GDRC – Blues @ Canucks

 

The eight-game home stand continues tonight as the St. Luois Blues visit GM Place to play the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks will look to buck their recent trend of playing well against good teams, and playing poorly against struggling teams. The Blues are struggling right now, so the perfect tonic for them would seem to be to play the Canucks.

For one reason or another, the Canucks just can’t seem to find the wherewithal to pounce on bad teams. Instead they drop their game and their guard down and put forth lacklustre efforts time and time again. Tonight’s game could be a telling sign as to the mental state of the Canucks right now, after winning a gutsy effort against the Capitals. Can the Canucks step n the neck of a bad team?

Already this year, the Canucks have lost to the Hurricanes, who were (and still are) the league’s worst team. They also lost to the Ducks who were, at the time, the Western Conference’s worst team. They face the Blues tonight ho si in last place in the West – another one of these troubling games that Vancouver loses. They just don’t seem to get their energy level up enough for these games. And it REALLY hurts their chances of moving up the standings.

The Blues’ problem is simple. They can’t score. It’s strange, given all the young firepower that they have in the lineup, but they just can’t light the lamp. The Blues are last in the league in GF and trail the Canucks in every main statistical category with the exception of PK. For some reason, the Blues PK is fantastic, putting them at 4th in the league. Their PP is absolutely aweful, again putting them dead last in the league.

The Blues have recently become a bit of a hated rival for the Canucks, as the two teams have faced off several times in recent playoff runs. The Canucks need to pounce on their wounded rival and go for the kill. They also need to prove that they can beat the bad teams, just like they beat a good team two days ago.