Issue #40 — What about that other 10%
Will the Sedins cross the 90 point threshold this season? Answer me this and I would say we are 90% there on the road to Lord Stanley’s holy chalice.
As we learned in ‘82 and ‘94 is, you don’t need a good (or even great) regular season to make a run for the cup. All you need is grit, determination (ahh, the life of a sports cliche) and a couple of streaking players at just the right time. In ‘82 Darcy Rota played some of the most convincing hockey of his life, and in ‘94 it’s difficult to conceive of a cup run that year without the clutch play of Greg Adams and Martin Gelinas. But at the end of the day the ‘82 squad finished with a losing record (3 games under .500) and the ‘94 team finished with a mediocre 85 points, leaving them average and sub-average regular season production.
Oh and they both lost.
Every playoff has a Cinderella story, just like the Canucks in ‘82, but history shows us that very few Cinderella teams perform well in the finals. This point is best highlighted in hockey circles the past few years by teams like Carolina in ‘02, Anaheim in ‘03 and Calgary in ‘04. All teams made it to the final but each team clinched a playoff berth in the bottom four seedings. When it came time to win that all important round, the final, the Cinderella teams just couldn’t pull the trigger. That is not to say that Cinderella teams haven’t won in the past, the ‘67 Maple Leafs and the ‘73 Canadiens were not expected to win at a time when the BlackHawks and Bruins were icing their respective powerhouse team Then again they can hardly be classified as Cinderella teams, just teams at the twilight of their dynasty.
The point is a simple one. Teams with a superior regular season record will, 9-times-out-of-10, prevail in the final. It is one thing to get to the final, it is another to win. For all you fairweather fans and your fairweather claptrap, it is not enough to just get there, in the curious case of the Vancouver Canucks it is only enough if they win. And it is in the humble opinion of this correspondent, that the Canucks will dominate the regular season in the Western Conference if the Sedins hit the 90 point benchmark. The aftershocks of a dominant season by the Twins should reverberate throughout the team and every player they play with is going to benefit (see: Trent Klatt to Alex Burrows). It is my argument here that a 90 point season by the Sedins will perpetuate a Western Conference final for the club. If the Canucks made the finals with a 7 or 8 seeding, it wouldn’t matter because they would most likely lose to a better Eastern Conference team like the Penguins or the Flyers.
With that said, the season opener is finally upon us. Ever game counts, here’s hoping the clusterfuck schedule works in our favor the Canucks prove all the doomsday prognosticators wrong. If there is any season to fuck it up, it’s this season.
Next Up — Calgary
The Canucks are 10-3 in their Season Openers since 2006.