Canucks open the season by beating the Flames

The Vancouver Canucks opened up the 2015/16 National Hockey League season on a positive note, with a 5-1 win over the Calgary Flames.

It’s only one game, but there was plenty to react to from Wednesday night’s season opening tilt between the Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flame. It’s not often an opponent will win this award, but what better way to start off a season than by dumping on the Flames, right? They built an early two-goal lead and were seldom under sustained pressure because they moved the puck quickly and safely from their own zone, defusing the Calgary forecheck.

“That’s a pretty good road game to start the year against a good team in a tough building”, Sutter said. The heat is on C Linden Vey between LW Prust and RW Derek Dorsett. A bottom-six center in Pittsburgh, Sutter tallied 21 goals and 33 points in 80 games. Again, it’s the centre who’s typically responsible for being the third man back-but that’s the role that Sutter is playing thanks to his speed and his sense of two-way responsibility.

But tonight the award goes Jared McCann, who didn’t have a very noticeable night, save for one play.

It was just one game, but it was a pretty bad one. But after an offseason of questionable personnel decisions, Canucks’ management has scored big points with the fans with its final roster decisions.

Face-off is set for 7 p.m. PST from the Saddledome in Calgary. To be honest with you, it’s been a little easier than I expected just in terms of positioning. Ramo needs to get better at deflecting; personally, I find humour works well. Right winger Jiri Hudler scored the lone goal for the Flames, while goalie Karri Ramo stopped 39 of 44 shots he faced in the Calgary net.

There are questions in goal, too. I feel really good going into this year. Watching Bartkowski, he’s such a great skater, it’s handsome to watch. He dug the Canucks second power-play unit out from under six feet of soil and made it risky.

In that one sentence, Danny hit on several key elements. The Canucks’ plan heading into training camp was for Henrik Sedin to center the first line, with Brandon Sutter and Bo Horvat finding themselves on either the second or third line.

Dorsett’s fight with Ferland may have been staged, but it was not pointless.

Generally speaking I thought the Sedins’ cycle game wasn’t quite as seamless or as dynamic as it generally has been with Radim Vrbata or Burrows, but perhaps that chemistry will come in time. “And when I (saw) what the starting lineups were, I knew I was going to ask him to fight”. He’s an honest player, he plays hard.

When the Flames made the Stanley Cup playoffs last season, they did so defying the odds.

It’s just, we’re going to have A LOT of time to call Sbisa out over the next few years, and if we’re going to do that, we don’t want to force it. We need to call him out when he truly craps the bed.

It’s a testament to the performance of Vancouver’s much-maligned defence corps that the Flames didn’t generate much in the way of 5-alarm scoring chances in Wednesday’s season-opening tilt.

“We played a game totally out of character for us”, he said.