“Consistency” one of the main aspects behind Vancouver Canucks’ immense success - NHL
Vancouver Canucks completed the 40th year of its tenure in the National Hockey League at the beginning of the 2010-11 season.
A ceremony took place before the season began, in honour of the team’s long history, as they hoped that this season would see a change in fortunes for the team. There were numerous questions at the start of the season whether or not Vancouver would make it to the play-offs after suffering consecutive losses at the hands of Chicago Blackhawks.
Although it had a slow start to the season and wasn’t among the teams piling up wins after wins, they came up with crucial wins quite frequently. As the middle of the season approached, Canucks found its best form and it was brilliant in offence as well as defence. Canucks outplayed almost all its opponents, save a few slip-ups.
Canucks’ archrivals, Chicago Blackhawks, emerged as the stronger team in the series against it as they won the first two games. It seemed as if Hawks would come out to be the better and stronger team amongst the two, once again this season. Hawks was superb in the first two games, and won one of the games by 7-1.
Canucks has seen Ryan Kesler coming up with some brilliant performances in the series so far which has also been one of the reasons behind Canucks’ success this season.
"He certainly was the best player on the ice", Columbus’ coach, Scott Arniel, said. "Sometimes he gets overshadowed by other players on the team, but his speed and his skill are real dangerous".
Canucks was brilliant in the first three games of the first round clash with Hawks. It established a 3-0 lead in the series and looked well on course to win the series. Hawks came up with a brilliant performance that resulted in the series being levelled at 3-3 and going on for a decisive Game 7.
Much to their relief, Canucks won the seventh game in overtime to win the series against Hawks for the first time in three years.
"Obviously, it is a good feeling", Vigneault said after the Game 7 win. "But we didn't get into the playoffs just to get by one round. I knew our guys were well-prepared and would bust a gut, and they did. It was a tough battle".
Canucks went on to defeat Sharks in the Western Conference Finals and will be contending for the Stanley Cup title now.
If it is able to exhibit the same performances in this game, they will surely win the Stanley Cup title this time.
Tags: