VANCOUVER — Barring an uninterrupted winning streak to finish off their schedule, the Vancouver Canucks will not enter the NHL postseason as one of the favourites to win the Stanley Cup.
But with the Canucks embarking on their final trip of the season, a three-gamer through the airtight Northwest Division, including a contest tonight against the Calgary Flames, the team expects playoff-style games and should get a gauge on how it stacks up against other postseason teams. Four teams are still vying for first place in the division and, for that matter, playoff berths in the Western Conference.
Vancouver will play Calgary, the Colorado Avalanche and Minnesota Wild this week before returning home on Sunday for four games at General Motors Place, including two against the Flames and one against the Avalanche, to finish off the 82-game haul.
Just how legitimate are the Canucks as Cup contenders?
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There are plenty of warts to point out, but head coach Alain Vigneault and the players realize they have a proven formula in the playoffs that begins with world-class goaltender Roberto Luongo and extends to a crew of solid defencemen and defensively responsible forwards.
"Getting to the playoffs in the NHL is a lot more challenging than people make it out to be," Vigneault said yesterday. "There are a lot of good teams that aren't going to get to the dance this year.
"With a goaltender like ours, you guys know more than anybody, anything can happen."
The Canucks need to cull nine points in their next seven games to make the playoffs, which should be a safe bet.
Among the Northwest contenders, Vancouver has the best goal-differential (plus-11) and the fewest goals permitted (187), heading into games last night. The Wild, for example, had scored one fewer goal than it had allowed and the Flames have permitted 12 more goals than the Canucks in the same number of games.
Vancouver also has good head-to-head records against Calgary (4-1) and Minnesota (3-3-1), if not Colorado (1-3-2), and has earned 41 points in 38 road games. The Wild have 42 points away from home, while the Flames and Avalanche have 39 and 36, respectively.
Those are the flattering numbers. Others aren't so promising.
Consider: the Canucks are the only Northwest team to post a losing record against the Pacific Division, which features some cream (the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks) and the runtish Los Angeles Kings, who won three of four games against Vancouver this year. The Canucks finished 8-11-1 against the Pacific. Calgary won 12 games against the Pacific and Minnesota 11, and Colorado finished 9-7-4, good for 22 points.
The Canucks also have an inferior record against the stronger Western Conference than both Calgary and Minnesota. Both Colorado (16 points out of a possible 20) and Vancouver (12 points) fattened up on the weaker Eastern Conference.
But the Canucks do have something going in their favour come playoff time, namely the absence of shootouts. Vancouver lost nine games in shootouts this season, but those games will turn into overtimes, some of them prolonged sessions, come mid-April.
The Canucks are 4-1 in overtime this year and were 15-6 in overtime last season, including playoff games. Quite clearly, in low-scoring, tight-checking games than run longer than 60 minutes, the play-it-safe Canucks fancy their chances.
"I'd like to think that way," winger Alex Burrows said. "With [Luongo] back there, he is so good when the pressure is on. He responds well to it. In long overtimes, we like our chances."
