Canucks Corner— -¥ Pepsi SAR By Josh Martin, Sports Editor sweet scent in the air that blows through the crisp fall trees and says... hockey for the next nine months. It sure is a beautiful thing. The Vancouver Canucks opened their 2011-12 regular season last Thursday night in a thrilling effort of a 43 shootout loss against the Pittsburgh Penguins. |: that time of year again, with that Vancouver ticket holders must have been | disappointed that they couldn’t see the Pen’s captain Sidney Crosby up close in action as the superstar—and recently named number one player on TSN’s list of 50 best players in the NHL, for the second year in to ales On the plus side, the Canucks had some flashes of looking like the high flying team that dominated the league last year, after starting out with a slow 30. minutes where the Pens capitalized. The Canucks looked stronger and stronger as the game progressed, however it wasn’t quite enough as the men in white and blue flopped in the shootout despite a Nine more months of hockey 7 L ISBC «x> = [intaa) promising third period and overtime frame. Maxim Lapierre, Keith Ballard, and Daniel Sedin were among the Canucks goal scorers while James Neal and Matt Cooke (2) came up big on the score sheet for the Penguins. D-man, Ballard surprised everyone watching the game including himself as he started the year off with a beauty of a goal on a confident play where he picked up a pass from Henrik Sedin, flew past the defenders, and | mares = to go looking for his jock strap after the game. Both players made some beautiful moves that ended with the puck in the back of the net while on the other hand, Alex Burrows and Mikael Samuelsson came up short on the confident goalie on the opposing end of the rink, Marc-Andre Fleury. He made an impressive 33 saves and posted a .917 Save Percentage in the game. Third line winger, Chris Higgins stole the spotlight from the much-anticipated “The Canucks looked stronger and stronger as the game puck top shelf past Fleury. A bittersweet play for the defensemen since all of last year he was in Coach Alain Vigneault’s _ doghouse for not showing confidence in _ what he’s capable of on the ice. A fresh start perhaps for number four on a new Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin — absolutely undressed goaltender Roberto Luongo (25 saves, and .893 Save Percentage) in the shootout, forcing him rr ssed, however it wasn’t quite enough as the men in white and — in the shootout despite a promising third period : and overtime frame.” Cody Hodgson who was centreing the second line alongside Samuelsson and Marco Sturm. He was absolutely everywhere. Battling in corners, fore checking, back checking, finishing checks, forcing turnovers, and producing quality scoring chances—a coach’s dream as some might say. Although he didn’t score any goals, he was one of the best players on the ice, not missing a single beat from where he left off last June in the playoffs when he was a contributing factor to the Canucks post-season success. With such a great effort from Higgins, a lot of pressure rests on Hodgson as he was almost completely invisible in the first game of the season with the exception to a third period scoring chance, where he just missed far side on a patient wrist shot where Fleury just got a piece of it, from putting the game away 4-3. With that being said, it was just one game and there are 81 more to go, but with Ryan Kesler expecting to come back from injury in 5—6 games it leaves the question of where Hodgson might fit into the line-up. Coach Alain Vigneault was throwing his fourth line out on the ice without any hesitation whatsoever and the third line of Higgins, Manny Malhotra, and Jannik Hansen seemed to click right away with chemistry on almost every shift. Hodgson might be a second-line wing candidate with Kesler centreing and Samuelsson on the other side, but who really knows. Anything can happen in the remaining games before the ESPN cover model, Kesler, returns from his injury. Let’s just say that Hodgson better find his groove if he wants to stick around. 15