Av *implies* that the canucks would have won the cup if not for bad reffing

PG Canuck

Registered User
Mar 29, 2010
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if both teams were healthy the 94 team would win IMO. that team had legit scoring depth and the best player.. that would be too much for the top heavy 11 team to handle. it's not really fair to compare pre cap and post cap teams though.

You're saying 2011 team didn't have legit scoring depth? :huh:
 

PG Canuck

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Mar 29, 2010
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The problem was we didn't have any depth in our system once our roster players dropped like flies. MG had 3 drafts before that final, so arguably he could have done better, although I think that only the 2008 draft class should have been close to ready for a playoff call-up. Nonis' drafts in the last couple years before MG were awful, so he bears some of the responsibility too for the bare bones state of the system.

I'm not sure what team has that much NHL depth that we needed that year.
 

Hammer Time

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May 3, 2011
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Break down the PPs situationally and I think you'd find that Boston enjoyed its powerplays early in games when the outcome was still in doubt. Vancouver's power plays were awarded in in games that were already out of hand. When it was close, calls did not go in Vancouver's favour. Remember Bieksa taking a two hander to legs when carrying the puck? 20,000 eyes were on that and knew that was a penalty yet neither of the 2 referees called it.

National media on both sides of the border were unfairly portraying Vancouver as a bunch of divers that didn't deserve to win while Mike Milbury openly took pot shots at the Sedins on national TV.

The refereeing was a joke in that series and it is highly likely that it was related to talks that the NHL had with the officials before the game. I wouldn't doubt it if the Auger thing played into it too.

Officiating was only one of the reasons why Vancouver lost, but it should not be dismissed. It was a contributing factor for sure.

Look, I'm not trying to say the national media wasn't biased (considering Cherry's and Milbury's past employment with the Bruins, that's expected). I also agree that the standard of officiating tends to become more lenient as the season goes on, but that applies to every team. Aaron Rome vs. Johnny Boychuk was a pretty uneven standard of justice coming from the NHL discipline board.

But some posters on here are trying to claim that opponents were consistently getting more PPs than the Canucks during the 2011 playoff run. That's just revisionist BS. In the Hawks series (when MG complained) there was a PP advantage to Chicago. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds calls were close to equal. In the finals Vancouver actually got slightly more calls. Vancouver was a skilled team? Absolutely - and so were Chicago, San Jose, and Boston. Shouldn't they be drawing penalties too?

What about all the times where the Canucks benefitted from penalty calling? Shea Weber was whistled for a borderline penalty in OT, and on the ensuing PP Kesler puts the Canucks 2-1 up in the series. Ben Eager got called repeatedly to hilarious results. And then there was Sami Salo's two 5-on-3 goals in 20 seconds which was the turning point of Game 4 vs San Jose. There was really only one game where I felt the refs played a major role ... Game 6 vs Chicago, when a few Hawk penalties went uncalled late in the game, and a quick whistle nullified what could have been the series-winning goal in OT. (I think Samuelsson was right on the doorstep and Crawford didn't have control).

You brought up the issue of timeliness of PPs. But even then it doesn't really fit with the facts ...

The minute Boston went up 2-0 in Game 3, the Canucks got two PPs right after the other. They couldn't score on the first, and Marchand made Kesler, Ehrhoff, and Edler look foolish en route to a back-breaker on the second.

Game 4, Canucks get the first two PPs of the game. They waste them.

Game 7. Three minutes after Marchand's 2-0 goal, the first penalty of the game was called on ... Zdeno Chára. Not only do the Bruins have to kill a penalty, but they don't even have their best penalty killer. Result? 3-0 Boston on a Bergeron breakaway.

If you're looking for reasons the Canucks couldn't win, it should go ...
1) Injuries - Hamhuis, Samuelsson, Malhotra, H. Sedin, Kesler, Ehrhoff, Edler
2) Bruins were a great defensive team (Selke nominee, Norris nominee, Vezina winner)
3) Chiarelli built a very deep team. Even after Savard got injured, they still had 12 forwards with 10+ goals that season. That's right, every single forward from the 1st line to the 4th had double digits in goals, even Shawn Thornton. While Vancouver had better top end players, the depth wasn't there: Glass, Tambellini, and Oreskovich all played in the finals.
4) Poor goaltending on Luongo's part in 4 out of the 7 games.
5) Vigneault didn't make much of an attempt to line match or keep the Sedins away from Chara.
 

vanuck

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Dec 28, 2009
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This is so depressing to rehash for the 5000th time.

;)

come on now, auger got auger fired. to openly threaten a player and then follow through on it?

Yep. He got himself fired because he was a crappy ref, not because of one dive that Burrows may or may not have made him "look bad" on. He just made himself look even worse.

