Roberto Luongo‘s agents (i.e. the entire fan base of Vancouver, plus Alain Vigneault and Dave Nonis) are appealing to the NHL today for more consideration for their oft-crashed goalie. The result is likely to be more penalties for Anaheim, but I’m not sure that’ll help much. The effectiveness of the Vancouver powerplay runs at a horrific 3-for-50 this post-season thus far. Let’s just hope practice makes perfect.

The defense is just as decimated as last week, though there continue to be optimistic words about the possible return of Sami Salo. Meanwhile, Yannick Tremblay is in town and others are ready to go. They proved they could do it Friday. Tonight they’ll just have to prove it again.

Honestly, I don’t think things have changed much since my problems/solutions post before Game #2. Much of what I mentioned that day was improved upon for the winner on Friday, and tonight will just be a matter of following the same fundamentals. Plus the preparation to know that Anaheim will have regrouped and have upped their competitive level accordingly.

The playoffs have been relatively easy for the Ducks so far. They had gone 5-1 up until Friday night, and never had to deal with even a whiff of fear that they could trail a series, Minnesota’s winning game occurring once the Ducks already held a comfortable 3-0 lead. So while they continue to be the overwhelming favorites, being 1-1 is a different ball game than Anaheim has been in thus far, and I suppose we’ll see how they respond.

Unfortunately, I’m guessing that response will be near-deadly. They’ll use their speed and they’ll be hungry to take control of this game in the way they did in Game #1. And then how does Vancouver respond to this renewed assault? Frankly, I don’t think this series swings on the momentum of game-to-game… it swings on the momentum of shift-to-shift.

It’s stressful just thinking about it—but exciting, too. BRING IT ON!

Note: Incidentally, a story in the LA Times today commented that one of Anaheim’s problems was that they can roll only three lines, their fourth not getting nearly as much ice time as Vancouver’s fourth line. Perhaps they’re hoping that George Parros will become the next Jeff Cowan?! God, if women started throwing their bras at Parros, it really WOULD be a porn movie…

HockeyFights.com put together the opening sequence for that movie a few months ago. It remains one of my favorites.

Go Canucks!