2010 Compuware NHL Premiere Series – Vancouver Canucks win 3-1 against the Colorado Avalanche
The 177th game of the NHL regular season saw the Vancouver Canucks play the Colorado Avalanche. The game took place at the Pepsi Centre, home of the Colorado Avalanche this Thursday. This was the 12th game for both the teams in the
campaign thus far which saw around 13,000 fans come in support of their respective teams. The Vancouver Canucks looked stronger of the two teams from the start of the match and managed to come up with an impressive performance as they won the match 3-1 at
the end.
1st Period
The Vancouver Canucks were determined on not letting the Colorado score first as they have the tendency to become a formidable unit once they are the first to score. They tried hard to score and manage to come with opportunities. There was a lack of coordination
up front at the crucial stage, which hindered them from scoring.
The Vancouver Canucks dominated the play early on when things kicked off and they managed to score in the 4th minute to take the lead. The goal was scored by Ryan Kesler through a flick shot from 42 feet. When the goal was scored quite early in
the match many expected this to turn into a goal fiesta but this wasn’t the case. After scoring the goal both teams were content on not letting the other team score any further goals.
Both the teams made attacks but not at the cost of open spaces left at the back. They took calculated risks which worked though neither of the teams could score. The period ended with the Vancouver Canucks in the lead at 1-0. During the course of the period,
the home team made 8 goal attempts and the Vancouver Canucks made 18 goal attempts!
2nd Period
The 2nd period started off in a similar fashion as the 1st period. The difference this time was that the Vancouver Canucks went into the attack with full force. They maintained a decent defence but their main focus was on doubling the
lead.
The Vancouver Canucks came up with some excellent pieces of play and they almost doubled their lead in the very first minute. However, it was not until the 4th minute that fans saw the first goal of the period. The goal was scored by Captain of
the Vancouver Canucks, Henrik Sedin.
The period ended with the score 2-0 in favour of the Canucks with both teams making 12 goal attempts during the course of the period.
3rd Period
The final period saw the Vancouver Canucks take the score to 3-0 when they scored in the 5th minute. The goal was scored through Raffi Torres from a simple tip in shot from 13 feet during power play. The match didn’t see much after this as the
game was sealed by the Canucks with the 3rd goal.
Though the Colorado Avalanche scored in the 17th minute through Van Der Gulik but it was no more than just a consolation goal. The period and the match ended with the Vancouver Canucks winning 3-1.
At the end of the match goal keeper of the Vancouver Canucks said, "I've been working hard every day in practice and keeping my conditioning up," said Schneider, who hadn't played since Oct. 22 when he made 23 saves in a 5-1 win against Minnesota. "I've
won all three games, and that's what's important. I want to be a guy that they can count on winning games and not go in and hope you win. The stats are what they are, but that's more of a reflection of how my team has played in front of me."
At the end of the game the losing team’s Coach Joe Sacco said, "I thought they played harder than we did," Sacco said. "They wanted the puck more than we did. When you do that, you usually end up winning games. It was like that 5-on-5 and 5-on-4.”
"You're going to lose games in the course of a season, but I didn't like the way we lost this game. I didn't think we were ready to start on time. For such an important game, we didn't have the usual energy that we have in our game. I called the timeout
pretty early there just to wake the guys up. We didn't play to our identity tonigh," he concluded.
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