It wasn't a pretty start for the Vancouver Canucks, but that's one of the best things about playoff hockey... nothing has to be pretty from start to finish, if you're going to slug it out with some of the best teams in the league. In my preview post for this series, it was a lot of talk about mistakes and capitalizing on them and that was key on the opening goal of the game, as Roberto Luongo made the first mistake of the series in handling the puck, giving an easy goal to Joe Thornton late in the 1st. Antti Niemi was also guilty of a mistake, giving up a puck early in the 2nd period and it was Max Lapierre who tied up the game. Mistakes were not only giveaways, but penalties as well, as Mason Raymond took a penalty, to which Patrick Marleau picked up a goal on a nice deflection for a 2-1 lead into the 2nd intermission.
In the 3rd period (not to mention the last few minutes of the 2nd), down a goal, it was all Canucks. Vancouver really started to force the play and took the play to the front of the Sharks net. All of their hard work paid off, as Kevin Bieksa scored off the rush to tie the game up and only 1:19 later, on a power play, Henrik Sedin scored the eventual winner.
The Canucks took the series opener 3-2 and have that all important first victory to build upon in this series.
The big point getters in this game were Henrik Sedin, who scored the winner and picked up an assist for a 3-point night, Roberto Luongo made 27 saves for the win and Joe Thornton had a decent night for the Sharks, scoring a goal and adding an assist.
On the back of Sedin, Tryst'n'Grant pulled in another few points on Superstar for the overall lead in the playoff pool on Sunday night, as the lead was then cut down to 3 points. The remainder of the top five has not changed, but everyone except for Superstar has Henrik Sedin, so there should have been plenty of gap closing throughout the standings on 1st place, which could make this race all the more interesting.
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