The Canucks kick off another season and this season marks the 43rd home opener in franchise history. The first year of operation in the League saw Orland Kurtenbach “Captain’ the team where they finished with 56 points and an overall record of 24–46–8.
Through the years they have a record of 21-16-3-2 and only play against the Oilers two of those years.
They defeated the Oilers 5-2 in their 1992-93 season, with getting two points from the Russian Rocket – Pavel Bure as well as Jyrkl Lumme.
With changes in the off-season head Coach John Tortorella enters his 14th season and the first with the Canucks. He has managed to get a record of 410-341-37-67.
With the coaching change the club also moved Cory Schneider to the Devils, who play in the second game of the early 2013-14 season. One has to ask if Schneider will start in goal or will they start Martin Brodeur, who has a record of playing stellar game in and game out.
“Tort’s” as he is called by most comes from Boston and ranks among YS born coaches in all –time NHL wins with 410.
This game marks the 40th game seeing Roberto Luongo face the Oilers in his history and he has every indication of making it a positive start.
Luongo gets the start, but on a slow break-in play the Oilers got the first marker on this young season at 1:58 from Petry.
The Canucks have more hustle this season than last year and they managed to get one while playing short handed at 3:42 from new comer Brad Richardson.
The “motto” or so it seems for the Canucks Coaching staff is “believe in yourself” and in the early part of the season, pre-season included they are a different time.
The first thing that you might notice is the speed and hustle with no quitting, from any players.
With the Canucks you will notice the speed they show, which is far different from any style they showed last season.
The first alone saw one fight with Kesler tangle with Acton where both received majors. Brown for the Oilers got a Misconduct and was lost to the Oilers at 19:19 of the first. The Canucks continued to drive to the net in the second finishing the second with a 34-15 total.
The third started just as the second finished with speed, hustle and a sheer desire to not have the same season results as last season.
The Canucks finished the Oilers off in fashion handing them a 6-2 drubbing finishing with a 44-23shot total. Coach Tortorella was asked about the conversation between the Coaching staff of the Oilers to one of his players.
He responded “it’s not right for a Coach to get involved with a verbal dialogue with any player, he should be focused on his own team”.
He was asked about the remarks of CBC’s Glen Healey about him not responding. He stated quite simple “I don’t give a sh_t about what he say’s, he’s not on the bench, so I simply don’t care”.
Overall the Canucks were pleased with there performance of the game, but no team can be taken lightly over the course of the season.
This is the first time this young season they have back to back games, with tomorrow’s game in Calgary, then home on Tuesday facing NJ Devils.
