The Vancouver Canucks Face the Music against the St. Louis Blues
Valentine’s Day couldn’t have been more of a disappointment for the Vancouver Canucks, as they lost to the St. Louis Blues Monday night 3-2. The Blues are one of the lowest ranking teams this season in the NHL (currently 13th in the Western Conference)
but put on an invigorating show for the sold-out crowd of 19,150 at their very own Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
Blues centres, Andy McDonald and Patrik Berglund, both took advantage of granted power plays along with Alex Steen, and scored for St. Louis, grabbing the game early on. Steen finally finished his goal famine which was going on for the past 11 games. This
has been the Blues third win in the last 10 games played by them, and winning against the most powerful team in the NHL has to be something which will make their Valentine’s Day even more special.
Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo made 31 out of 34 saves while counterpart Jaroslav Halak deflected 23 of 25 attempts.
It was 3-1 at the end of the first 40 minutes, with only Henrik Sedin managing to get his 13th of the season through Halak. Things were looking up for the Canucks as Jannik Hansen scored within two minutes in the final period, but Halak was too
much for the Canucks to handle, blocking the last 8 attempts at the net making it look like child’s play.
Alex Burrows seemed to have tied the game with 40.8 seconds remaining in the final, but referee, Tim Peel, declared it illegal, terming it a push by Burrows on Halak to release the puck.
Vancouver out of Defensemen
The Canucks unquestionably have a great offensive team, but as the season progresses they are losing their top defensemen to various injuries at the wrong time. Coach Alain Vigneault confirmed that Andrew Alberts is out until further notice due to a broken
wrist which occurred in the match. Alberts is included into the list of other star defensemen who are on the injured list such as Alex Edler, Dan Hamhuis, Keith Ballard and Lea Sweatt. This makes their total defensemen tally 5 out of 6 injured, forcing them
to recall players from local city leagues to make up the deficiencies. Yan Sauve has been called from the Manitoba Moose to take Alberts’ place.
Vancouver is still ahead of the rest with 81 points, but loosing against teams like St. Louis and previously against the Anaheim Ducks doesn’t show positivity for them. They face the Minnesota Wild tomorrow night in their second game away.
St. Louis is only six points shy from reaching that playoff spot, facing the Buffalo Sabres Friday will certainly prove to be the decider on what their position might be later on.
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