Cheers and Jeers: January 2nd

Another installment of Cheers and Jeers, another recent holiday to celebrate and acknowledge. I hope everyone reading this had a swell New Years Eve. Onwards to a fantastic 2018!

The last year wasn’t the greatest in Canucks memory. They lost a lot of hockey games and weren’t all that entertaining either for a lot of them. There were a few bright spots, though. They turned a loss in the draft lottery into about as big a victory as circumstances might allow in taking Elias Pettersson fifth, and in general, they’ve done some excellent work towards rebuilding this hockey club. How’s that for some New Year cheer?

Let’s not get too carried away though right? Let’s meet some of that cheering with a little jeering — it’s all about staying grounded.

Cheers to Olli Juolevi for his performance for Team Finland in their quarterfinals loss to the Czech Republic today. Juolevi had a goal and an assist today, bringing his point total in the tournament to four (one goal and three assists) in five games, which is fantastic production for a defenceman. He also had five shots and eight total primary shot contributions at five-on-five.

Honestly, I’ve watched a lot of Juolevi, and I’m struggling to remember a performance as dominant as today’s. The only one that might come close is his singlehandedly winning game seven of the London Knights game seven match against the Windsor Spitfires in the third period.

While I know Juolevi is capable of this type of performance, from about the second round of London’s playoff run onward, he hasn’t shown it consistently. In fact, it’s been the exact opposite — Juolevi was terrible in Canucks camp.

A lot of what stuck out to me aren’t readily available through the boxcar stats or even the ones that CanucksArmy’s own Darryl Keeping is so gracious to track — seriously, this guy is doing God’s work. Juolevi’s defence of the neutral zone was, in a word, masterful. He was a brick wall at the blue line, and the Czech attack wasn’t getting through, without exception. If I were to take a guess, Juolevi and his partner Henri Jokiharju controlled north of 75% of the shot attempts.

I don’t usually go on for this long in one cheer, but if you saw Juolevi play this morning, you’d want to tell everyone about it too and in as great detail as possible. I hope that he can channel this performance when he returns to TPS Turku in the Finnish Liiga, or better still, Canucks training camp next season. Their blue line is woefully thin in terms of prospects. Juolevi has to work out.

Jeers to that god awful Canadian goal song. Yeah, you know the one. I wanna know, if you’ll be my girl, and so on. Here’s the thing — if you’re going to force that song on any team, make it Belarus or Denmark. You know, teams that can’t score. I’m at the point where I might just hit mute whenever I watch Team Canada play, and that would suck because I’d miss out on TSN’s Ray Ferraro, who is among the best colour commentators in hockey.

Cheers to Brock Boeser for winning the NHL’s Rookie of the Month award for the month of December. That’s two this season, in consecutive months no less. The last rookie to pull that off? Why, none other than Connor McDavid. That’s good company to keep.

Jeers to no Monday Mailbag this week. Sorry, folks, but I was very busy on Sunday (take a guess as to what I was preoccupied with) and very sickly on Monday (take a guess as to what afflicted me). I’ll be back next Monday, so I hope you remembered any Canucks queries for next week.

Cheers to Chris Tanev’s return from a groin strain to the Canucks’ lineup tonight against the Anaheim Ducks. Team defence hasn’t been a strength in his absence, so I know the Canucks, and head coach Travis Green especially, couldn’t be happier to get his calm, steadying presence back in the lineup.