Tag Archives: playoff

Canucks are prepared: Vigneault

Posted on September 20, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Alain Vigneault was distributing newspapers rather than reading them Thursday. Wise decision.

In conjunction with the annual Raise-A-Reader program, the Vancouver Canucks coach stood on the corner of Granville and Georgia and spent the majority of his two-hour commitment posing for pictures and signing autographs. It kept the bench boss from flipping pages and being reminded of the frustrating NHL lockout and that main camp would have opened Friday.

And all that hockey talk may have triggered the memory of when many — including this writer — wondered whether Vigneault would retain his position following a quick five-game playoff exit by the Presidents’ Trophy winners.

“I’m not a big reader, but I read what I like and I like sports,” said Vigneault.

“I read a lot of stuff like that.”

If he read all the analysis, projections and suggestions from four months ago of what the Canucks could or should do with their front-office staff, he probably doubled over in laughter at his...

Canucks re-sign Mason Raymond to one year, $2.275 million deal

Posted on July 9, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Life is more than good for Mason Raymond. It's great.

With his feet up at the family's summer retreat in Invermere, B.C. and his career hopes up after agreeing to a $2.275 million US one-year contract Monday to avoid behind taking to arbitration by the Vancouver Canucks, the left winger expects to up his production next NHL season even though he took a $325,000 pay cut.

That confidence comes from a full offseason to train after a compression vertebrae fracture suffered in Game 6 of the 2011 Stanley Cup final. It put the 26-year-old Cochrane, Alta. native in a back brace for two months and placed his career in jeopardy before he finally returned to the lineup Dec. 4. The optimism also comes from the Canucks taking another leap of faith after Raymond managed just 10 goals and 20 points in 55 games and added but one assist in five playoff games. At the end of it all, he...

Parise and Suter cannot save Wild by themselves

Posted on July 5, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

The last time there was this much hype about the Minnesota Wild was last fall at UBC.

Following a spirited practice in advance of facing the Vancouver Canucks, the newly acquired dynamic duo of Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi broke out the baseball gloves. And the symbolism of watching Heatley’s big windup and subsequent heater into the glove of Setoguchi wasn’t lost on anybody.

If the Wild were going to climb out of the Northwest Division wilderness with the 26th-ranked offence, the new guys would have to lead.

And they did. For a while.

The Wild won 20 of their first 30 games, were first overall in the NHL by December, and Heatley and Setoguchi were getting the kinks out with seven and nine goals respectively in that span.

But the Wild would turn into, well, the Wild. While Heatley would lead the club with 24 goals and 53 points — Setoguchi was fourth with 36 points including 19 goals despite a knee...

Parise, Suter can’t save Minnesota Wild on their own

Posted on July 4, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

The last time there was this much hype about the Minnesota Wild was last fall at UBC.

If the Wild were going to climb out of the Northwest Division wilderness with the 26th-ranked offence, the new guys would have to lead.

And they did. For a while.

The Wild won 20 of their first 30 games, were first overall in the NHL by December, and Heatley and Setoguchi were getting the kinks out with seven and nine goals respectively in that span.

But the Wild would turn into, well, the Wild. While Heatley would lead the club with 24 goals and 53 points — Setoguchi was fourth with 36 points including 19 goals despite a knee...

Canucks need a centre who can score, but who?

Posted on July 4, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

The Canucks may have improved their defence by signing Jason Garrison, but that’s not the only area that needed to be addressed after they lost in the first round to the L.A. Kings.

Much like the Stanley Cup final in 2011, the Canucks couldn’t score.

Granted, in both series, they ran into the hottest goalie in the NHL. But they didn’t exactly make life difficult for either Tim Thomas or Jonathan Quick. Not enough, anyway.

The Canucks have 16 goals in their past 13 playoff games and that’s before they had what exists now — a fairly substantial hole at centre.

