The Vancouver Canucks are currently the top team in the National Hockey League. However over their past few games, the scoring punch that has carried them to a Western Conference-best 40 wins has been missing.
Forward Mikael Samuelsson chalks it up to the grind of a long season and the extra intensity of opponents still fighting for playoff positions.
"It hasn't clicked obviously, it's hard to click for the whole season," said Samuelsson. "The other teams are playing hard and they feel like they have to win every game. That makes it harder for us, it's not going to be cute plays anymore, just throw pucks in there and hope for a good bounce."
Samuelsson dismisses the notion that the team is planning to coast the rest of the way into the playoffs.
"We still want to win games and keep our confidence up," said Samuelsson. "We have to match their battle level and have skill plays, too."
Ryan Kesler echoes that sentiment, believing that more hard work in the scoring area will be the key to an offensive revival.
"I think we need to get more traffic and pucks to the net and start getting more second and third opportunities," said Kesler. "You're going to have times during the season when the puck seems like it's not going in. The teams we're playing are really desperate, they're blocking shots and throwing their bodies in front of pucks and we just need to find ways around that."
Canucks captain Henrik Sedin feels the solution lies in doing more work in his teams' zone to generate plays going the other way.
"It comes from us not playing well defensively," said Sedin. "That's when we're scoring goals, that's when you see us open up the game and start doing the right things. Right now, we're too spread out and that gives the other team a lot of odd-number chances."
Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault agrees with his captain.
"Our puck management, our passing from defence to our forwards is not as crisp and not as good as it's been, so we're spending more unnecessary time in our own end."
The Canucks are not in danger of missing the playoffs but any slip could open the door for one of their Western Conference rivals to steal the top seed.
Entertainment Plaza - TV, Movies, Sports, Music
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99
Babe Of The Month
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99/babeofthemonth.html
Hunk Of The Month
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99/babeofthemonthman.html
No comments:
Post a Comment