Nucks Misconduct

CDC: What would you say is his biggest strength on the ice? B: "His positional play. He gets in...

2012-05-17T04:55:19Z

CDC: What would you say is his biggest strength on the ice?

B: "His positional play. He gets in the battles, he is not the biggest or strongest kid but he has a real strong stick. In his own end he is always on the right side of the puck with an active stick. When he tries to do too much he finds himself in trouble like most young kids, but he doesn’t do that very often."

CDC: If there is a current or former NHL player that plays a similar style to Frank, and who would that be in your opinion?

B: "There are a couple players that come to mind that I played with, Charlie Huddy and Bruce Driver. Just complete players that can do it all and play in any situation. Dan Hamhuis is another example, a pretty unheralded player, a very complete player, and I think Frankie is along those lines."

Tyson Giuriato at Canucks.com talks with former NHL defenceman Jeff Beukeboom about Canucks prospect defenceman Frankie Corrado

Mike Gillis on Hockey Night in Canada

2012-05-17T00:32:56Z

Mike Gillis on Hockey Night in Canada

Gord Stellick and Mark Osborne talk to Canucks GM Mike Gillis about head coach Alain Vigneault and Roberto Luongo's future in Vancouver.

Devils vs Rangers Game 2 Open Thread

2012-05-16T23:00:24Z

GAME TIME: 5:00 PST

TV: CBC, RDS

GAME PREVIEW: NHL.com

Rangers' game plan: To put us and the Devils to sleep and win.

Devils' game plan: To put the Rangers to sleep and win.

This series sucks so far. Let's see some more emotion and shots and offense, OK? No? Cool, then I'll have no problem getting my afternoon nap in during the game. Or, you can talk about your favorite movie and video/computer game of all time. My fave flick remains Platoon because Oliver Stone hit the jackpot on that film with it's brutality and honesty. My fave game is Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong.

Let's go DEVILS!

F---- you RANGERS !

Even though, let's face it, the Rangers are going to make short work of the Devils, am I right?

Kings vs Coyotes Game 2 Open Thread

2012-05-16T00:00:23Z

TIME: 6:00 PM PST

TV: TSN, RDS, NBCSN

GAME PREVIEW: NHL.COM

The Kings kicked the crap out of the Dogs in Game 1: 4-2 in the scoreboard and 48-27 on the shot clock. It was impressive to watch. Hell, even Dwight King made the normally composed Mike Smith come unglued minutes into the game. But these Kings, led by the Conn Smythe candidate Dustin Brown are the real deal. They have not lost a road game in these playoffs. The Coyotes need an opposite game to even match up with these guys. Like NHL.com points out, a big place for Phoenix to start would be on the power play, which is now 0-for-16. Oooo...I'm getting deja-vu.

2012 IIHF World Championships: Canada vs Belarus Game Day

2012-05-15T08:00:10Z

Good grief. 2 am. So if you either stayed up, or woke up to watch this game, kudos. Me? Are you kidding? I will be watching the replay getting up at a reasonably sane time in the morning. So where do Canada stand in the tournament, you ask? A single point in this game will clinch them top spot in Group H, meaning that they will play the 4th place team from Group H in a quarter-final game Thursday. That means either Slovakia or France. Yeah, I am thinking that too. Likely see Cam Ward back in the crease for Canada this morning after Devan Dubnyk notched a shutout against Kazakhstan Saturday. No other changes to Team Canada's lineup. A couple things to watch out for in this game: The Belarussians have the best PK in the tournament, killing off all 23 shorthanded situations so far. Belarus has only beaten Kazakhstan in this tournament, but 3 of their losses came by just a goal. Enjoy the game everyone, and Go Canada Go!

Canucks Player Autopsy: Chris Higgins

2012-05-15T07:22:54Z

Who Is This Guy?

Chris Higgins. The Professor. Kiss Huggins (no, no, no, no), Higgy. The guy who plays like he smoked a bowl of crack before game time. The fearless wonder. The forechecking wizard. My new favorite Canuck.

Position: Left Wing

Shoots: Left

Height: 6'0"

Weight: 203 pounds (or less, depending on staph infection)

Born: June 2, 1983 in Smithstown, New York

Drafted: 14th overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 2002 Entry Draft.

What Did He Do?

Did any Canucks player spend more combined time on the 2nd and 3rd lines than Chris Higgins? I doubt it. He's such a versatile player. He played a shut down role and contributed offensively. Whether he was on the AMEX Line or the HHH Line or the newer Hansen - Pahlsson - Higgins line he did his job and showed a lot of ambition at more times than probably any Canuck not named Jannik Hansen.

