from Ed Willes of the Vancouver Province,

After watching the Vancouver Canucks stumble and bumble their way through the first 76 games of the season, we now find a team that's beaten San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles in consecutive contests.

Huh?

This prompts more than a few questions — most of which concern the Canucks' sense of timing and the NHL draft lottery.

But in a season which has been largely devoid of positive news, there's one query which seems especially relevant to the faithful and their team, namely: Does this run mean anything or are the Canucks watching Auston Matthews disappear in their rearview mirror for no good reason?

"(The Canucks' young players) are getting experience in games and hopefully next year we'll be in games that matter," said Jannik Hansen. "They've stood in the situation where all of a sudden you have to defend against the other team's top lines.

"You can't get that experience any other way."

That's one point of view. Here's another.

"I think we have to be really careful to evaluate our team based on the last five, 10 games of the season," said Henrik Sedin. "I've seen that mistake from other teams. You go into next year thinking you've got a good shot at it. We've got to remember we're playing teams getting ready for the playoffs and I don't see them putting their full, full effort into it."

Kill joy.

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