The Canucks have been one of the league’s hottest teams recently, led in particular by stellar play from the Sedin twins and Alex Burrows. Henrik Sedin continues to make his case as a Hart Trophy candidate, and the team’s also getting extremely solid performances from the likes of Christian Ehrhoff and Alex Edler despite an injury-plagued defensive corps. When things are going this well, teams just seem to find a way to win; despite falliing behind 3-0 to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first period of the first game of a brutal road trip Saturday and pulling Roberto Luongo, the Canucks clawed their way back with Andrew Raycroft in net, preventing Toronto from scoring another goal and notching five straight goals of their own en route to their seventh consecutive victory.
Those kinds of hot streaks can’t last forever, though. Four out of those seven wins were by one goal, and there were signs of weakness even in the lopsided victories. The NHL has enough parity and a long enough season that most games can go either way, depending on a few bounces. You can’t just go through the schedule checking off the teams below you in the standings as guaranteed victories; in fact, as I wrote earlier this season, one of the Canucks’ frequent issues has been been competing hard against the lesser teams.
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Tags: Alex Burrows, Andrew Raycroft, Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, road trips, Roberto Luongo, staying medium, streaks