Putting his time on ice into perspective: Higgins averaged 13:24 even strength TOI per game (6th on the team among the forwards). He averaged 1:42 power play TOI / G (7th among the forwards). His 1:11 average shorthanded TOI / G was 6th among the forwards. His overall TOI per game average was 16:18, which was 5th among Canucks forwards.

Was He Any Good?

Like I said above, not many other Canucks showed the consistent ambition and drive that Higgins did. The guy stood out, all the damned time. Higgins played 71 games, missing time for TWO staph infections in his feet, BUT he still managed to score 18 goals (4th on the team), 25 assists (7th on the team) and 43 points (7th on the team). He finished a +11. His 16 penalty minutes is impressive considered how physical he plays. That 16 PIM total was 4th least on the team among players who played more than 20 games. His 4 game winners ranked him 4th on the team. Only the Sedins and Burrows had more of those. 2 of those winners were in OT:

Chris Higgins on the tip!

Higgins not only ties it, he wins it:

NHL.com has Higgins lower in hits (61) and even blocked shots (29), which surprises me, but look who led the team in takeaways.

If you want to check out his CORSI, Quality of Competition etc etc stats you can see them here at Behind The Net.

More good about Higgins? His 2011-12 campaign was the second best output of his career.

Higgins had 2 solid hot streaks this past season:

-From November 26 to December 17 he scored 2 goals and added 8 assists in 8 games.

-From March 6 to March 17 he scored 1 goal and 5 assists in 5 games.

What I Didn't Like

Those 2 hot streaks above account for 16 of his 43 points. I was going to heckle him for being streaky, which he generally is. But if you look at his game-to-game stats he more or less distributed his points somewhat evenly. The biggest problem is that his worst cold streak happened in a 7 game span: the last 2 games of the regular season and the whole Los Angeles series. He was a -2 and had 15 shots in those 7 games.

What's up with the staph infections in his foot? He has had that problem 3 times in the last 2 years! I've never had one but it sure sounds miserable. Kudos for Higgins for battling through it. It seems that he has found the proper medication for it.

So, What Now?

Chris Higgins has 1 year remaining on his $1.9 million contract. In my opinion he is worth every penny. Where does he fit in the Canucks lineup? Pretty much how he did this season. Pretty good on Line 2, but really good playing with Jannik Hansen and whatever center on Line 3. Like I said before...he's versatile. Now let's see how he does in a contract year. My guess is about the same output we saw out of him this past season, perhaps a little better.

Did You Know...

-In June of 2009, Higgins, along with Ryan McDonaugh, Pavel Valentenko and Doug Janik were traded by the Canadiens to the Rangers for Scott Gomez (bahahaha), Tom Pyatt and Michael Busto. He was a restricted free agent at the time, and the Rangers signed him to a 1 year, $2.25 million contract. Ironically, look who he scored his first goal as a Ranger against:

Why you little...bah the Rangers lost that one 4-1. You know, back when they sucked.

-Higgins struggled to score with the Rangers and in February 2010 was traded (along with Ales Kotalik) to the Calgary Flames for Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust.

-Higgins signed a 1-year $1.6 million deal with the Florida Panthers as an unrestricted free agent in July 2010.

-In February 2011 (trade deadline, the Canucks were rumored to be chasing a different Panthers player at the time-my guess would be David Booth) the Canucks traded Evan Oberg and a 3rd round pick in 2013 for Higgins.

-Higgins meshed with the team almost right away when he joined them in March after his hand injury healed and had a solid playoff run.

-The Canucks signed him to a 2-year $3.8 million deal that summer, giving him a $300,000 raise.

-Higgins plays his best hockey against Calgary, bless his heart. See?

Here's hoping Higgins can have an injury-free, successful 2012-13 season with the Canucks. Thanks for the continued efforts, Professor!

Devils vs Rangers, Game 1 Open Thread

2012-05-14T23:00:21Z

Get ready to see and hear a lot about the totally kickass 1994 semi-finals matchup between these 2 teams where this happened in Game 7:

Is that an awesome call or what? Will it be a tight-checking boring series? Who knows. But these are division rivals. The teams combined for 26 goals for in 6 meetings this season. You never know what can happen in the playoffs.

TIME: 5:00 PST

TV: CBC, RDS

Game / Series Preview: NHL.com

Who am I rooting for? Easy. The Devils. Screw you Rangers! I am still bitter about 1994...

Who do I think is gonna take it? Rangers in 6. How about you?

