Every Monday at 9:00am during the playoffs we are going to ask Dan “Murph” Murphy , Host of the Canucks, a couple of questions recapping the past week of Canuck action and to take a look into the next week. If you have a question you want us to ask, comment on this post or follow him here on Twitter. Here are this Monday’s questions:
1. Cactus Club: Do you think the Canucks have remedied their Penalty Kill woes? In your opinion, what made the difference?
Murph: I’m not too sure the Canucks have totally cured what ails them on the penalty kill, but there are definitely signs of improvement. In game six the stat sheet says the Kings were 0 for 5 on the powerplay but we shouldn’t forget that both of their goals came just as a Canucks penalty expired. I thought that as the series went on the Canucks did a much better job at getting in the shooting lanes as well as pressuring the points which forced the Kings to turn the puck over. And lets be honest, the biggest reason Vancouver’s penalty kill improved in games five and six was because of the captain.
2. Cactus Club: With the potential match up of the Hawks in next round, does that match up excite the Canucks the most to get a chance for redemption for last year?
Murph: There is no doubt that the though of playing the Hawks and getting revenge for what happened last spring has crossed the mind of everyone who played in that series last year. Lets face it, Canuck fans were already raising their bellini glasses celebrating a 3-1 series lead against the Hawks before things went completely sideways and the Canucks never recovered.
The Hawks are a year older, a year better (Hossa) and play with a ton of confidence – BUT – their goaltending can be sketchy. And as we saw in the last 7 periods of the Kings series the Canucks (see Daniel and Henrik) are able to expose a shaky tender.
3. Cactus Club: It was great to win the series, but how important was it for Burrows to be the one to get the empty netter? Do you see that helping him get his game back?
Murph: For awhile there in game six I was wondering if Alex Burrows made the trip to LA. I don’t know if there was a more disappointing player in the first round for the Canucks than Alex Burrows. That said, his skating looked much better in games five and six than it did in the previous two games and he was one of the reasons the aforementioned Penalty Kill improved. Still Burrows needs to find a way to generate some chance and bury a few. He had a mitt full of chances in game one and wasn’t able to convert. And now that Samuelsson has supplanted him on the first line, Burrows is going to have to work that much harder to generate offense. Will the empty net goal be something to build on? We’ll see. But it sure looks better to have one goal beside your name than a big fat goose egg.
I always love to hear and answer your questions. If you have a question you’d like asked/answered for next week, you can email blog[at]cactusclubcafe[dot]com or just comment below. To get an idea of what types of questions get answered, take a peek at Week 1Week 1 or Week 2’s questions.
Cheers,
Dan Murphy – A.K.A “Murph”