everyone has an opinion so here goes...

A promising Vancouver Canucks gets bounced in the playoffs... what went wrong?

On paper 7-5 suggests poor goaltending, but in reality that was not the case... there wasn't a soft goal in the lot... there were some ridiculously good shots and some good bounces.

Was it the poor offence of the "Sweden" contingent, I don't think so... point per game for all three is not a problem. The twins made things happen, and Sundin made a lot of great plays and was getting stronger. Perhaps the "Ovechkin factor" is at work here... If a guy is not skating through everybody, all while firing rocket shots at an "off the charts" pace, then he is not doing anything.

Was Chicago that good? Perhaps.


Was the defence weak? Not really... but there was a total inability to control and get the puck out of their own end for the final 5 periods of the series?

Did the team just get out coached? I have been leaning towards this... Joel Quinnville's team changed its game, exposed a weakness, planted fear and used that fear to create chaos.

The last 5 periods of that series the Canucks defense would try to put the puck up the boards to a crowd of red Jersey's that wanted the puck more than they did. You have to wonder if they could have pulled off a stretch pass down the middle it might have changed the game a bit... Not that one should take stretch passes up the middle lightly... but it seemed to me that Chicago had the answer for Vancouver's game plan... Vancouver stuck with that plan until the end. I'm sure it would be good to have a guy like Brian Campbell who can skate the puck out of the zone at will...
but they didn't have that guy... Chicago did.

Putting the puck up the boards is almost always a good hockey play... but when everybody is lined up on the boards perhaps up the middle will do... a risky play still and if you fuck it up the mental loss would be almost unbearable... but if you can pull it off you can get the other team thinking and adjusting and feeling less invincible.

Perhaps there was a good reason Chicago made that coaching change about 10 games into the season.