Why Los Angeles Kings will eliminate Vancouver Canucks in Game 5 -NHL Playoffs Special
Vancouver Canucks have just played awfully so far in the 2012 National Hockey League (NHL) Stanley Cup Playoff Western Conference Quarterfinal series against Los Angeles and now with game 5 quickly approaching, Kings not only deserve to eliminate the struggling
Canadian team but here are a few reasons why.
Vancouver’s Goaltending Issues
Canucks definitely have some of the best goalies in the league that go by the name of Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider but being stuck up in their own mess is the reason they are going way, way down.
Luongo has chocked for the second season straight after Vancouver came into the playoffs as the Western Conference’s top seed along with being ranked the best team in terms of points. He blew it in game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals against Boston Bruins
and has unsurprisingly, done it again.
Schneider on the other hand, has not been a good enough backup to the troubles faced by Luongo. He has not done any better in net to block some goals but instead, has only made things worse.
Jonathan Quick, the Los Angeles goalie, has just been playing spectacularly well and continues to stay consistent. Kings have not had to replace him in any of the first four games as of yet while Luongo has faced the music a number of times.
“We knew Quick was a good goalie. We got a lot of shots on him. We got traffic and had some scrambles, but he always seemed to get his blocker or his glove or his stick on it. We did just about everything right today except score goals,” Vancouver forward,
Jannik Hansen, said.
Frankly, thousands of Vancouver fans are just on the edge and if Canucks are eliminated in game 5, demanding that Luongo be traded somehow despite a huge 12-year contract worth $64 million, which has him on the team till 2021-2022.
“It's hard,” Canucks captain, Henrik Sedin, said. “But you're an athlete. You're going to realize things like this happen; it's how you respond. We saw Chicago last year — they took one game from us and all of a sudden they had momentum.”
No Team Chemistry
What Los Angeles is capitalising on is the fact that Vancouver Canucks as a team, have little or no chemistry at all when playing together, especially in the postseason. They might be raking in the points during the regular season, but what is the point
of all that once it is time for the actual test and players fail in every department.
Apart from that, they have also had to play without Daniel Sedin for a number of games, but boo hoo, a lot of teams at the moment are making their way around that deficiency by taking risks with new players and it is working quite well for them.
Washington brought in a rookie to the playoffs goalie, Braden Holtby, from the minor leagues and he has so far, been an exceptional player going up against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Boston Bruins.
Conclusion
Finally, with all that said and done, there is no apparent reason in saying that Vancouver will make a comeback in game 5 and take it in 7, because the way they have been playing, Canucks should not even be able to get by the next contest, that is if we
are honestly speaking.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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