head coach: Tom Renney

roster: C - Mark Messier, Trevor Linden, Mike Sillinger, Dave Scatchard; LW - Martin Gelinas, Markus Naslund, Gino Odjick, Donald Brashear, David Roberts, Larry Courville, Lubomir Vaic; RW - Pavel Bure, Brian Noonan, Lonny Bohonos, Scott Walker D - Jyrki Lumme, Dana Murzyn, Matthias Ohlund, Grant Ledyard, Bret Hedican, Dave Babych, Steve Staios, Chris McAllister; G - Kirk McLean, Arturs Irbe.

injuries: Dave Babych, d (returned from hip sprain October 30, missed 9 games); Adrian Aucoin, d (returned from sprained ankle October 25; missed 9 games; suffered groin pull November 1, day- to-day); Martin Gelinas, lw (knee sprain October 13, four weeks); Dave Roberts, lw (abdominal strain October 23, indefinite); Jyrki Lumme, d (recurring groin pull flared up October 29; day-to- day); Grant Ledyard, d (suffered mild concussion October 30, day-to-day).

transactions: assigned Mark Wotton, d, to Syracuse (AHL) October 26; Corey Hirsch, g, reported to Syracuse (AHL) October 26; Larry Courville, lw, recalled from Syracuse (AHL) October 29; Lubomir Vaic, c, recalled from Syracuse (AHL) October 30; Chris McAllister, d, recalled from Syracuse (AHL) November 1.

standings:

Western Conference - Pacific Division
Team         GP   W   L   T   PTS   GF   GA 
Colorado     15   7   2   6    20   49   38
Anaheim      14   5   5   4    14   32   35
Los Angeles  15   5   6   4    14   48   44
Edmonton     14   5   7   2    12   29   43
Calgary      15   3   9   3     9   39   50
San Jose     14   4  10   0     8   34   46
Vancouver    15   3  10   2     8   36   55

game results:

10/22 at Dallas      W 5-1
10/23 at St. Louis   L 4-1
10/25 Pittsburgh     L 3-2 OT
10/26 Detroit        L 5-1
10/29 at Chicago     L 3-0
10/30 at New Jersey  L 8-1
11/01 at Pittsburgh  L 7-6 OT

team news:

by Carol Schram, Vancouver Correspondent

At last report, the Vancouver Canucks were up to their usual inconsistent tricks. Two weeks later, they've figured out a way to ditch that distinction - now, they just lose all the time.

Last year's no-playoff season felt dismal from start to finish, but the truth is, the Canucks' worst losing streak of the year came around Christmastime, when they dropped four in a row. Now, we're just 14 games into what was supposed to be a turnaround year, but the team has already topped that mark, losing six in a row with no end in sight.

As a bright side, players and coaches are taking consolation in the fact that the Calgary Flames went on an 11-game losing streak in 1988-89, the year they went on to win the Stanley Cup. Guys - that's the exception, not the rule. This streak probably is not a ticket to success.

If we think back real hard, there was a happy night a couple of weeks ago, when FOX Sports Southwest blacked out the game on the satellite dish, but the Canucks stomped into Reunion Arena and pasted the surging Dallas Stars. Pavel Bure cooked up his first hat trick of the year, and Arturs Irbe was stellar against his old team. In his first regular season start as a Canuck, he endured a 17-2 shot disadvantage in the first period to keep the Canucks tied at one with 40 minutes to go. Eddie Belfour caught the wrath of the Stars fans, and the Canucks looked like they were going to be able to compete with the elite teams as they sat on a two-game unbeaten streak against strong conference rivals.

Hah!

Our Canucks managed to make short work of that brief vote of confidence. Continuing their mid- west trek the next night, their 4-1 loss to St. Louis wasn't really as bad as the score would indicate. The Blues came into the game on a roll, but Scotty Walker managed to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead on a shorthanded marker midway through the first period, and that goal held up until close to the end of the second. The Blues tied it up on a nifty Joe Murphy conversion, then Steve Staios hooked Brett Hull just nine seconds after the ensuing face-off. St. Louis power play -- St. Louis goal. 2-1 at the end of two.

