It may be Halloween, but the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Canucks have already treated themselves to the passing of October's spell.
Or so they hope.
Heading into a two-week road game stretch, the Canucks, now sitting at 5-5-1, awoke the ghost of Canucks season-pastyou know, the one that won the Presidents Trophy and went just one game shy of Stanley Cup immortalizationwith a sigh-inducing 7-4 win over the Washington Capitals Saturday.
The green, white and blue bid adieu to what has become a traditionally slow October start, amping this season's modest, if not missing, hockey hunger in a gritty display of resilience against the stripes and the stars.
The Canucks opened scoring, they twice built a two-goal lead, and despite a couple slips that led to the Capitals' equalizers, they maximized on power-plays and fought to return to scoreboard dominance.
Call off the endangered species scare, the orcas seem to have resurfaced.
We said before the game it was a good occasion for our team to show again this year that we're a good team, Maxim Lapierre told reporters. I think we're really proud the way we all played. We saw way better execution tonight. I really think we're going to get better and you're going to see a better team every night.
The third and fourth lines, in particular, strengthened their consistency with Lapierre and Chris Higgins each burying two of the night's seven goals. Defenceman Alexander Edler also claimed a pair of goals, with Henrik Sedin adding another.
Weve been shutout three times but we have too much talent, Higgins told reporters of this October's dismal record. If the effort is there, its going to take over and it spilled over. Its a team thats capable of scoring seven goals quite often, but we havent done it early this year.
Two weeks on the road will tell whether the team is well-equipped for a November overturn.
The Canucks start their two weeks on the road with a game Tuesday against the Calgary Flames. The three teams they play this week, the Flames, Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues, currently nest below Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»who sit 17th in the league. The teams in week two, the Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks, rank above or at par.
"Seven or eight games this year we've been too easy to play against. We're a tough team to play against when we play like we did, Henrik Sedin told reporters after Saturdays win against Washington. "It's a good start."
As of November, Christmas decorations, and a clean slate return to the .500 Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»hockey club. The Canucks will test whether Saturday's triumphant display was in fact October's curtain call or merely a bellowing Halloween trick.
Twitter: @kimiyasho
