The view from Vancouver

At least one Vancouver Canucks fan went home happy. With just under five minutes remaining in the third period, the winning 50-50 raffle number was announced, for a prize that regularly tops $50,000. Moments after the last digit was announced, a good portion of the crowd filed up the aisles. There were some boos from the home crowd, but in general, the mood seemed to be more shock than anger. Never before, in their playoff history, have the Canucks trailed 2-0 in a best-of-seven series after playing the first two games at home. What the Canucks face now is not unsurmountable, but it’s also not easy. They have arguably outplayed the Kings in 5-on-5 play, but the game is about goals, not style points, and the Kings have converted more than the Canucks. The Canucks, in Game 2, played a smarter game, one in which they showed a lot of tenacity on the puck, but they also looked tight at times and weren’t able to string together passes that would normally lead to quality scoring chances. Just a few minutes after the game, Canucks coach Alain Vigneault was asked whether he would consider going with Cory Schneider instead of Roberto Luongo in goal for Game 3 on Sunday. Vigneault didn’t like the question — at all — and said goaltending was not the reason the Canucks lost the two games. He’s correct. Here’s how the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun covered last night’s game, followed by some additional postgame quotes from the Canucks…

The Vancouver Province’s Canucks coverage

The Vancouver Sun’s Canucks coverage

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COACH ALAIN VIGNEAULT

(on giving up two shorthanded goals…) “Well, 5-on-5 I thought we played a real strong game. I thought we got the right saves at the right time, and our power play had the opportunity to obviously, again, make a difference tonight and it didn’t. Our execution, obviously, is not what it needs to be for it to be effective. Tonight, it was more than ineffective. It really cost us at bad times. Those are our best players, and I’ve got a lot of confidence in those guys, and we’ll get another opportunity to prove it here, come Sunday.’’

(on going forward…) “Well, you’ve got to build on the positive things and you’ve got to adjust where there needs to be adjustment. Obviously, right now speciality teams have been the difference in this series, power play and penalty killing. They’ve been the better team. We’ll look at film and we’ll see if we can make some adjustments. We’ve got great personnel, that have always been able to do it. We’ll get them ready tomorrow.’’

(on drawing positives from previous teams that have rallied from 2-0 deficits…) “I’m not in the mood right now for examples. We’re all going to sit back tonight and get a good night’s sleep, and then tomorrow come here to work and do what needs to be done.’’

(on how to make Jonathan Quick’s job tougher…) “Well, we’re doing a lot of the right things right now. You’ve got to give him credit and give their team credit. They’re getting in lanes. They’re blocking a lot of shots. They’re paying the price, and he’s making the saves when he needs to make them. He’s an elite goaltender. He has proved it this year, with his stats and number of wins and number of shutouts he has, and obviously he’s been a real challenge for us so far.’’

(on the new line combinations he used…) “I thought, Ryan Kesler’s line, they had a lot of energy, and 5-on-5 they did some good things. I thought Hank did the same thing. So I’ll look at the tape and see what we do moving forward here.’’

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ROBERTO LUONGO

(on the game…) “Right now, it’s important for us to turn the page and make sure that we focus on one thing, and one thing only, and that’s the next game. There’s no real point in looking at the big picture right now. We’ve got to focus on going in there and winning a game.’’

(on the game…) “Special teams, I think, were the difference. That being said, I’ve got to try to make a big save there when the team is on the line. So, that was a tough one tonight.’’

(on having a short memory in trying to bounce back…) “Of course. You have to. That’s the only way you can bounce back. What’s done is done right now. I think we have a good group of guys here. We proved it all year, that when we face adversity, we come out and we play hard. Right now, like I said, it’s all about the next game.’’

(on the game…) “You’ve got to give those guys credit. They came in here with a game plan and they executed well and they got two big wins. Now it’s our turn, I think, to respond and make sure that we get a good game plan heading into L.A., and we stick to it and we play well.’’

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HENRIK SEDIN

(on the game…) “Again, 5-on-5, we were playing well. It’s just, power play, it’s just not good enough right now. Not only are we not scoring but we’re giving up goals. That can’t happen. That’s why we lose the game.’’

(on moving forward…) “We’ve got to forget it. We’ve got to look at the tape. I thought it was better in the second half of the game, when we got more speed on the breakout and we got in a little bit easier. They’ve got a good PK. You’ve got to give them a little bit of credit. They’re on us right away, and we’ve got to execute and find the open player.’’

(on the team’s mindset now…) “We didn’t think it was going to be easy. We didn’t think we were going to be down two-nothing, but again, they’ve got a good team over there. I think we’re playing well enough, 5-on-5, to win this game. Power play loses the game for us, and that can’t happen. I said before the game that we can’t go out there and expect to score every time, but we’ve got to gain some momentum for us. We did the opposite.’’

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RYAN KESLER

(on the game…) “It’s just execution. Execution and communication. Obviously, we’ve got to watch some film tomorrow and learn from it and move on and worry about the next game.’’

(on the mindset, down 2-0 in the series…) “It’s definitely a mindset. We’ve got to forget about what just happened, and worry about the next game. We’ve got to go in playing the same way, 5-on-5, as we did tonight. If we do that in their building, I like our chances.’’

“Obviously, this is disappointing. We knew it was going to be a challenge. It’s a good hockey club over there. We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves in here. We’re definitely still in the series. I liked the way we played, 5-on-5, tonight. We’ve just to go in there and focus on Game 3 and win that, and then focus on the next one. That’s going to be our mindset. We’ve got to learn from these two games. Obviously, special teams need to be better, but all we have to do is win Game 3.’’

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JANNIK HANSEN

(on the game…) “Obviously, it doesn’t matter if you lose 6-0 or if you lose in overtime. A loss is a loss, this time of year. We can take something from this game, going forward. We played a lot better than we did in Game 1. Again, a loss is a loss.’’

(on his goal…) “They get a goal at the end of the first period, and we want to come back and answer that. That was a pretty good way to do that. We got it back, and going forward we felt that we had the momentum. For some reason, we seemed to give it away to them, and they came at us in waves.’’

(on trying to rally from a 2-0 deficit…) We had a bad loss in Game 1. We came out a lot better, again. We know we’re running out of options here, and we need to win Game 3. We can’t sit back. We need to come out and play our game, not just here and there but (for) a full 60 (minutes). Power play, penalty kill, it needs to come together now.’’