Canucks Take Game 1!

by Anne

Woooo! The Vancouver Canucks won Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Semi-finals against the Chicago Blackhawks 5-3, thanks mostly to Kyle Wellwood's face.

Wellwood was high sticked TWICE last night and blood was drawn both times, resulting in a pair of four minute power plays.

Unfortunately, the power play was where you saw the cobwebs in Vancouver's game. They failed to connect on the first four minute man advantage but Duncan Keith took a penalty immediately after and Demitra scored on the following powerplay.

The Canucks dominated the scoreboard for the first 40 minutes and then decided to bake brownies for the after party during the third and the Blackhawks scored three goals to tie the game at three. Whoops. Fortunately Sami Salo tapped in a Big Bear rebound as the trailer on a great odd man rush to re-take the lead. Ryan Johnson and added an empty netter to ice the cake of the first game.

I'm going to enjoy this series, so far so good. Even though the Canucks were on the brink of an Epic Third Period Collapse, they manged to provide the offense to win the game.

This game showed that Roberto Luongo isn't the only Canuck who can win a game. He let in three goals, more (I think) than he let in in any of the four games against St. Louis, but the Canucks also score more goals than they did against the Blues.

Ain't no way this series is going to be a sweep though, I predict it goes at least six.

Big Bear had yet another amazing opportunity in front but Khabby was up to the challenge and swallowed up the puck to make the stop. Although Big Bear's playoff scruff is quite dashing I must say. He had two assists and was a +2. Yay Big Bear!

Sami! Not the face!

Next game Saturday at 9:00 (I'll be working, boooo.)