team (the Canucks and Lightning) who lives in Vancouver, this product had it's pros and cons.

Click read more for a look at the features after the jump...

Actually I'm a week late with this post, but since this is what happened last Sunday on this blog's actual birthday:

I think it's understandable that I didn't want to write a post about my blog's first anniversary when there was clearly bigger things happening, like Canada winning GOLD!

Once year ago, after many weeks of thought, I decided to begin blogging. After overwhelming and perhaps annoying my friends and family with my talk about hockey, I decided to channel my desire to talk about the sport through a blog. To read about the reason I started blogging you can read it at a contribution I did for CLS' Odd Woman Rush. Instead of being logical and starting just one blog, I started two: Vancity Canuck and The Hockey Bay. I figured that it would be fun and that if I hated it, I could just quit after a few posts. I didn't really care or have any expectations that anyone would actually read what I wrote.

After twelve months of writing and 487 posts later (between the two blogs), a lot of things have changed. The most obvious is that I have moved from my old home on blogspot over to join the Bloguin family here, moving both of my blogs over to the network. The Hockey Bay retained the same name, whereas Vancity Canuck got renamed Benched Whale.

One of the great things about being a hockey blogger is getting to know other bloggers through which, I have also been able to write at such fab sites like Cycle Like the Sedins, Raw Charge and most recently as a writer for the Olympic Hockey Blog.

And the most important, is that I got readers! Yes readers, and sometimes even commenters, which proves that it's more than just my  brother (and Sharks fan) reading what I'm writing. I'm sure my writing quality has gotten better over time, which you, dear reader, I'm sure is grateful for.

I could not recap last night, there was just no will to recap.

Photo from AP

This morning, thoughts are the same, Luongo sucked shit.

It wasn't just Luongo, no I'm ok with ripping in to the whole team today. It was the Canucks against one of the best in the West, a statement game for the Canucks. Instead of being a great game of hockey, it was a game filled with garbage hockey and ridiculous penalties.

• 37 seconds into the game and already 32 minutes of penalties had been handed out
• 37 seconds into the game and the Canucks have to kill off a 5-3
• Luongo was not his normal average self, instead was his alter ego where he let is dumb goals. He let in 5 goals on 14 shots.
  
• Coach AV decided to take lessons from Bykov, the coach for Team Russia in the Olympics and continued to let Luongo be in goal. Luongo should have been pulled after that 4th goal, instead AV left him in goal where he let in another one to end the period. Raycroft started the 2nd where the score was 5-1 and too late for a comeback
• Andrew Alberts sucked
• Where were the Sedins? I haven't seen them since January

Quote from Luongo via The Province:

"I didn't want to be in there for a dozen, so you might as well take me out after the first,"

It has been very frustrating to watch Luongo play, as when he is on his game, he is average and still lets in a soft goal every couple of games. He looks to be having trouble handling the puck and not being able to just freeze the damn thing. And when Luongo is shit, he is really shit. Obviously other goalies are having trouble too, Fleury was just pulled against the Rangers the other night, but as my flatmate commented last night to me, Luongo hasn't had a game recently where he has legitimately stolen the game.

Other Canuck Stuff

• Burrows did set a career record last night in goals with his 29th
• Luongo says that he will donate the $20,000 that he receives for winning gold in the Olympics to charity. Some of it will go to Canuck Place and the rest to his private charity in Montreal
• Shea Weber injured his left hand (re-aggravated) in the game against Detroit last night and left the game in the first period. He is listed as day-to-day with an upper body injury. The Nashville Tennessean reports that he will be re-evaluated today so he might still play against Vancouver tomorrow
• Tomorrow's game is at 12pm PST against Nashville

Update:

Shea Weber will not play tomorrow's game against the Canucks as per The Tennessean via On The Forechek

Photo from AP

Dear Luongo,

You sucked sh-t tonight

That is all

Just a few things:

Bernier has flown back to Vancouver on Wednesday to see an abdominal specialist next Tuesday about a possible sports hernia injury

Bloguin's March NHL Power Rankings are up:

In short: Nothing happened

Well, I'm lying, the Canucks did acquire center Yan Stastny from the St. Louis Blues for Pierre-Cedric Labrie. PC Labrie was trending on twitter at one point, mostly because people where asking who the f-ck is PC Labrie? Well Vancouver fans, you don't need to know anymore since we've shipped him to wherever the Blues tuck away their AHL players that will never make it to the NHL. Yan Stastny is the son of Peter Stastny and his younger brother is Colorado's Paul Stastny. Yan Stasny is no Paul Stastny, that's all you need to know.

The Canucks did trade Mathieur Schneider from the Manitoba Moose to the Phoenix Coyotes for defenceman Sean Zimmerman and a 6th round conditional draft pick (2010). Gillis was correcting for the mistake of signing Schneider initially with this move, but it seems fitting for Schneider to moves to Phoenix, maybe he can scout out a retirement home there since I hear the weather's nice.

Then the Canucks acquired defenceman Andrew Alberts from the Carolina Hurricanes for a 3rd round draft pick (2010). He's 6'5" and 220 lbs and kinda like SOB, but cheaper at $800,000 this season and $1.3 million next season. I'm assuming that this will spell the end of SOB's time in Vancouver after this season.

So minor changes to the Canucks roster but nothing of what I was hoping for. With Willie Mitchell return being uncertain I was hoping for more of a solid top 4 defenceman instead what we ended up with is a 5th or 6th defenceman in Alberts and minor leaguer in Stastny. Good on Gillis for getting rid of Schneider for anything really as I hadn't even held out hope that any team would want Schneider.

All in all, it was a dissappointing day for the Canucks. If Gillis thinks we can go down the playoff stretch with this team he's out of his mind or is seeing something in Aaron Rome that clearly I am not. Of course I don't expect to build a team through trades, but fix them when long term injuries hit and I don't think Gillis did enough for the team. And one last thing, whoever compares trade deadline day to NHL Christmas is crazy, or got robbed out of a good Christmas. I'll compare July 1st (UFA day) to NHL Christamas, but trade deadline day since the cap was intruduced is a day with a lot of hype but very little substance, kind of like an overpriced new years eve event.