If the season starts on time, as it stands now, their healthy centres with NHL experience would be Henrik Sedin, Max Lapierre and Manny Malhotra.

There are reports the Canucks tried to fill the void with Olli Jokinen, a centre who may have been considered if he was willing to take a one-year deal. If true, it should indicate how shallow this...

Canucks short on free-agent options at centre

Posted on July 3, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

The Canucks may have improved their defence by signing Jason Garrison, but that’s not the only area that needed to be addressed after they lost in the first round to the L.A. Kings.

Much like the Stanley Cup final in 2011, the Canucks couldn’t score.

Granted, in both series, they ran into the hottest goalie in the NHL. But they didn’t exactly make life difficult for either Tim Thomas or Jonathan Quick. Not enough, anyway.

The Canucks have 16 goals in their past 13 playoff games and that’s before they had what exists now — a fairly substantial hole at centre.

If the season starts on time, as it stands now, their healthy centres with NHL experience would be Henrik Sedin, Max Lapierre and Manny Malhotra.

Stanley Cup Final: Kings look to Cup stranglehold over Devils in L.A. Monday night

Posted on June 4, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

After winning the first two games on the road, the Los Angeles Kings will try to take a stranglehold on the Stanley Cup Finals tonight, when they host the New Jersey Devils in Game 3 at the Staples Center. The Kings notched a pair of 2-1 overtime victories in New Jersey in the first two tilts of this best-of-seven series, marking the first time in 61 years that Games 1 and 2 of the Cup Finals were decided beyond regulation. Anze Kopitar recorded the OT winner on a breakaway in Game 1 and Jeff Carter ended Saturday’s second game with a superb individual effort. Carter scored with 6:18 remaining in overtime to help move the Kings closer to their first-ever Stanley Cup championship. Carter gathered the puck after circling around the New Jersey net, moved into the high slot and fired a low wrister past Martin Brodeur’s right shoulder and inside the left post. “It’s a huge [goal]....

Alain Vigneault’s brash style could split Canucks locker room

Posted on May 25, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Alain Vigneault and Ryan Kesler might be seeing eye-to-eye after the Canucks' coach drove over Kes in a turnip truck.

When former general manager Dave Nonis first hired Alain Vigneault and then a year later elevated him from Manitoba to be the Canucks head coach, he warned everyone that this guy would say things people would find upsetting.

And as Willie Mitchell, Cody Hodgson and now Ryan Kesler for the second time have discovered, Nonis had a pretty good idea of what he was talking about. Kesler found himself under the Vigneault bus once again Wednesday when the coach was enjoying a self-serving, post contract-extension conference call with the media and took a break from listing his accomplishments to tell everyone he didn’t think the American centre’s injury was a factor in his poor playoff performance.

Kesler’s agent Kurt Overhardt danced pretty well Thursday before saying his client was “perplexed” by Vigneault’s comments. And while the player wasn’t talking publicly, he wasn’t amused, just as Cody Hodgson and his camp were not amused when Dr. Vigneault essentially suggested the player...

Fan-Attic: Canucks GM Gillis stands by his man

Posted on May 24, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

In breaking but hardly surprising news, it was announced yesterday that Canuck General Manager Mike Gillis has extended the contract of his coach, Alain Vigneault, for two more seasons. This means that Vigneault will be on the payroll until the end of the 2014-15 season, by which point he will have served nine years as the Canucks’ bench boss.

Once Gillis’ contract was extended by ownership, it was only a matter of time before the same was done for Vigneault. The only way the back-to-back Presidents’ Trophy winning coach was going to lose his job was if the Canucks ownership made the radical decision to jettison Gillis. In the immediate wake of this disappointing season, Gillis made it clear that Vigneault was his guy. And it was quite clear that Gillis was not about to be bullied by ownership into axing his coach.

Vigneault is the coach with the fourth longest tenure of current NHL bench bosses, trailing only Lindy...

