For the 50th time, a total lack of consistency
This week, things that drive me crazy about the Canucks and the NHL schedule. Win against St. Louis, the best team in the NHL.
A great game, lots of players on the Canucks shone. Three days later? Lose to the bottom-scraping Ducks.
Sigh.
I think that I may have figured out the reason for these strange and incredibly frustrating letdowns.
The Canucks clearly are playing for the playoffs, the regular season doesn’t matter to them too much as long as they win the division.
They turn it on against good teams, and relax against weaker ones, which explains the weird ups and downs against mediocre-pathetic teams.
THIS IS A PROBLEM!
If the Vancouver Canucks cannot maintain the intensity they will give away games against a very strong Western Conference and sacrifice position and home ice advantage.
What’s more, I HATE when teams act like they can just “turn it on” whenever they want.
That might not always be the case come playoffs, and an injury can really force a team to step it up.
If the Canucks aren’t used to maintaining that high level of play, they won’t be able to find that extra gear in the playoffs.
The Nucks turn it on against good teams, and relax against weaker ones
STOP SCREWING AROUND!!
The Canucks schedule
So far they’ve played the most games of any team in the NHL, and after last night they play 3 games in the next 15 days.
This is logical, how?
The long layoff just means they lose any rhthym that they may have had, and it also means they get to watch other teams play games and pass them in the standings while they can’t do anything about it.
Is it so hard to just keep all the teams playing relatively regular games without any huge breaks?
This also means that for the next 15 days sportswriters will desperately have to cling to stupid rumors or stories in order to meet word counts and deadlines, and the general quality of news will be awful.
Edmonton heading for a third straight lottery pick
OK so it’s not Canucks news, I’m breaking a few rules and my editor will be irritated. But that’s OK because I need to talk about this.
The Oilers are currently in contention for their THIRD STRAIGHT #1 draft pick.
This would be unprecedented in the modern era and completely ridiculous.
No one thought they would be a contender, but they should at least have been a top 12 team in the west.
They have too much talent to be this bad. It ends up creating loaded squads like Pittsburgh, who got lucky by being bad when two great players were available, and are only down now because of injuries.
Time for the NHL to make a rule that a team can’t pick in the top 5 for three consecutive years.
About Riley Trottier
