CBC-Sports

Penalty killing real key for Canucks

April 20, 2009 01:28 AM | Posted by   CBC Sports Staff  

Take Mats Sundin off the Vancouver Canucks power play and it promptly delivers three goals in a 3-2 win.

Bizarre, but that's the way it happened here against all odds, although the real key to Vancouver's win was the penalty kill in this series which has throttled St. Louis, holding them to just one goal in Game 1 in a total of 17 advantages in the series.

Twice again Sunday Vancouver was short-handed two men for over a minute each time, and both times with their top penalty-killing defenceman, Willie Mitchell, in the box, and they killed both off - the Blues getting just three shots with 6:34 of power play time in the crucial first period.

"You were looking at a pretty happy bunch of guys in here after the first period with being down just one goal," said Ryan Johnson, Vancouver's kill specialist. Johnson was 11-3 in the faceoff circle, one of the big reasons why Vancouver was so successful along with Mattias Ohlund who was a Lion on the left side where Mitchell would normally patrol on 5-on-threes.

Sundin is 'day-to-day' with a lower body injury according to coach Alain Vigneault, but with a 3-0 lead in the series, there is very little chance he'll play Tuesday.

Murray admits Blues squeezing

Blues coach Andy Murray admitted his team is squeezing their sticks on the power play, claiming 'we haven't started to play yet."

It might be a good idea to start, given only two teams have come back from the 3-0 deficit - the '42 Leafs and the '75 Islanders.

1st Canuck goal lucky

Mattias Ohlund admitted his first goal was pure horseshoes, a seeing-eye shot from the right point on his off side

"I hardly hit the puck but it kept going," he said. "It was really lucky but that's what they talk about when they say get the puck to the net."

Ohlund played over 23 minutes, 3:35 short-handed and almost all the 5-on-3 chancres by the Blues.

Kids on board

David Perron, who played despite some undisclosed injury which was threatening to keep him out, managed an outstanding play to assist on Andy McDonald's goal which tied the score at 2 late in the second period to finally give a member of the Blues famed kid line a point in the series.

That makes a total of one for the three members of their second line, which also includes rookies T.J. Oshie and Patrick Berglund. The trio has just 10 shots in three games, pretty much leaving McDonald, Brad Boyes and David Backes as the only St. Louis offence.

Backes in trouble
NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell will likely be looking at Backes' jumping of Alex Edler with six seconds remaining in the game as a possible suspendable offence after he reacted in frustration by leaping on the Swedish defenceman befire sending him crashing to the ice.

Vancouver wanted him suspended after Game 2 but it's unlikely they'll scream very loud being up in the series as they are, although Canucks coach Alain Vigneault complained his team has been on the receiving end of a 'lot of cheap shots, you know, playoff stuff," and he complimented them for keeping their cool.

"We try to play our best game each night and we're going to try to do that again Tuesday," he said after being asked what it felt like to be up 3-0 in a series, something no Vancouver Canuck team has ever experienced before, although they did win a series 3-0 over Calgary in 1982 when the first round was best-of-five.

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