Saturday, May 05, 2007

Cherniak sucks!*

Well, it seems the season has come to a disappointing end for my Vancouver Canucks.

I could focus on the negative, like how the heck did they manage to blow a 2-0 lead after two periods in game four, where’d the scoring go, why were the Sedins so inconsistent, has anyone seen Markus freakin Naslund, and other such stuff. And all valid questions.

Really, though, at the start of the year the Canucks weren’t expected to get near as far as they did. This wasn’t the team we had last year when we were expected to make a run, but failed to even make the playoffs.

Gone was Todd Bertuzzi who, say what you will about him, is a top talent. Gone was Ed Jovanoski, a first rank offensive defenseman. Gone was Anson Carter, who had found magic with the Sedins. In was Roberto Luongo, the first world class goalie to ever don a Canucks uni. But could he carry the team himself?

Turns out, he could, and pretty far. After a rough start to the season where they couldn’t buy a goal (kind of like the end) they bought into Alain Vingeault’s defense-first system, the goals started to come, and Luongo kept them in every game. Somehow they started to win and get on a roll, win their division, win a round, and make it to game five of round two.

When you think about where we were at the start of the year, that’s a pretty good season. And there is only reason the Canucks went as far as they did: Roberto Luongo. So, enjoy a deserved summer off Canucks. I just hope Dave Nonis will get Roberto some help during the offseason, maybe a scorer or two.

*
Not really, just testing a theory that posts with such a headline will get more votes on Progressive Bloggers

Recommend this Post on Progressive Bloggers

6 comments:

Mark Richard Francis said...

Vancouver has a hockey team?

Oxford County Liberals said...

Well, it's got 8 votes so far :)

Woman at Mile 0 said...

It seems to be working Bcer.

Jason Cherniak said...

Frigging hillarious.

Canadian Tar Heel said...

If your theory is that titles with Cherniak's name (especially negative ones) get more votes at PB, then you may be right. The last time I checked there were about 15 votes provided that folks didn't read your explanation and skew the results.

Stephen K said...

They certainly exceeded pre-season expectations. They have a goalie around which to build the franchise now, and 5 solid top 4 defensemen. Thye just ot get more offensive talent. And they need to keep Linden.