Look, we all know that this fanbase has it’s moments of division, and this offseason has displayed.. a lot of them, to say the least. Jim Benning’s efforts to rebuild on-the-fly have polarized the crowds further than they’ve been in a long time, but if there’s one thing that we can all agree on, it’s that we hope, as fans, that the Canucks will do great things. We may have disagreements on the timeline and the process, but we’re all chasing the same dream.

When games like this happen, you have to imagine that both sides of the debate walk away happy. The Canucks opened off their season with not just a win, but an overpowering win over the Calgary Flames.

As soon as the puck dropped, you’d think that the teams fell into a time machine that brought them back to the playoffs. It took literally two seconds for Michael Ferland and Derek Dorsett to drop the mitts, and it wasn’t much longer until Prust and Bollig followed suit in the Battle of the Brandons. 

Just a couple of minutes later, some actual hockey would ensue. Despite Kari Ramo’s best efforts, the Canucks found their way onto the scoreboard first, firing one of his trademark slappers high glove to give Vancouver the lead. Towards the end of the period, Brandon Sutter followed, batting a puck out of mid-air to add insurance.

The Flames closed the gap ever so slightly by taking advantage of Luca Sbisa’s existence in the opening minutes of the second period, but as it turns out, the Canucks were poised to keep them from coming back. Vancouver allowed just five shots in the middle frame, and in the dying seconds of the period, Daniel Sedin deflected a point shot from Dan Hamhuis to restore the muti-goal lead.

From there, you wouldn’t have blamed the Canucks if they decided to slow down the game, but instead we saw some run and gun, high event hockey. The two teams combined for 34 shots in the final period, though only two mattered. Alex Burrows got a boost from the hockey gods when his wide-headed shot was redirected into the net by apparent double agent Dennis Wideman, and with three and a half minutes to go, Henrik finished off a pass from Daniel with a wrist shot from an impossible angle. 

Overall, it was a very strong game for the Canucks. They had absolute control over the first two periods, and while I’m not a huge advocate of fighting for the sake of fighting, the team clearly wasn’t getting pushed around. Continuing to counter-attack rather than standing back was a good idea as well; letting the play come to you when you’re up by two with twenty minutes to go is a silly, old-school way of approaching late game leads, and the team clearly got rewarded for ignoring it.

Look, I know there’s going to be a lot of debate over whether or not Sutter was carried by the Sedins tonight, and if he will moving forward. But that’s for another day. Today was his regular season debut, and he picked up a nice goal and an assist. His possession numbers weren’t overly brilliant, but the top line was mostly used in defensive situations. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and consider this an entertaining and successful debut.

How do these guys keep doing it? They’re like, a billion years old now. Granted, with the score already at 4-1 and just a few minutes to go, you’re not exactly likely to blow it (unless you’re the Leafs), and you can experiment a little bit. Henrik had a “lets find out” opportunity in front of him, and oh boy, he took it. Amazing goal from a hopeless angle.

Every time I promise myself that I’ll give Luca a clean slate, he does something ridiculous like this. Just three more years, everybody…

The tables will turn on Saturday night when the Canucks take the Flames on at home. Hopefully, though, the result will be similar. Puck drop is at 7 PM once again. Until next time..