GDT: Oct 6 - Canucks host Penguins - 7pm - CBC, Versus HD

[happy]

I can't stand Malhotra, Spidey. I would much rather have a team full assholes, ie Chris Pronger and Daniel Carcillo than a team full of nice guys in the dressing room who are polite with the media. We have a weird obsession with politically correctedness in this city. When Rypien went after that fan, I was all for it, unlike everyone else in this city had their panties in a bunch because of it. Shit, I miss the Rypper.

Nice to see Luongo starting this season the same way he finished last season!!!

[JonT21]

It would help If our players could score on the shootout also

[T-BONE]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe last year's historic season began with a home opener shootout loss too.

Lots of things to like in my opinion, a few things not so much. The top line looked great, the saucer pass by Hank on the game tying goal may look easy but there are very few guys on this planet who can put a saucer pass over two defender's sticks and right on the receiver's tape. Beautiful. I loved the 3rd lines game, especially Higgins. The 4th line was good I felt in limited minutes. The obvious glaring problem was the 2nd line which looked disorganized and it seemed they were hemmed in their own zone alot. Too bad Hodgson couldn't get that winner late, or get the chance for some shootout heroics.

I liked the D's games overall, the puck seemed to be bouncing and that caused some issues handling the puck but overall I thought it was a good game. Ballard and Tanev just seem to be a great match on the blueline, even during his troublesome first year, Ballard always looked most comfortable with Tanev.

And we come to Luongo (and as I am a new comer, I will state for the record that I just don't like this guy). 2 goals that I felt were weak, especially the Cooke shorthanded goal. And as far as the shootout goes, if you deke and do not mishandle the puck, you will almost always score on Luongo. Shootouts are just not his thing.

Anyway, considering we were down 2 at one point, taking one point going away isnt a bad thing.

[Rumsfeld]

I can't stand Malhotra, Spidey. I would much rather have a team full assholes, ie Chris Pronger and Daniel Carcillo than a team full of nice guys in the dressing room who are polite with the media. We have a weird obsession with politically correctedness in this city. When Rypien went after that fan, I was all for it, unlike everyone else in this city had their panties in a bunch because of it. Shit, I miss the Rypper.

So let's get this straight. You'd like to have Chris Pronger on the team. That's thinking outside the box. And you encourage players attacking fans in the stands, even though said player was depressed and suicidal at the time... and you then go on to lament the loss of said player.

Yeah, another stellar contribution, Dude. Can't wait to see what you've got up your storm rider sleeve for the playoffs.

[Lancer]

This should not have gone to overtime. The boys had some prime chances to put this away, and they didn't. I honestly think Daniel's first non-goal shoulda counted but those will happen. By the 3rd, the Sedins showed up.

Samuelsson on the point is pathetic. Either they have to work on adapting their plays to suit his strengths/deficiencies, get him off the 1st unit PP, or just challenge him to get better.

Nice to see the D active and hammering the puck. Now if they could hit the net more often...

Higgins looked like he was still in Nashville. Hope he doesn't change. Hansen, buddy, imagine you're still in practice because your game hands still SUCK! Creates chance after chance on the forecheck, but no finish. It was enough to make me cry once or twice...

They got a point where it looked after 40 minutes like they wouldn't get any. I'll take that for an opener.

[Rudypoo]

How is it possible for a professional goaltender to be so susceptible to the exact same move for his entire career? Shooter head fakes glove side, waits for Luongo to flop then moves to the blocker side and roofs it. OK, easier said than done, but as long as the shooter doesn't bobble the puck that will be an automatic shootout goal until Melanson teaches his star pupil to either poke check, or stop overcommitting.

Not that I'm putting the shootout loss (or the loss overall) squarely at the goaltender's feet, but it's irked me for about 4 years now how laughably bad Luongo is in the shootout. I think that's about how long the book has been out on him in that regard.

On the flip side it was nice to see Fleury funnel a goal into his own net in the same fashion as Luongo. Just as an instant-karma reminder that it can happen to any goalie in the league.

On an unrelated note, perhaps KB4 really can be Ehrhoff lite this season. He's off to a pretty good start .

Anyway, meh. An all around a reasonable start to a pointless regular season.

[Rumsfeld]

Is this seriously how long a game takes nowadays?

Holy shit.

Way too much int stuff. Complain complain, ya ya....butt really? Not even into the third period @ 9:10pm?

Opening ceremony cheese. Intermissions are the same length every game. NHL games are actually significantly shorter than they used to be.

[Rudypoo]

Samuelsson on the point is pathetic. Either they have to work on adapting their plays to suit his strengths/deficiencies, get him off the 1st unit PP, or just challenge him to get better.

Agreed. God I hope that KB4 steps up his game to the point where he can take Sammy's place. Wasn't two years of Demitra enough of a disaster to end AV's fixation with having a forward back there? Yeesh. I mean...put a forward back there if you absolutely can't resist...but make it somebody with some [lateral] skating ability FFS.

[Cornuck]

Just caught the highlights. This looked like whatever you would the 'opposite of a goaltender's battle'. A lot of rust showing out there.

The Sedinery looks to picking up where it left off. I'm sure Ballard feels a LOT better after getting the goal.

We still suck at the shootouts - shooting and goaltending. I haven't played goal in a long time, but I can't remember just flopping forward. Stack the pads or something!!

Oh well, decent start and things can only get smoother.

[nuckster]

I would really like to see Schneider get the next start and begin the process of 'duelling # ones' - keep playing the number one until he loses... but.... it won't likely happen at this point in time, AV is pretty loyal to Lou an Lou would have to shit the bed in a serious way before AV will start to re-consider who's number one.

