[...] we are agreeing that the best WCE stretch is the second half of the '02 season and the best SSB stretch is the second half of the '10 season right?
it's interesting that both '02 and '10 were olympic years. both units had incredible stretches interrupted, and both units' lulls were around the olympic break.
the WCE has this insane stretch starting at the beginning of january and up to the olympic break. naslund has 24 points in 18 games, bertuzzi has 23 points. that's the best stretch of either guy's career up to that point.
after the olympic break, the canucks are 1-3-1-1, as naslund puts up six points (all assists) and bert puts up three goals and three assists. not bad, but a ways off their 1.5 points/game average from the new year until the olympic break.
then on march 12, naslund doesn't play because his child is being born. something beastly awakened in bertuzzi that game,* and he puts up two goals and two assists in a 5-0 rout against nashville. that kicked off a 13-2-1 run to finish off the season. in those last 16 games, naslund scored 13 goals and 10 assists for 23 points. including his four point game with naslund at the hospital, bertuzzi finished the year with 14 goals and 17 assists for a monstrous 31 points in 17 games. the canucks squeaked into the 8th seed in the west, leapfrogging edmonton and dallas. in the first round they went up 2-0 on the wings, then... well we all know what happened next.
meanwhile, the 2010 canucks had a pre-olympic lull, going an uncharacteristic 3-4 going into the break. that doesn't seem that bad but the team went 37-18-5 from daniel's return from his injury at the end of november to the end of the season. during that 3-4 lull, henrik put up two assists and daniel had three (no goals for either).
in the 32 games between daniel coming back and the pre-olympic lull, henrik scored 12 goals and added 42 assists for 54 points. daniel was slightly behind with 16 goals and 31 assists for 47 points.
after the olympic break, henrik put up 4 goals and 28 assists for 34 points in 21 games, while daniel was close behind with 13 goals and 18 assists for 31 points in 20 games. henrik, of course, caught and passed ovechkin for the art ross on the last day of the season. (by contrast, after the WCE's incredible january stretch, where naslund caught iginla for the league lead in points, iginla pulled ahead for good during naslund's post-olympic lull. both guys finished the season very strong and iginla ultimately won it with 96 point to naslund's 90. not nearly as heartwrenching as what happened at the end of '03, of course.)
a sidenote: in 2010, kesler was on the second PP unit, which was the last time the canucks had a good second unit. that unit, which actually was as productive as the first unit, was generally kesler, raymond, samuelsson, edler, and ehrhoff. 2011 is when they loaded up the top unit with the sedins, kesler, edler, and ehrhoff, leading to kesler's outlier 40 goal season.
no question, the WCE was incredible in the second half of the '02 season. but the WCE never had a stretch where either guy came close to scoring 50 points over two months like henrik did in december/january and daniel almost did (in a 20-6-2 run for the team, which admittedly was a much deeper and more talented than the '02 team). if we're just talking about best peak stretch, i still have to give it to the sedins and burrows (the latter had 19 goals and 14 assists for 33 points in those 28 games, including a mind-boggling 15 goals and 7 assists for 22 points in 13 january games).
this is probably more detail than anyone needs or ever will need about the '02 or '10 canucks.
* the game began with a ceremony honoring cliff ronning for playing his 1,000th game. that probably wasn't what reawakened peak bertuzzi but isn't it pretty for this canucks fan to think so?
