Canucks, Flames game starts with fight off opening face-off

“This is an exciting thing”, said Canuck President Trevor Linden. Sven Baertschi is 23.

It’s hard to see where the team has improved over the offseason.

Wins vs. the division – The Canucks finished.

No doubt the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks spent the previous 24 hours before their first game of the year in inpatient anticipation for the first puck drop.

With a new season, though, comes new expectations and fresh optimism.

Speed – The Canucks feel they have improved in this area. It marked the fastest fighting majors to start a season in the history of both franchises.NOTES: RW Brandon Sutter made his Canucks debut and started on the top line with C Henrik Sedin and LW Daniel Sedin…. In fact, the Canucks believed that even journeyman Adam Cracknell had more to offer than Vey, adding to the theory that current Canucks’ management values toughness.

Calgary got off to a decent start on Wednesday, taking the play to the Canucks in the early going. Or keep hold of him for the potential playoff push and lose him for nothing in free agency?

“It’s incredible. It’s hard not to think about it, I guess”, said McCann, who had 34 goals and 81 points in 56 games last season with Sault Ste. He has a lot more upside than Sutter, plus played very well down the stretch run and in the playoffs. On July 1, Benning traded Zack Kassian to Montreal for Prust and a fifth-round draft pick. Why?

Miller at his age is now an average starting goaltender in the National Hockey League. Kevin Bieksa and Luca Sbisa were a awful defensive pairing last season.

Not only were the Sedins scoring, they were making plays with style-doing a fine job of asserting that their 35-year-old selves will look pretty much the same as what we’ve gotten used to seeing over the years.

Vancouver Canucks’ Jannik Hansen, center, from Denmark, celebrates… The pair squared off several times during that series, first in Game 1 and again three days later during the 10-player, 132-penalty minute line brawl of Game 2. Tanev in particular, while not great at putting up points, is a great shutdown defenceman and has great underlying advanced stats, such as his 55.4 Fenwick for percentage, a statistic that measures the percentage of scoring chances a player is on for.

13 The number of shots on net Bo Horvat’s line produced.

Question marks have replaced the exclamation marks of a 101-point season. He also had the support of Eddie Lack. Not only was he proving himself to be an excellent goalie, his personality was ideal for this market. Jiri Hudler was the only Flame to beat Canuck goalie Ryan Miller.

Asked about the transition to wing, initiated by coach Willie Desjardins for the Canucks’ final pre-season game, Sutter said: “It’s actually not too bad”. Don’t expect that to change now that they’re on the same line though.

Theoretically, Calgary’s youth movement is a little further along than Vancouver’s, and features last year’s Calder Trophy finalist Johnny Gaudreau plus Calder Trophy candidate Sam Bennett. “I came into the camp wanting to make the team and wanting to make an impact, and they’ve given me an opportunity to do that”.