Canucks Take Second Of Home and Home With Calgary

Two nights after a convincing 6-0 victory over the Calgary Flames the Canucks arguably put up an even more impressive effort for the rematch in Calgary, winning 5-4 in overtime.

When Daniel Sedin opened the scoring for the Canucks early in the first period there must have been more than a few people thinking we were in for a repeat of Thursday night. The Flames struck back however, and they did it in quick succession. Roberto Luongo looked a little bit shaky as the Flames stormed back to score 3 goals in a 7 minute span to take a 3-1 lead into the 2nd period.

The Canucks got into penalty trouble early in the 2nd but their penalty kill which has been perfect thus far this year managed to fend off the Calgary attack. Vancouver continued to get scoring from unlikely sources when sparkplug Rick Rypien cut the Calgary lead to 3-2 midway through the 2nd period. Ryan Kesler followed that up by scoring one minute and two seconds later to tie the game at 3. Just when it looked as if the Canucks were gaining all the momentum Dion Phaneuf caught the Canucks on a change firing a pass from blue line to blue line in a play that ended up seeing Mike Cammalleri pot his first goal as a Flame on a rebound from Rene Bourque. Calgary went into the 3rd period with a 4-3 lead.

Midway through a fairly defensive 3rd period Daniel Sedin converted a pass from brother Henrik to tie the game at three. The game remained tied throughout the period despite both teams getting power play chances in the final 10 minutes of the game. Vancouver took a 35 second power play into overtime, which they failed to score on. The winning goal came when Alex Burrows and Pavol Demitra rushed up the ice. Burrows cut to the net and ended up fanning on his shot, but Demitra followed up to score his first of the season, the game winner.

Although winning the season opener 6-0 was a big statement from the Canucks, the way they won the rematch is even bigger: coming back from 2 different deficits, including one 2 goal deficit. The Canucks now fly to Washington to face the capitals on Monday to take on Alexander Ovechkin and the Capitals.