It may well be a good thing for the Nucks to be leaving on a road trip now - less pressure, more team time togther... we'll see it turns out.

[Meds]

Samuelsson is on the point for one reason, he's a right-handed shot. It makes no sense considering that we have 2 right-handed defensemen in Salo and Bieksa. Why Ballard isn't on the PP is beyond me, an offensive thinking, puck rushing blueliner and Vigneault & Co. think it makes more sense to have a forward QB the special team.

I felt our offense was in full cardiac arrest for the first period and woke up somewhat in the middle frame. Ballard's goal was a thing of beauty, actually his game was pretty solid all night long, tallying a late period goal to bring us within one just puts an exclaimation point on it.

The Sedins were the Sedins. Relative no-shows for 20 minutes (Dank's disallowed goal excepted) and then getting better and better as the game wore on until Daniel tied it with a beauty change up to the top shelf.

I couldn't figure out who was on Hodgson's line half the time, and I agree with the previous poster who mentioned that they looked disorganized out there. CoHo will excel playing with skaters who actually think the game and go to scoring areas, Samuelsson thinks his own game most of the time and has never found much long-term chemistry with anyone on this team. I hope Hodgson can put some good games together and show the coaching staff in practice that he can play on the wing, just to give Vigneault the option of putting him in and dumping Samuelsson.....wishful thinking, I know.

Third line was solid. Wish Hansen could bury some chances. As for Malhotra, I'm not sold on this guy. He's a demon in the circle, but I really do have to agree with RoyalDude here, the team needs a bit of nasty on that 3rd line, hard-nosed and hard-working, but with a bit more edge. I think I'll miss Torres for that (when he brought it that is).

4th line? Whatever. Other than Lapierre I'm not even sure who they are. I like Lapierre and having him on the 4th line is great because he'd probably be a steady 3rd line player on any other team in the league.

Our weakness tonight was in the crease. I actually have to say that every goal Luongo let in was a save just waiting to be made by almost any other goaltender. As much as Higgins must think he's still in Nashville, Luongo must too. How many of these goals is he going to let in from behind the red-line? Most goalies aren't in the V stance on their post like he is, and I can't figure out why Melanson hasn't fixed this issue. The second goal was a bit lucky, but still stoppable if he wasn't leaning sideways and back into his net. The third goal was one of those WTF markers that you just wonder how a $10M goalie can let those in time and again. I actually dump some of the absent offensive game on Luongo's shoulders tonight. Over and over we have seen this team sag and look weak on offense after Bobby Lou has let in a weak goal in the early going, tonight was no exception. If Fleury had not done us a favor by doing his best Roberto rendition on Lapierre's goal we probably wouldn't have rallied the way we did. Looking at the goals the way they were scored tonight, on both goalies, and subtracting Lapierre's lucky one, replacing Luongo with Schneider probably would have earned us a 2-1 win in regulation. I'm encouraged by Gillis' TSN segment where he says the plan is to get Schneider in a few more games this year and lessen Luongo's work load.....I hope by "a few more" he means 20 more. I predicted Luongo to come out of the gate all fired up with something to prove, all he did was prove me wrong.

[Todd Bersnoozi]

Typical Luongo, gives up another bad goal from behind the net. Lappy and Higgy looked good and nice to see Baltard get a goal. I think we got our new Demitra in Marco Sturm.

I think I'd like to see Higgy on the 2nd line with Hodgson, I think he can help Cody a bit more and they might compliment each other a bit better (maybe better chemistry).

[ClamRussel]

Ya well so did Fleury so whats your point? Give him the usual month then lets see where he's at. The whole team minus Higgins was fairly weak for the first half of the game.

Higgins was amazing, put him on the 2nd line-agreed! WAY more effective than either Samuelsson or Sturm. Ballard looks like I fully expected him now that his hip surgery is behind him. Remind me why he's not on the PP? Guy is easily our best skater in the backend....arguably our best outlet passer back there....and played the PP in Phoenix where he put up decent numbers. Samuelsson has an ok shot but is pretty much useless as a QB. Weise? Should be a Wolf by the time Pinizatto is healthy. Didn't impress me much. Hodgson looked solid in the 3rd. Malhotra looks lost. Still blown away by that Higgins performance, guy has shown up and means business!

[LotusBlossom]

Random thoughts:

Luongo and Fleury didn't exactly put on a clinic at the beginning of the game, but got better as the game went on, especially Fleury.

Volpatti looked a little nervous early on in the game and coughed up a bad turnover that resulted in a goal.

Luongo still can't stop much in the shootout, but I blame AV for not practicing it enough

Pot-- Stanley Park Amber in the BBC n Bud...no Keiths, BUT...they had 12 oz glasses but still charged us the 16 oz prices

Ballard looked more confident out there.

Chemistry a little off still, but it's game 1.

I like the electronic 50/50 and it was carried over tonight, lucky winner taking home over $65K

Cody had an opportunity to close out this game, as did Daniel, c'est domage. Happens.

Lost in a shootout, sounds a little deja vu to me. Next game!

[Todd Bersnoozi]

Nice to see the Cooker have a good game too. I always liked him when he was a Nuck, played with a lot of jam and brought his lunch bunket every nite. He's the type of guy who has to play with an edge, but hopefully he can clean up the dirty shots to the head. Tonite he showed he can play in the NHL, hopefully he can get back to the way he played when he was in Van-City.