Throughout the season, the Canucks Wagonwatch series will track how much room is on the team’s bandwagon. In addition, it will also track the completely separate Luongo wagon.

Since January 7th, when the Canucks played the Bruins in Boston, the Canucks have not played a full game. Tonight they played about 15 minutes of good Canucks hockey, but still pulled off the 3-1 victory over the Avalanche.

Canucks Bandwagon: 70% full

The Canucks scored 13 seconds into the game on a wild backhand shot from David Booth, and it looked like it was going to be a good one. However, the Canucks held true to the form of their last 5 weeks, and conceded the game tying goal in the 2nd period. Truthfully the Canucks didn’t start playing with any desperation until the middle of the 3rd period, and even then couldn’t get many shots off of any sustained pressure. Hansen broke the tie with 6 minutes to go in the 3rd, off a nice soft pass from Hodgson in the slot. Burrows added an empty net goal, and that was that. The shot totals didn’t really tell the real story as many of the Canucks shots were from wide angles.

Luongo Bandwagon: 90% full

Luongo allowed one goal on 30 shots, and showed some nice flashes with his glove hand. Although perhaps a touch on the adventurous side outside of the crease, he was sharp all night. Luongo held the Canucks in it when they took a 45 minute nap in the middle of the game. The one goal that beat Luongo had him moving from right to left, coming on a wrister from 18 feet. Great pass and a pretty good goal from Erik Johnson.

The Slump continues .. but so do the wins

Maybe the Canucks didn’t deserve to win tonight. They got it done again with solid goaltending, and timely bursts of offence at the beginning and the end of the game. They looked to have trouble generating speed through the neutral zone, they couldn’t complete passes on the rush, their timing was off, and all in all they looked out of sync for much of the game.

My Dad’s first ever Canucks game!

At Christmas, I got my Dad a pair of tickets to tonight’s game. He had never been to a Canucks game before. I’m certain I used to make him listen to Jim Robson’s call on CKNW for hundreds of games in the 80’s. Before the game we went to Kam Gok Yuen in Chinatown for a bite to eat. I haven’t eaten there in over 20 years, but I can tell you two things:

1) The place has not changed in 20 years. The same ole servers. Same decor. Same floor tiles.

2) Still has some of the best Char Seeuw (BBQ pork) in the city – on my primitive scale of price and quality.

 

After Luongo is named the 1st star of the game, he usually skates out and gives his game stick to a lucky fan in the audience. Tonight it wasn’t a young fan, it was an older lady who was also attending her first ever Canucks game!

After the game, we were lucky enough to meet Kevin (@Kev_MacD on Twitter) who was kind enough to give us a quick tour of his turf on the 500 level at Rogers Arena.

For as long as I have been a fan, I’ve never had the opportunity to look at the arena from that level. It was a great way to finish up the game experience for my Dad, who is undefeated and holds a record of 1-0 while in attendance.