Vancouver Canucks destroy sorry Minnesota Wild 5-2 - NHL Update
Vancouver Canucks finally ended a game with a comfortable win in regular time as they pounded Minnesota Wild, 5-2, on Thursday, February 9th, 2012, at the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota.
The victory ended a run of five straight games in which Vancouver have finished their matches beyond regulation time, and their third win in a row now puts them just a point behind Western Conference leaders, Detroit Red Wings.
Goaltender, Cory Schneider, who made 24 saves during the game after filling in for regular goaltender, Roberto Luongo was more than happy with the comfortable margin.
Talking to the press after the game, he said:
"It was great to get a regulation game and take some stress off a few people, definitely the way we want to play."
Canucks' record improves to 34-15-5 with 73 points and its coach, Alain Vigneault praised his team’s efforts.
"When it was time to be physical and be gritty, I thought our guys were physical and gritty.”
For the Minnesota Wild, it was much of the same as their continued struggles in offence entering February has seen the team drop down from the playoff, down to tenth from eighth in the Western Conference.
This was the team’s third straight defeat since a 1-0 road win over Colorado Avalanche on February 2nd and coach Mike Yeo was livid with his players’ efforts and lambasted the team for not doing enough in their recent matches.
"We flat-out stink the last two months. We stink," Yeo said. "We come in and we don't have a good enough effort from too many guys. That's concerning. I'm concerned about the fact that we come into games and we don't have enough guys when we should have absolute desperation in our game playing against a team like this. We have too many guys not ready to pay the price."
The loss dropped the playoff spot chasing Wild's record down to 25-21-8 and Minnesota has a lot of work to do to not drop further down the table.
It all seemed to be going Minnesota’s way right from the starting bell.
Wild took the lead just 13-seconds in as right wing Dany Heatley beat Schneider from close range.
Devin Setoguchi picked up the assist after setting up Heatley’s opener, which has entered the record books as the fastest goal in the franchise's history.
A dream start would turn quickly into a nightmare as the Canucks responded late in the first period to equalise and then take the lead, outshooting Minnesota 9-5.
Vancouver equalised at 14:04 after taking advantage of a 5-on-3 power play.
Alexander Edler’s powerful shot bounced back from the post straight into the path of Daniel Sedin who made no mistake.
Five minutes later, Canucks picked up a one goal lead as Maxim Lapierre sent in the puck past Wild's goaltender, Niklas Backstrom.
Vancouver built up a two goal lead in the second period as they went 3-1 up as the second Sedin twin, Henrik fired past Backstrom at 0:50.
The game was all but over in the third period.
At 7:32, Manny Malhotra got his fifth of the season to make it 4-1 and even though Minnesota pegged back the score after Devin Setoguchi made it 4-2 on the power play, the game was over with Ryan Kesler making it 5-2 at 18:47.
Canucks will now travel to Calgary to face the Flames on Saturday, February 11th while Minnesota will look for redemption as they welcome Columbus Blue Jackets to the Xcel Energy Center.
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