Except his buddies think it's Burrows' fault.

And unfortunately that's all that really matters, it seems.

You're saying 2011 team didn't have legit scoring depth? :huh:

We were a full 4-line team for a short while after the trade deadline before that fateful day in March. Having Higgins, Lapierre, a prime Malhotra, Torres, Hansen and probably Tambellini (better than Glass + Oreo) in your bottom 6 is pretty deep. The only real weakness was center depth.

Though when your roster is decimated and you still push it to 7, you think of what could've been had the other factors not been so stacked against us... at some point you just can't expect to win with so many injuries. **** you NHL.
 

Hammer79

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Jan 9, 2009
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Kelowna
Care to elaborate? I am not critical but I miss the last episodes of this saga.

Auger told Burrows pre-game that he embarrassed him, and he was going to get him. In the game, there were 2 completely phantom calls on Burrows which turned a Canucks win into a loss.

The game highlights



Burrow post-game criticism of Auger



Ron Maclean hit piece on Burrows



Eventually Auger was cut from playoff games and then retired by the league. Last I heard he was reffing games in Europe.
 

Wilch

Unregistered User
Mar 29, 2010
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Rather than bringing up the negatives in the press about biased officiating, I think our local media could do the team a massive favour by portraying our players in a more positive light.

Except all our local media does most the times is crap on the team, players, management and coaching staff.
 

King of the ES*

Guest
You are wrong. Boston was not better and did not win on a level field. Any hockey observer could see it. It was discussed at the time. Rome's record setting suspension was evidence enough for Vegas Casinos to suspend betting. It was that obvious.

Oh yeah, because the loss of Aaron Rome was just a team-killer.

If the Canucks ever win the Cup, how'd you like to hear the losing teams fanbase *****, incessantly, that they somehow didn't deserve it? Games 2, 3, 5, and 7 were blowouts. The Canucks scored 8 goals in 7 games. I'm sorry, that is on them, and nobody else.
 

King of the ES*

Guest
Good post. It is frustrating knowing that no matter how good the team is, there's always that uncertainty that the League will pull a screwjob on us. Call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever but it's not unsubstantiated when the numbers are all there. Gillis would have noticed the sudden lack of calls down the stretch in 2011 and the frustration would only have led to his calling out the refs when it continued into the 1st round against the Hawks.

Hard not to think certain cities have more pull than others with the head office. IMO the problem is the nepotism that goes on in this league with their cronies, and it seems as if you have people who have no business running a professional sports league in charge due to their sole portfolio as hockey players. As long as there's no transparency I don't think it'll ever change.

:facepalm:

The Canucks are very important to the NHL. Big market, big money-maker. There's just no reason for them to want to "screw" the Canucks. This is not the WWF.
 

Hammer79

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Jan 9, 2009
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Kelowna
:facepalm:

The Canucks are very important to the NHL. Big market, big money-maker. There's just no reason for them to want to "screw" the Canucks. This is not the WWF.

I'm not saying that there is a conspiracy directed against the Canucks in particular. I would like to believe that the awful officiating isn't something being directed by the league and rather has more to do with individual refs letting their biases influence the way they call the game.

I also think that the change in officiating thresholds directed by the league, for example crackdowns on obstruction followed by an eventual erosion back to a clutch-and-grab garage hockey are;

a) confusing refs on where they should be setting the threshold in any given game
b) with the two ref system, the threshold is even more in doubt and leads to lopsided officiating
c) suspiciously advantageous in particular to markets that need help, or could use a deep playoff run to pump up their profile in big US markets which in turn helps their TV contracts when they come up for negotiation.

The Canadian markets can pretty much be taken for granted. We don't need a cup win to build market share or to prevent a loss in interest. Hockey is king in Canada, and Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton or Vancouver winning the cup does nothing for NHL's TV strategy in the US or affect Canadian TV contracts. Canadians are so loyal to the product, they settle for watching Canadian players on US teams and are apathetic to other Canadian markets getting eliminated from the playoffs.
 

dave babych returns

Registered User
Dec 2, 2011
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In fairness with Auger, the Burrows incident was neither the first nor the last controversy, he was the one who accused Shane Doan of making slurs against francophones in a game that nobody anywhere could ever back up at all. He was also the subject of a bunch of criticism after calling an extremely lopsided Islanders/Devils game in which the Devils were huge beneficiaries of lopsided penalty calling, apparently David Clarkson was even chirping the Isles coaching staff and when Frans Nielsen brought it up with the officials they gave him a misconduct.

