Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Kids contribute to Canuck’s win


There was No Luongo, No Bieksa and No Morrison available to suit up and a pair of Moose were called up, but all in all the Canuck’s didn’t seem to miss a beat.

Curtis Sanford, himself just barely into the Canuck’s line up, did his part keeping a fairly intense Anaheim squad off the score sheet for a good portion of the match up on Wednesday night.

But all eyes were on the pair of Manitoba Moose players called up for emergency duty with the parent club, as Jason Jaffray and Mason Raymond made a case for permanent status with some impressive play on the way to a 3-2 Canucks victory.

The Canucks took the lead in the last couple of minutes of the first with two quick goals within a minute, Raymond scored on a set up from Jaffray and Aaron Miller, followed by Daniel Sedin’s quick snap shot over J S Giguere’s shoulder to put the Canucks two up heading into the dressing room in the first intermission.

Jaffray would introduce himself to the NHL with a goal of his own early on in the second period, padding the Canuck’s lead to 3-0 before Chris Pronger put away the Ducks first goal of the night in the second period.

The third featured more stellar goal tending from Sanford as he turned back many Duck opportunities, surrendering only one more goal when a Mathieu Schneider shot went through traffic and eluded Sanford, bringing the Ducks to within one with less than two minutes to go.

The Canucks managed to slow down the Duck attack at that point and held off any last minute surges to hold on to the win and snap a two game losing streak.

They move on to San Jose on Thursday night followed by a Hockey Night in Canada appearance on Saturday from Edmonton.

While the victory was a well earned one, there are still some major concerns in the Canuck dressing room at the moment. Morrison it is said may be out until the playoffs, a huge loss for a team that could use some veteran leadership over these rough patches of late.

And the still unresolved status of starting goaltender Roberto Luongo, who injured his rib two weeks ago and now, finds himself hurting to such a degree that he can’t dress for games.

Until he heals, these Canucks will be depending on Sanford, who more than indicated that he’s up to the challenge with Wednesday’s victory in Anaheim.

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