Canucks Nation

Thoughts… November 19th, 2008 by Jason Chen | No Comments - No surprise from anyone that Dustin Penner got benched by Craig MacTavish. The $4.25m man never lived up to expectations and probably never well. Brian Burke felt that the massive overpayment would have ramifications on the free agent market, but it didn’t, but regardless Burke gets the last laugh because now the Oilers are stuck with Penner for a long time. Except the hockey gods are giving Penner another chance, now with Fernando Pi

Your guest Fixer is Garey G. Ris: For years fans and commentators have argued the merits of a playoff in college football. Now that President-elect Barack Obama has chimed in — first on ESPN and then last Sunday on “60 Minutes,” maybe the conference commissioners of the Bowl Championship Series will give more thought to a football playoff. They’ve stubbornly resisted calls for change, defending a system that many fans, players and commentators don’t like. In his interview with newsman Steve K

All signs point to yes, including Gillis scouting the NYR/OTT game the other day. Are they scouting him, and more importantly, should they be?

Almost from the get-go, he felt lost. A first-round draft pick, fifth overall, of the Colorado Rockies in 1978, Mike Gillis injured a knee in his first training camp, had surgery, and didn’t feel healthy for three years. “I fought, really, to hang on,” he said. “There wasn’t anywhere, really, where you could go to get help.” Thirty years later as the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, Gillis intends to make sure that no Canucks player feels as he did during the transition period from a

Kukla’s Korner’s resident Sens blogger SENShobo has a post this morning entitled “Senators Improving as Losing Streak Reaches 5.” Geez, you know things are bad when. Trade rumours continue to swirl: the Sun reports that Vancouver GM Mike Gillis and Minnesota GM Doug Risebrough were both at the game last night, along with scouts from Columbus and Los Angeles. Rumours involving the Blue Jackets make me nervous due to the slight chance that they could result in Jason Spezza leaving town: I know h

Vancouver Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis has teamed with a military sleep expert to boost his team's performance. Gillis understands the connection between sleep and winning and he has taken very commendable (albeit unconventional) steps to make certain his team well-rested. The Canucks are required to wear a biorhythm bracelet that measures the athlete's waking and sleeping patterns. The information is then used to adjust the team's schedule and hotel room pairings with the goal of maxi

There are two questions on the minds of Islander fans these days:  Who the heck are these guys wearing Islander uniforms and where have they been? New York won it’s third straight game last night, beating the heavily favored (at least according to the Canadian media) Vancouver Canucks 2-1.  The well fought contest had to be [...]

So much for goals and entertainment! The Canucks started their 4 game road trip with a lack luster all around effort that ended up with a single point in the standings in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Islanders.   Give the New Yorkers credit, they didn’t give up and Joey MacDonald was very good in goal, [...]

via Ottawa Citizen: There are almost too many to recount, but one of the main ones has a defenceman such as Vancouver Canucks’ Mattias Ohlund, Florida Panters’ Jay Bouwmeester, or even Nashville Predators’ Greg de Vries (a former Senator) coming to Ottawa for Antoine Vermette or Neil. All three of those defencemen will be unrestricted free agents when the season is over, so it would be a gamble for general manager Bryan Murray. Christoph Schubert is thought to be trade bait, but the Senators

The Red Wings found their identity as a team with both stellar offence and a great commitment to defensive play during their 4-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday, playing a full sixty-minute game for the first time in...

The Leafs hosted the Boston Bruins last night at the ACC and ended up on the short end of the score board 3-2. Vesa Toskala was ordinary in the Leafs net and that was the whole difference in the game. He let in a soft one by Phil Kessel and then let out a huge rebound on the Bruins second goal to put the Leafs down by two after the first period, an all too familiar start for the Leafs. The Leafs did out play the Bruins for the rest of the game but Tim Thomas was good and also lucky in the

In this episode, we go a little longer than normal, but it’s worth it.  We are talking to three fantastic bloggers this week: Alanah from Canucks and Beyond talks with us about the Roberto Luongo shutout streak Steve Lepore from Puck the Media chats about Versus ratings, and a whole lot more Earl Sleek of the Battle of California gives us some perspective on Brian Burke stepping down as GM of the Ducks Plus, Tom and I talk about the news of the week, and we put out the call to you, the list

Apologies to Bryan for posting right after him, but I have something quick I need to saw. I know that nobody really watches network news for sports scores in this age of the Internet, 4 ESPN channels, and a bunch of other local sports channels that have scrolling scores constantly on the bottom. That said, someone in my house was watching Channel 11's nightly news, and they said, "Coming up: We know who the NL MVP is, more on the Giants steamrolling the Ravens, and the Rangers and Islanders bo

Islanders announce several player moves Lighthouse Hockey found this 4 hours ago on islanders.nhl.com Find more top sports news, videos, and blogs on BallHype: NHL, Brendan Witt, New York Islanders, Bridgeport Sound Tigers, Vancouver Canucks, Mike Sillinger

So tonight was interesting. Two New York teams playing at home against Canadian opponents, two 2-1 shootout wins for the locals. Zach will be by to tell you more about the Rangers game. As for the Islanders...  - Zach talked me into buying back into online gambling. So I did. I considered betting the under for this game, which was five goals. I ultimately decided against it and bet the under in tonight's Bills-Browns game, which was said to be played in snowy conditions. The under in that game

A preview of the Wild. Record: 10-4-1 Leading Scorer: Mikko Koivu (right with goaltender Niklas Backstrom), 15 points (2 goals, 13 assists). Last Game: 3-2 home shootout win against the Blue Jackets Saturday. Last Game against the Penguins: 4-2 home loss. Sidney Crosby had a goal and three assists. Wild Player We Would Bet Money On Scoring: Owen Nolan. He has 36 points (15 goals, 21 assists) in 32 career games against the Penguins. Ex-Penguins: Mike Ramsey, assistant coach. Usele

Not since Doug Flutie and Pavel Bure shared headlines 17 years ago have two athletes turned in provided more thrills for Vancouver sports fans than Wake and Luongo. SportsAnna posted 108 minutes ago from www.straight.com Find more top sports news, videos, and blogs on BallHype: NHL, Roberto Luongo, Vancouver Canucks

Your pick for a player to watch from last year, Alex Ovechkin, was right on the money. While Ovechkin is currently struggling, who do you think will be the player to watch as this season unfolds? I have a head start this season, so it would be too easy to point at Semin and Malkin and predict they’ll surpass their more famous teammates. Instead I’ll turn my focus to the West and shine the light on Corey Perry in Anaheim.  Playing on that line, and with any kind of creative freedom, he’s cap

The Morning Skate: Visitors From Canada Invade New York Wearing Sweaters By Stu Hackel Rangers defenseman Wade Redden gets off the subway tonight to face his former team, the Senators, losers of four in a row and there’s a lot on the line for the Ottawa: James Gordon blogs at the Ottawa Citizen, “Couple a loss to the Rangers tonight with a win by the Florida Panthers over the Lightning tomorrow and this once mighty Canadian franchise will be dead last in the National Hockey League.” But th

NHL  Live! Vancouver Canucks  vs. New York Islanders