Anyway Auger's 0 career playoff games reffed says it all, the league selects the cream of the crop for the post-season (along with old boys and refs who call the games the way they like) and Auger never once made the cut in almost ten years before the Burrows incident so any ref who thought he was a good one was either in sharp disagreement with the league or simply not paying attention.
 

Wilch

Unregistered User
Mar 29, 2010
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:facepalm:

The Canucks are very important to the NHL. Big market, big money-maker. There's just no reason for them to want to "screw" the Canucks. This is not the WWF.

Actually, there is a reason for them to screw the Canucks.

Because we can't do **** about it, and we'll still make them a ton of money.
 

vanuck

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Dec 28, 2009
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:facepalm:

The Canucks are very important to the NHL. Big market, big money-maker. There's just no reason for them to want to "screw" the Canucks. This is not the WWF.

After all the things that have gone on with the Canucks and the officials, are you seriously going to say that with a straight face? This, even just after a playoff series against the Sharks where every single borderline call went in their favour?

Hell, the ref in charge (Sutherland) got demoted for how blatant it was. After what he, Auger - and now Kowal it seems, too - have done, you can't tell me there isn't something very suspicious to be concerned about.
 

King of the ES*

Guest
After all the things that have gone on with the Canucks and the officials, are you seriously going to say that with a straight face? This, even just after a playoff series against the Sharks where every single borderline call went in their favour?

Hell, the ref in charge (Sutherland) got demoted for how blatant it was. After what he, Auger - and now Kowal it seems, too - have done, you can't tell me there isn't something very suspicious to be concerned about.

THE CANUCKS DIDN'T WIN A SINGLE GAME!

I realize that it's very easy to blame anything but the players, which is the MO of a lot of Canuck fans, but, at some point, don't we need to point the finger at the players?
 

vanuck

Now with 100% less Benning!
Dec 28, 2009
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THE CANUCKS DIDN'T WIN A SINGLE GAME!

I realize that it's very easy to blame anything but the players, which is the MO of a lot of Canuck fans, but, at some point, don't we need to point the finger at the players?

Perhaps if you'd read what I said earlier in this thread, you'd realize I wasn't blaming the officiating?

But just because it's not an excuse doesn't mean that crappy reffing shouldn't be called out regardless.
 

ZZZZZZZ

Registered User
Jan 25, 2007
174
9
Paradise!
The reason we didn't win the Cup is because he was just a bad coach period.

Schneider has 5000 family and friends waiting for him to play in game 6 in Boston and this dufus of a coach puts Luongo in nets...........after they scored 12 goals on him in 2 games prior.

Good riddance to this clown............N.Y. deserves him. :(
 

Wetcoaster

Guest
The one that was blatant in 2011 SCF was the "fork hook" by Boychuk on Raymond who never was in possession of the puck. It could have been called interference, hooking or boarding.

There was no penalty called and no supplementary discipline despite the fact it resulted in a broken vertebrae in Raymond's back and easily could have been a catastrophic injury instead of just a very serious injury. He was in a vulnerable position and Boychuk drove him into the boards.

Rome gets suspended for what was an otherwise legal check delivered a tick late on Horton who had been in possession of the puck. Raymond was never in possession of the puck.

Here is the video.

 

petrishriekandgo

Why not us?
Mar 7, 2003
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I can't even watch these games.. it was such a complete and total about-face in officiating styles/calls from Game 3 ->

Yes injuries played a massive part, yes PP futility as well... but the way the game was ALLOWED to be played which was CLEARLY in the favour of one team... well it's one of the all-time $HT-shows in professional sports.
 

KaraLupin

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Jun 4, 2009
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The one that was blatant in 2011 SCF was the "fork hook" by Boychuk on Raymond who never was in possession of the puck. It could have been called interference, hooking or boarding.

There was no penalty called and no supplementary discipline despite the fact it resulted in a broken vertebrae in Raymond's back and easily could have been a catastrophic injury instead of just a very serious injury. He was in a vulnerable position and Boychuk drove him into the boards.

Rome gets suspended for what was an otherwise legal check delivered a tick late on Horton who had been in possession of the puck. Raymond was never in possession of the puck.

Here is the video.



You're unbelievable.
 

Gormo

Holupchi
Nov 12, 2010
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Not really surprising. He's right, and what happened over the final 30 games of that season and through the playoffs was just criminal. And the Boston series was a joke.

I posted the numbers at the time, and I've forgotten them now, but if memory serves we had more PPs than the opposition in a game 1 time in 40 games starting in February of that season. And we were the best puck possession team in the league, dominating territory. Some really weird, suspect BS was happening that spring.

Vancouver actually had more powerplays then Boston in that series, but their powerplay vanished completely.

AV was a significant reason we lost that series, hes an arrogant ass who never owns up for anything.
 

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