Hot off the heels of the Canucks’ victory in the Motor City last night, I figured I’d take a look back at my original picks and see how I fared when picking the opening night lineup. Looks like I wasn’t far off the mark with my team. :)

I don’t think most people that follow the team were expecting the tenacity and grit they saw last night in Detroit. Even various bloggers and hockey news sites seemed surprised by the Canucks’ play. Of everything I read this morning, I think James Mirtle’s blog post was the most eloquent in summarizing the win:

If he keeps this up, Luongo’s on his way to becoming the most popular Canuck of all-time.

Vancouver’s Lineup in Detroit

My forward line picks were pretty close; things worked out being a bit of a combination of my two possible scenarios: the Swedish Touch line of the Sedins with Naslund has worked out well so far for a first line, B. Mo centering Bulis and Pyatt from my second scenario, and an energy line featuring Kesler, Burrows and Cooke as the third line. Mark Chouinard, disappointing in the pre-season, sat out the game with a shoulder injury, Josh Green pulled in on the right side of the fourth line, and Rick Rypien is back in Manitoba until his thumb heals. All in all, not too shabby.

My defensive pairings were a bit off (Salo and Ohlund playing together is an interesting combo, I really thought Ohlund and Mitchell would both end up playing with the young guys, but I guess it comes down to who is most comfortable playing with whom.) Rookie D Luc Bourdon sat out the game but will be in the lineup for tonight’s match-up against the Blue Jackets; veteran Rory Fitzpatrick took his spot with Kevin Bieksa. I’d be surprised to see Bieksa and Bourdon paired up tonight, considering both are a little more on the offensive side of the game and both are quite young. We’ll see what happens in a few hours…

It’s no surprise that the Canucks plucked a backup goalie off the waiver wire earlier this week; the big surprise was that it seems they had been watching Danny Sabourin for an entire season. I feel bad for poor Wade Flaherty, being demoted once again to the AHL, but I guess Sabourin must be a decent pickup considering how long the Canucks scouted him for. It will be interesting to see how many games he gets to play in a ‘Nucks uniform this season, and even more interesting to see how he performs.

Aside from Rypien (which was pretty unpredictable, and he’ll probably end up being called up very soon), not a bad showing…

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Posted in Hockey |

Tags: vancouver, canucks, nhl, hockey, lineup, luongo