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Canucks post-game SixPack - Zack & Lack silence the quack, and a turtle?!

DH Vancouver Staff
DH Vancouver Staff
|
Dec 19 2017, 10:17 pm
Canucks post-game SixPack - Zack & Lack silence the quack, and a turtle?!

Fresh off a comeback win over the Sharks Saturday, the Canucks had to take on their old friend Ryan Kesler and his NHL-leading team Monday.

While fans and analysts around the league probably gave the Canucks little chance in this one, Canucks fans know better. They know their unpredictable hockey team is actually extremely predictable.

Vancouver was facing a legit Stanley Cup contender – meaning they’d show up and play like they cared.

That Toronto game coming up on Saturday – that’s something to worry about. For now, they’ll celebrate a massive 2-1 victory over Kesler and his “boys“.

1. Feelings on Kesler

To set this post up better, and so readers can see how fans felt before the game, here’s a sample of tweets about Kesler from Canucks fans.

Oh, you thought they were ready to bury the hatchet?

During warm up, Kesler took a shot to the head and required stitches to fix up the cut. Would that bring some sympathy?

While we’re psyching you up for the rest of this, check out the NHL standings before the game.

150309nhlstandings

2. Kass the Barbarian

From puck drop Kassian was in beastmode. A couple minutes into the game, he rocked Kesler along the boards.

Message sent.

In the second period, Kass challenged tough-guy Patrick Maroon to a fight, leading to this weak response from the Duck.

maroonturtle

And Kass wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.

After the Ducks tied the game eight minutes into the third, Kass stepped up, delivering the GWG with four minutes left.

Just think if Jim Benning had received a half-decent offer for Kassian, we’d be watching him demolish other teams for a rival right now.

3. First star Lack

I realize so far this post has made it look like the Canucks played out of this world. They didn’t.

They started well, scored 10 minutes into the first, and went into shutdown mode (aka the AV gameplan) from there on out.

It wasn’t a shutdown mode for the faint of heart, though. At the end of the game shots on net were 30-16 Ducks, shot attempts 71-32.

Lack allowed one goal on 30 shots, for a .967 save percentage.

Here’s one of his many saves.

Three games in a row, Lack’s been first star.

4. Turtles and Photoshaps

Here’s a maroon turtle.

And here are a couple of Maroon turtles.

Maroon made it look like Kass ambushed him and he was ducking for his life, but according to Kass’s post-game comments that wasn’t the case.

Kassian’s quote (from Canucks.com): “(Maroon) was challenging Dorsett earlier in the shift because of the hit on Perry obviously. He said let’s go. I thought he dropped the stick. It was one of those things where the refs got in – sometimes that happens.”

Kass was much more generous than the photoshappers on Maroon’s obvious turtle job.

Anyway, while we’re looking at photoshaps, remember Mike Smith’s Alice Cooper mask last Thursday? Sportsnet did the photoshappers proud with this work on John Garrett.

sportsnetphotoshap

Garrett did a pretty good Alice Cooper impersonation Thursday – now he’s trying to look like him too.

5. Taj has a new target

Twitter people know Taj has never backed down from an argument and often he incites them himself, but this one was hard to see coming.

During the game he took on the social media department of the team he loves so dearly.

Botch had a good response later in the game.

Falconer had one too.

6. Kenins scratched

Ronalds Kenins was scratched for the second game straight with Brandon McMillan once again taking his place.

Blake’s right, it is perplexing, but there might be a method to Willie’s madness on this one (though I’m not saying he’s right).

We know what Kenins brings to the table. He’s fast, he’s hard working, and he hits hard. He might be a bigger version of Jannik Hansen or a slightly more skilled (and bigger) version of Derek Dorsett.

We don’t know what McMillan brings yet but with him playing his best game so far against the Sharks, my take is Desjardins wanted to see if he could build on the game and improve against Anaheim.

Did he?

McMillan had one hit – not enough for a guy in his role – but was in the upper half of the Canucks in corsi +/- stats. Still, that’s not saying much considering every Canuck except Radim Vrbata finished on the negative side of those.

7. Credit where credit’s due

Yes, I’m aware there’s no such thing as a seven-pack, but I have to give some well-deserved credit for these individuals’ selfless contributions to humanity (meaning this post).

First, the title.

Second, the title image.

I had Andrew send me a higher res version of Kassian’s picture, then messaged him “now all we need is for him to score the GWG.”

He replied with the hands in prayer emoticon. Conclusion – if you’re not a man of faith, Andrew, you should consider it. That’s some powerful praying

That’s it for credit, now I leave you with this.

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