2012 NM Playoff Fantasy Competitions: 2nd Round Leaderboards

2012-05-14T17:26:07Z

This has been a seriously weird post-season. Really, who could've called the Rangers vs Devils for the East, and the Kings vs Coyotes for the West? Correct answer: nobody here did. How do I know? Because just past the jump here are the leaderboards for the 2nd round of the 2012 Nucks Misconduct Playoff Fantasy Competitions.

Once again, if you forgot who you picked, here are all the submissions for the players competitions and for the brackets competition. If you want to see how far you jumped in the standings, here are the 1st round leaderboards.

Let's start with the players competition. For the record, since it was easier for me to make the Excel tables this way, I only have your grand totals. If you want to know how you did for this round individually, compare to the 1st round totals and do the math yourself.

Ranking	Participant	Total after 2nd round
1	kudou	93
2	DoubleN148	92
3	007Gab	90
4	nucksandpucks	86
5	schris	85
6	mattw	84
6	Kevin Sellathamby	84
8	Rex Ang	81
9	mc5huffl35	80
10	andrew21nz	79
11	PKSube	78
11	Pompey Canuck	78
13	Kieran gunn	76
13	Slegna	76
15	Passive Voice	75
16	Cahd66	75
16	linden4mayor	74
16	The Canuck Fan	74
19	Wilke	73
19	Ringhio8-20	73
21	westy99	72
22	CanuckHero	70
23	gmonk33	68
24	cyxj	66
25	Kid pinnelli	65
26	jkd001	64
27	PuckedInTheHead	63
27	Dochinzo	63
29	seedvt	62
29	missy	62
31	Tina Poole	57

As can be seen, kudou pulled away with the lead this round, with former leader schris dropping to 5th. DoubleN148 jumped from 9th to 2nd this round, and looks to contend for the win in the later rounds. Meanwhile, down at the bottom, I am regretting the "strategies" I used picking my players, such as not picking the exact same players as everyone else, and also for not picking any Kings or Coyotes. (For the record, absolutely nobody picked any Kings.)

Now for the brackets. This round, calling the team was worth 3 points, with an extra point available for also calling the number of games it would take.

Ranking	Participant	West 1st round	East 1st round	2nd round	Current total
1	Andrew Wade	9	8	4	21
2	neoned	6	9	4	19
3	DoubleN148	6	6	6	18
4	BW79	5	9	3	17
5	Nathaniel Perlow	3	9	4	16
6	Kid pinnelli	8	4	3	15
6	Kieran gunn	8	4	3	15
8	thegreek	4	7	3	14
8	Ringhio8-20	7	4	3	14
8	Slegna	7	4	3	14
8	kudou	7	4	3	14
12	Waymundo	5	4	4	13
12	PKSube	6	4	3	13
12	mc5huffl35	6	4	3	13
12	splnwezel	5	4	4	13
12	eightyseven	6	7	0	13
17	Thursday	6	2	4	12
17	westy99	5	4	3	12
17	isomicah	5	4	3	12
17	The Canuck Fan	5	4	3	12
17	jkd001	5	4	3	12
17	kkamachi	5	4	3	12
17	gmonk33	2	7	3	12
17	Passive Voice	4	4	4	12
25	seedvt	4	4	3	11
25	notjames116	5	6	0	11
25	andrew21nz	4	4	3	11
25	linden4mayor	4	4	3	11
25	ol'johnnycanuck	4	4	3	11
25	CanuckHero	4	4	3	11
25	FormerHab	4	4	3	11
25	SykoRuckus	4	4	3	11
33	Coach Ryan	6	4	0	10
34	Prustyballs94	0	6	3	9
34	PuckedInTheHead	2	4	3	9
34	nucksandpucks	2	4	3	9
34	Sareon	4	5	0	9
38	missy	0	8	0	8
38	cyr	6	2	0	8
40	MuleRules	0	4	3	7
40	Sean Zandberg	2	5	0	7
40	PuckHead1	0	4	3	7
40	Tina Poole	0	4	3	7
40	Wilke	0	4	3	7
40	Germware	0	4	3	7
40	ahtrap	2	5	0	7
40	cyxj	0	4	3	7
48	40 years and counting	0	5	0	7

Andrew Wade got to be the first to break the 20-point barrier, building on the lead he had from the 1st round. However, he had the Rangers losing to Pittsburgh in the 3rd round, so he is officially at the end of his points streak. This will give a chance to DoubleN148, neoned or BW79 to pull ahead, especially with the next round being worth 4 points for the team and 2 bonus points for calling the number of games. Meanwhile, there are several of us down at the bottom who have either stopped earning points, or are now depending solely on one team.

Bring on the 3rd round.