The view from Vancouver

The Vancouver Canucks didn’t play particularly well in Game 1, so they switched up their lines a bit for Game 2. The Canucks played well in Game 2 but lost, so they made an eyebrow-raising switch in goal for Game 3. They lost again. Now what? Short of Daniel Sedin flying in and making an unexpected appearance, what is left at the bottom of coach Alain Vigneault’s bag of tricks? Vigneault and the Canucks have two days to figure it out. One positive for the Canucks last night was that Henrik Sedin apparently escaped injury after his big hit from Dustin Brown. In the moments after the hit, Sedin struggled to get up and clung to the Vancouver bench. To their credit, though, nobody on the Canucks’ side claimed the hit was dirty — it clearly wasn’t — and Sedin, once he got his wind back, was able to return just a couple minutes later. That’s about where the good news ended for the Canucks. Before the game, Darryl Sutter said, referring to Game 3, “we got outshot 50-25 … and if we play like that we’re going to get beat.’’ Well, the Canucks outshot the Kings 41-20 in Game 3, and the Kings won again. 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

—–

COACH ALAIN VIGNEAULT

(on outshooting the Kings but not capitalizing…) “You have to give credit where credit is due, and obviously they are getting a great performance by their goaltender. It’s another hard-fought game by both teams tonight. They were able to make us pay for one of our mistakes and we weren’t able to make them pay for some of their mistakes.’’

(on the Canucks taking penalties…) “We took a lot of penalties, some I’d have to question, but that’s the nature of the game. We did what we had to do to kill them. For the most part of the game, I thought we were good except for our finish.’’

(on Dustin Brown’s hit on Henrik Sedin…) “I didn’t like the position Henrik was in, but other than that it was a good hit.’’

—–

HENRIK SEDIN

(on the game recap…) “We played one hell of a game tonight. On the 5-on-5 we were all over them. The power play was better. If we keep playing like this, we are going to score goals.’’

(on outplaying Kings and still losing…) “That’s the playoffs. We have to keep doing the same things over and over again and we are going to get bounces. We showed tonight what kind of team we have, and if we come in Wednesday and play like this, we are going to steal the game and bring it back to make it work.’’

(on his hit from Dustin Brown…) “Clean hit.’’

(on whether he was just winded from hit…) “Yep.’’

—–

KEVIN BIEKSA

(on the current mood of the team…) “What do you think? We’re down three-nothing. It’s not good. Any better questions?’’

(on deserving a better fate in Game 3…) “Yeah, we do (deserve better). That’s what happens in playoffs. It was a close game and we played really well defensively. We didn’t give them a lot of good chances and we kept their shots down. At the other end, we ran into a hot goaltender. We had a lot of shots on net, we had a lot of traffic, did a lot of good things offensively, and sometimes you run into a hot goaltender. We’re happy with the way we played. We moved this forward, we keep the momentum moving forward, and these guys have to beat us one more game for this to be over.’’