Afternoon Headshots: April 29th

We’ll miss you Northwest Division.
Words from PiTB/Vancouver Sun, photo from knothappening.

It’s NHL Playoff’s eve and that means it was a busy day at Canucks Army. We podcasted with Kevin Woodley and Elliotte Friedman, we touched on the San Jose-Vancouver series being snubbed by CBC, I self-flaggelated over for some weak preseason prognosticating regarding Vancouver’s goal totals this season, argued that playing Andrew Ebbett over Jordan Schroeder doesn’t make much sense, and delved into the reasons why Jason Garrison should play on Vancouver’s top power-play unit.

We also introduced the Nation Network’s NHL Playoff Pick’Em Contest: Streak Cred, which you should totally get in on since it supports a couple of good causes, will be an awful lot of fun to play over the next couple of months, and gives you an opportunity to win some great prizes (including a trip for two to attend Oktoberfest in Bavaria).

Click past the jump for more Canucks news and other tidbits.

Kevin Bieksa’s reaction to the Jason Collins news:

Over at the mothership, Colin Hope breaks down the top-10 moments in Canucks playoff history. Sadly most of the moments at the top of the list occurred in the first round… [Canucks.com]

Also at the CDC, I wrote out some first impressions covering how the Canucks matchup with the San Jose Sharks. Check back here tomorrow for my massive series preview. [Canucks.com]

Wyatt Arndt walks us through the latest development in the friendly Roberto Luongo/Cory Schneider rivalry. It’s MORTAL PONGBAT (du-ne-du-ne-du-ne-du-ne-de-de). [Legion of Blog]

Jason Botchford gets some choice quotes from the Sedin twins, who talk about their two-way improvement this season and appear to have been conscious of people writing off their offensive dominance the past few years as zone-start inflated. This is great stuff, and exactly the sort of column that I really, honestly don’t think we get to read if we weren’t in the Behindthenet era. [The Province]

 The Canucks are staying mum on whether or not Luongo or Schneider will start on Wednesday, but now that we know that Schneider practiced on Sunday (and again today) I think it’s a safe bet that he’ll be in the lineup. [Vancouver Sun]

Speaking of video games, Daniel Wagner is joined by NHL94’s Robb Parr for a look at which Canucks are hot heading into the playoffs (how about Tom Sestito for one) and which Canucks are cold. [Pass it to Bulis]

Over at the Battle of California (one of the funniest hockey blogs, it not the outright funniest hockey blog on the internet) Megalodon brings up the five most embarrassing facts about George Vancouver. [BoC]

Here are the four things Derek Tanabe thinks the Sharks need to do to beat the Canucks. One of them is splitting up the Brad Stuart and Scott Hannan third pairing which, yeah, if the Sharks go into the series with those two playing together it pretty much explains why Vigneault has put together a Hansen, Raymond, Roy speed-line. [Fear the Fin]

It sure looks like rookie defenceman Frank Corrado, who spent most of this season in the OHL, will be in the lineup for game one of the postseason. Keith Ballard, unsurprisingly, seems likely to be relegated to the press box. [The White Towel]

The Belleville Bulls, and their captain and Canucks prospect Brendan Gaunce in particular, got a bit lucky in forcing a game seven in their Ontario Hockey League semi-final series against the Barrie Colts. That game seven goes tonight, by the way. [Yahoo]

You can watch those two Brendan Gaunce goals in this video. I’d say those were pretty flukey, not that that takes anything away from Brendan Gaunce being a damn good player:

Elsewhere in Canucks-related video content, Pass it to Bulis highlights five "playoff pump up videos" all of which are pretty decent (that is if you enjoy seeing Canucks games with all of the goals against removed). [Pass it to Bulis]