WestCoastJoe wrote:May 4, 2011
Ryan Kesler.
![thup :thup:](./images/smilies/thumbsup.gif)
Chris HiGgins
![thup :thup:](./images/smilies/thumbsup.gif)
Roberto Luongo
Good resolve in the end. Hung in when it might have been tempting to pack it in after the hardship of another late goal given up. Perhaps we can ride Kesler for a while. He is our horse.
Back on May 4th, I blogged that Kesler might be able to carry us for a while. Wow. That sure came true.
Suddenly he was a leader like Steve Yzerman, Jonathan Toews, and Mark Messier. Legendary leaders.
Back in the day, if you looked up leadership in the dictionary you were likely to see a picture of Mark Messier. That is how it seemed to me.
Well now we have our own legendary leader: Ryan Kesler. OK, he is American. But they are our brothers, after all. And he does live and play in Vancouver, which is a Canadian hockey hotbed.
I don't think I've ever seen a player carry a team the way Kesler did against Nashville. Maybe Toews last year in the Cup run. Kesler is playing at such a level that it dulls the senses, as in "Did I just see what I think I saw?" "Did he just do that again?" "Did he just split the 2 supposedly best defencemen in the world, and then beat what seems like the best goalie in the world?" Did the Canucks have a special play where they fire Kesler out of a cannon on the power play and he goes through the Predators and scores? Yep, seems like.
And Kesler was not alone. Bieksa and Hamhuis were quietly awesome. Higgins and Lapierre gave so much energy, shift after shift. Raymond also. Burrows also. Hansen. One can knock Luongo for being somewhat uptight, for giving up some soft goals, but Oh Man, is he a competitor. Read a blog by a Nashville fan, about how Luongo is a wall in goal. I think it is easy to expect a kind of per-fection from Luongo. I think we should just appreciate how hard he works, how much he cares, how willing and professional and courageous he is to face the most pressure-packed games one could imagine, how many great saves he makes, and not expect him to be per-fect. Even Rinne showed some cracks finally.
Kudos to Gillis, and Vigneault, and to the owners, the Aquilinis. It is obvious that the ownership is totally committed to winning, and it permeates on down through the team.
It ain't per-fect, but it is dayum good.
Nashville might be the toughest opponent we could expect in these playoffs. They are a playoff type of team. Very, very tough. As was Chicago, which cranked it up, after a sleep walk season.
Now if some of our guys who might be undererforming could channel Kesler, we will be in really good shape.