The Canucks battled gamely in the third period, but the bounces refused to go their way. Old buddy Geoff Courtnall finally put the team away for good with his fifth of the year, and Chris Pronger sealed the deal with an empty-netter with a minute to go. It was a definitive loss against a surging team playing awesome defense, but nothing to get TOO depressed about.

Two days later, the Canucks were back at home to face another team exceeding early-season expectations, the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens were adjusting to life without Mario, under dictatorial new coach Kevin Constantine. Plus, Petr Nedved remained unsigned, and they were in the midst of their longest road trip in franchise history. But everything was cruisin' along just fine.

Again, the Canucks looked like they had a real shot at doing some damage. Starting goalie Ken Wregget twisted his knee early in the first period and was replaced by Tom Barrasso. The Canucks got two past him by the mid-way point in the game - one from Mike Sillinger, and a first-ever NHL goal, on Hockey Night in Canada no less, for rookie Dave Scatchard. But after outshooting the Pens 10-6 in the first period, the Canucks let Pittsburgh take it to them for the rest of the game. The shots in the second and third periods were 28 to 9 in favor of Pittsburgh, and the score was knotted at two after 60 minutes.

With the Canucks under siege during the last minute of regulation time, Coach Renney elected to leave Pavel Bure on the bench and let Trevor Linden's line take care of defensive business. Apparently this didn't sit so well with the Russian Rocket. He started the overtime frame, but went to the bench for a change after just 15 seconds or so. His move was unexpected, and in the ensuing scramble to get another Canuck forward onto the ice, Ron Francis got the puck and moved it into the Vancouver zone. With Bret Hedican as the lone man back, defenseman Kevin Hatcher wired a shot into a barely open top corner, and that was the game. Now the Canucks had lost two in a row, and they faced the defending Stanley Cup Red Wings the following afternoon.

Detroit is another team that could be making excuses early in the season. In addition to a traditional Stanley Cup letdown, they lost Conn Smythe-winning goalie Mike Vernon as a free agent, All-Star Sergei Fedorov remains an obstinate holdout, and Black Ace Tim Taylor, snapped up on waivers, has become Boston's best player this year. That's not to mention the loss of dominating physical presence Vlad Konstantinov behind the blue line, and the devastating effect that the fateful limousine accident has had on the team.

But no, the Wings are flying as high as ever, and their performance against the Canucks underlined, once again, the difference between the men and the boys. While Igor Larionov got Detroit on the board early in the first period, the Canucks looked like they intended to make a game of it when they quickly answered back with Gino Odjick's first of the year - a pretty tap-in on a nice pass from buddy Bure. But the Wings regained the lead before the end of the first period on a blistering drive from under-rated Nicklas Lidstrom, and they never looked back. Kirk McLean took a smattering of abuse when he allowed two Detroit goals on just three shots in the entire second period, but the bottom line is that the Wings were firmly in control. Each time their lead increased, their defense got a little tighter. Pavel Bure was being stood up by the blueliners, and Detroit maintained a solid physical presence throughout the game. Steve Yzerman put away a gorgeous shorthanded breakaway goal late in the third to finish off the scoring, and the Canucks were starting to look forward to their five game road trip, out from under the microscope of the local fans and media.

Little did they know..

The Canucks had two days off before heading out to Chicago, a team doing just as badly as they were. Both squads were on three-game losing streaks, and the Hawks were having even more trouble than Vancouver getting their offense and their power play on track. Before the game, it was generally believed that whichever team lost this one was going to have to look at making some serious changes.

Turns out a visit from Vancouver was just what the doctor ordered. The first goal of the game wasn't scored until close to the end of the second period, but it was all the Hawks needed. Their abysmal power play went two for seven and the Canucks got badly outshot again - this time 35-19. The Hawks took the two points for a 3-0 win, while the Canucks took their wounded egos off to the Meadowlands for another game, the very next night, against the powerhouse New Jersey Devils.

