The Puck Stops Here

One measure of a good team is a team that can take a lead and hang onto it. This team must be able to shut down their opponent's offence once they have a lead. So far this season, there is only one team that has managed to win every game where they held the lead at the end of the second period. This team is the Vancouver Canucks. They are 20-0 in games where they held the lead at the end of the second period. Perhaps it's not very surprising that a team with a top goalie (Roberto Luongo) and a solid defence (Mattias Ohlund, Sami Salo, Willie Mitchell, Aaron Miller - at least when it's healthy - which has not been the case recently) is able to hold the lead once they secure it. The problem in Vancouver's case is they have not managed to hold enough leads in the later part of games in order to hang onto them. In fact, if the season ended right now, the Vancouver Canucks would finish ninth in the West Conference and thus miss the playoffs. However, if they could add another big scorer or two without sacrificing defence they could be very dangerous come playoff time.