Gallagher: Vigneault’s ‘charm’ could split Canucks locker-room

Posted on May 24, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Iain MacIntyre: Returning Canucks coach Alain Vigneault ‘grateful’ for opportunity in Vancouver

Posted on May 24, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

VANCOUVER — The conference call didn’t work at the start like the Vancouver Canucks didn’t work at the end, but coach Alain Vigneault survived both malfunctions and broke his silence Wednesday when the National Hockey League team extended his contract by two seasons.

Part victory speech and part post-mortem, Vigneault finally addressed reporters a month after the Canucks were steamrolled by the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the Stanley Cup tournament.

He indicated the switch to goalie Cory Schneider will probably be permanent.

He admitted the Canucks, after going to the Stanley Cup final 11 months ago, struggled mentally during the season and did not reach the level necessary to win in the playoffs.

He took responsibility for failing to plan for the initial playoff absence of concussed winger Daniel Sedin, who the Canucks had expected to be ready for the post-season.

Thankfully, mercifully, he had nothing to say about Cody Hodgson.

Often during the 30-minute conference call, Vigneault simply sounded...

NHL Playoffs: New Jersey Devils desperate for a win

Posted on May 21, 2012 by admin in Province Hockey | No comments

Sports Network - The New Jersey Devils will try to even the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals tonight, when they host the New York Rangers in a pivotal Game 4 at the Prudential Center.

The top-seeded Rangers hold a 2-1 edge in this series after taking Games 1 and 3 by identical 3-0 scores. New Jersey recorded its one victory on the road in Game 2, beating New York in 3-2 fashion.

Henrik Lundqvist posted his second shutout of this series and third of this year’s playoffs thanks to 36 saves in Saturday’s triumph in New Jersey. Lundqvist, who is a finalist for both the Vezina and Hart Trophies this season, has a 1.57 goals-against average and .942 save percentage to go with his three shutouts in the 2012 postseason.

Ryan Callahan had a goal and an assist while Dan Girardi and Chris Kreider also scored for the Rangers, who are in the conference finals for the first time since 1997 and...

Iain MacIntyre: Canucks owners should realize team needs tuneup, not front office overhaul

Posted on May 7, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

Iain MacIntyre, Vancouver Sun columnist VANCOUVER — This was going to begin “Dear Francesco,” but a journalism instructor once told me personal letters were a lazy way to write columns and, besides, Francesco Aquilini is probably too busy this morning to read correspondence. The Vancouver Canucks’ managing owner is believed to be meeting his general manager, 15 days after the end of the team’s National Hockey League season. Don’t expect any announcements or even official confirmation that the summit occurred. If Mike Gillis is still the general manager at the end of the week, we’ll know the meeting went pretty well and the Canucks are mobilizing with Alain Vigneault as coach for another run at the Stanley Cup next season. And if not, well, you better assume the crash position and understand there will be personnel matters this spring and summer more weighty than what to do with Mason Raymond. Unless every columnist, blogger, commentator, talk show host, NHL insider and hairdresser has it...

Canuck owners should realize team needs tuneup, not front office overhaul

Posted on May 6, 2012 by admin in Sun Hockey | No comments

This was going to begin “Dear Francesco,” but a journalism instructor once told me personal letters were a lazy way to write columns and, besides, Francesco Aquilini is probably too busy this morning to read correspondence.

The Vancouver Canucks’ managing owner is believed to be meeting his general manager, 15 days after the end of the team’s National Hockey League season.

Don’t expect any announcements or even official confirmation that the summit occurred. If Mike Gillis is still the general manager at the end of the week, we’ll know the meeting went pretty well and the Canucks are mobilizing with Alain Vigneault as coach for another run at the Stanley Cup next season.

And if not, well, you better assume the crash position and understand there will be personnel matters this spring and summer more weighty than what to do with Mason Raymond.

Unless every columnist, blogger, commentator, talk show host, NHL insider and hairdresser has it wrong, a key item on...