By this point, talk of the possible firing of coach Renney was erupting into a roar. Strangely enough, though, while the public seemed to generally support Renney's removal last season, this year he has gathered more sympathy. The feeling seems to be that, since the Canucks have managed to maintain this consistently enigmatic performance level under Rick Ley, Pat Quinn, and even Bob McCammon, it can't really be Renney's fault. Or maybe, it's just getting clear that a different coach won't really make any difference, so why not stick with the likable but over- intellectual Renney?

The Devils were looking like formidable opponents for a number of reasons. They had been manhandling their Eastern Conference rivals in an attempt to gain respect in the upper echelons, their goaltending was stellar as always, and Doug Gilmour had turned back into a god-like figure on the power play. As badly as the Canucks were playing, that was how well things were going for the Devils. Plus, New Jersey was still looking for a measure of revenge against Mark Messier after a perceived dirty hit on Doug Gilmour during last year's playoffs, when he was still a member of the Rangers.

There have been times in Vancouver's history when these sorts of games, against the odds, were the ones they would win or play with tremendous intensity. Not this time, though. They were outshot 21-9 in the first period and got in a 2-0 hole. By the end of the second, it was 5-0. Final score, 8-1, with shots 46-23 in favor of New Jersey. Kirk McLean was chased early in the second with the score 4-0; the situation didn't improve any for Irbe. The defense was brutal and the offense was ineffectual. This looked like the game when the team truly had quit on Tom Renney. Everyone was sure that something would be done by Saturday's rematch with Pittsburgh.

Is it a testimony to Pat Quinn's patience, or to the changing face of the NHL, that the big change for Saturday's game was the recall of towering defenseman Chris McAllister from Syracuse? Ya gotta admit, with the economics of today's NHL, the days of the sudden blockbuster trade look like they are passing us by. Apparently Pat Quinn had a meeting with Renney on Friday in Pittsburgh and reassured him, once again, that he had the confidence of both Quinn and team owner John "Moneybags" McCaw. Regarding the idea that the billionaire cell phone magnate is not accustomed to losing, Quinn put a different spin on the situation by responding "I know he didn't do as well as he's done in business by panic management."

Pavel Bure's bizarre move in overtime of the previous Pittsburgh game was coming under scrutiny as well, and suggestions were made that, rather than quitting on Renney, teammates had finally had enough of Bure's demands for special treatment. Despite the fact that the players kept insisting that they couldn't keep questioning themselves and searching for answers to what was wrong, the questions were definitely persisting, and the lights were being shone into new and different corners as the mystery of this team's poor play looms ever larger.

There were no answers to be had in Pittsburgh, either. Despite a players-only meeting on Saturday morning, with special guest Pat Quinn, the team put itself into a 2-0 hole just 5:15 into the game, after a short-handed goal from Martin Straka and a power-play tally from red-hot Eddie Olczyk. But then - figure this out - the Canucks exploded with five goals in 5:29, starting with a power- play marker from Pavel Bure. By the end of the first period, Tom Barrasso had been chased in favor of Ken Wregget, and the Canucks were ahead 5-3. In just over a quarter of a period, the offensively challenged Canucks had managed as many goals as they had potted in their previous five games.

When the Canucks are behind, they can't overcome the other team's defense. When they're ahead, they seem to go into a shell and dare the other team to try to take their lead away. This year, more often than not, the opponent is up for the challenge. Vancouver did get one more goal in the second period, Mark Messier's second of the night and third in two games. Once the score was up to 6-3, though, they started to sit back again. Ron Francis and Martin Straka, on the power play, made a game out of it by drawing the score out to 6-5 before the midway mark of the second period. And the Canucks hung on until more than halfway through the third, when rookie Alexei Morozov converted a power-play opportunity while Chris McAllister was serving a roughing penalty. That erased all the dramatics of the earlier part of the game and took both teams right back to ground zero.

Vancouver got off to a normal start in overtime, this time round. They even had a couple of great scoring chances, one on a Pavel Bure wraparound, and one on a Bret Hedican point-blank shot from the slot. Kirk McLean performed some admirable heroics. But with just over a minute to go in the game, a defensive breakdown caused by Dana Murzyn led to a devastating Pittsburgh two- on-one opportunity. Kamloops B.C.'s Rob Brown has been out of the NHL for most of the past two seasons because of poor defensive play and a lack of speed, but he was quick enough to keep the two-on-one alive, showing off his natural goal-scoring abilities when he wired the puck past Kirk McLean to give the Penguins a 7-6 overtime win. It was their second extra-time victory this season against Vancouver, taking Pittsburgh's all-time overtime record against the Canucks to 5-0- 0 and the Canucks to the throes of a six-game losing streak. So far, they're 0-fer on this eastern swing, and they still have two more games to go, against the new-look Carolina Hurricanes and the once-again injury ridden Washington Capitals, featuring ex-Canuck bosses George McPhee and Ron Wilson.

It's anybody's guess how the Canucks are going to get themselves out of this one. There is something mildly heartening about the fact that they managed some offense against Pittsburgh and put out a pretty good effort. But, a true lack of effort has only been notable in the New Jersey game. Their goals-against is creeping up again, the defense is decimated with injuries again, and they aren't make life miserable for their opponents again.

We know that Pat Quinn is not a fan of change for the sake of change. He did everything in his power to improve his team this summer, plugging a hole at center with Mark Messier, shoring up the blue line with Matthias Ohlund and Grant Ledyard, even improving goaltending with the addition of Arturs Irbe, who has looked solid in his three appearances so far.

Yet somehow, with only Alex Mogilny missing from the lineup, the team now looks worse than ever. After Saturday's loss to the Pens, the Canucks are tied for last place in the Western Conference with eight points in fourteen games -- only Tampa Bay has less points in the whole NHL. They're now six full games under .500 - a level that used to be considered utterly unacceptable and is now starting to look like something to shoot for. Quinn is a bright man, and a good businessman, but one has to start to wonder whether the pressure cooker in which he is operating has started to become too much for him. He is an old-guard guy, and while he appears to be in touch with the way the league is changing, there's no getting around the fact that, no matter how much they spend, the Canucks have deteriorated every year since their magical run to the finals in 1994. This is still Quinn's team, and it is not performing. Is it time to start thinking the unthinkable?

OTHER NOTES:

Trevor Linden is probably relieved that he made the decision to surrender his captain's "C" to Mark Messier before this disaster of a season got underway. If Linden still held the designation, by now he would be getting ripped up one side and down the other for his lack of leadership, and the trade rumors would be flying. Instead, Linden has remained one of Vancouver's most consistent players, both offensively and defensively, and is still to be counted on to say the right thing, no matter how trying the circumstances. Linden has launched a new charitable foundation to help children, and continues to do what he can to help his hapless team.

Meanwhile, local media is still going easy on Mark Messier. After everyone agreed that, even if Messier's on-ice contribution was diminishing with age, his leadership would have to make a difference for the Canucks in the room, "public perception" is not quite ready to wrap its collective mind around the idea that it's not just "not better" - it's decidedly worse. While Messier has been denying any nagging injuries, his skating, his physical presence, his offense, and his playmaking have all been lacking. He has started to put the puck in the net during the past couple of games, and matchups against old enemies in New Jersey and Pittsburgh seem to have sparked a little of Messier's trademark nastiness. We can only wait and see whether or not he can keep it up.

The Alex Mogilny watch continues, with reasons for cautious optimism. A couple of weeks ago, Mogilny was spotted in the southwestern lower mainland, close to his regular-season home in Point Roberts, WA, just across the border. Did it mean Mogilny was close to signing? Well, then the rumors surfaced that Mogilny, his agent Mike Barnett, and Pat Quinn were spotted dining in a downtown Vancouver restaurant? Did that mean the two sides were close? Next, we heard that Mogilny's equipment was traveling with the team on this five-game road trip. Did that mean Mogo's return was imminent? Well - the truth is that Alex's lease ran out on his Malibu home, and it had already been leased to someone else. With wife and new baby in tow, Mogilny chose to settle somewhere fairly stable while waiting out the rest of his contract dispute, so Point Roberts seemed like the best possible option. As far as the equipment went, apparently the Canucks had it with them when they went to Dallas and St. Louis as well - just to be on the safe side. Both sides continue to make noises that they're close to getting the deal done, but there is no reason to assume that Mogilny's return to the lineup is imminent.

Here's an interesting twist, though - apparently Russ Courtnall and his agent have been back in touch with Canucks management about a possible return to Vancouver. After Courtnall's rather acrimonious departure last season, that idea alone seems like a bit of a stretch. Furthermore, Courtnall was working out in L.A. with Alex Mogilny until Mogilny came back up to the Pacific Northwest. And Courtnall says that his status with the Canucks will be dependent on what happens when Mogilny is signed - whether or not there is money left over. Interestingly, Courtnall seems unconcerned about whether or not, with Bure and Mogilny back ahead of him in the lineup again, there is enough ice time to spare. He admitted that there has also been interest from other teams like the Rangers and Toronto, and while he continues to golf daily in Los Angeles, Courtnall does seem anxious to get back playing hockey. Whether or not that is with Vancouver remains to be seen.

The injury bug has continued to eat at the Canucks, particularly behind the blue line. Although it has been about three weeks since Martin Gelinas blew out his knee, there is still no talk about his impending return. If anything, it looks like the timetable for his recovery is being extended. David Roberts also strained an abdominal muscle against St. Louis on October 23, so that leaves a big hole on Vancouver's usually-strong left wing. Markus Naslund has not managed to provide enough offense to keep himself consistently on the first line with Bure and Messier, and Tom Renney has experimented with both Donald Brashear and Gino Odjick to add some muscle on the left side. He had limited success with Brashear's tying goal against Colorado, and Odjick did pick up his only goal of the season so far when playing alongside Bure, but Gino in particular doesn't seem up to the skating required to play with the big boys.

When Adrian Aucoin first got back from his ankle injury, he was dressing as a seventh defenseman/utility forward, but now he is hurt again and the Canucks are having a tough time keeping their roster filled on defense as well. Larry Courville was called up from Syracuse to fill in for Roberts, then when Gino was called away to Quebec on urgent family business before the New Jersey game, the Canucks gave the call to feisty Slovak rookie Lubomir Vaic, a center who would make his first NHL start on the left side. Vaic didn't embarrass himself (any more than the others) in the New Jersey game, and picked up a goal, an assist, and a plus-two rating against Pittsburgh. Vaic is small, but he's fast and he's fearless - he doesn't stay on the perimeter like other undersized players. He had a great training camp, and there is a very real possibility that the Slovak could be staying up with the squad for awhile.

On defense, Mark Wotton was returned to Syracuse when Aucoin got healthy, and Dave Babych was also close to returning. But Jyrki Lumme's groin is continuing to bother him, and he is playing some of the worst hockey of his career when he does suit up. Aucoin hurt his groin again and is back on the sidelines, and Grant Ledyard suffered a mild concussion when he was blindsided by Doug Gilmour in the third period of the New Jersey game, but expects to be back soon. That left room for another emergency call to the `Cuse - this time looking for 6'7" Chris McAllister. Mac injured his knee during preseason and had stayed in Vancouver to rehabilitate. He just went back to Syracuse a couple of weeks ago and played in three games, all losses, before returning to re-join the big club. He did make his presence felt in his first game, taking a regular shift with Dave Babych, but he also took two minor penalties, and one of them resulted in Pittsburgh's tying 6-6 goal. Matthias Ohlund has also faced nagging bumps and bruises, and he blocked a stinging shot in the New Jersey game, so there's no doubt that, once again, the Canucks could use some help on the blue line.

On the bright side, despite their horrifying goals-against the past few games, all looks fairly solid in net, and Corey Hirsch has been persuaded to abandon his work-to-rule campaign and report to Syracuse, where he has now played two games for the Crunch.

Just for the record, the Canucks are sharing their farm team with Pittsburgh this year, and the Crunch are off to a terrible start with a 1-8-2 record in the AHL.

[ issues | web extra | stats | nhl archive | home | chat | mailing list | about us | search | comments ]

1997 © Copyright LCS Hockey All Rights Reserved