Samuel Pahlsson is now one of the boys as he scores his first as a Canuck!

PHOTO CREDIT - VancouverCanucks.com

Vancouver - March 10, 2012 - The Canucks finally looked like they were ready to make a solid playoff run with a spirited effort against the upstart Winnipeg Jets with a 3-2 regulation win on home ice. Not a blow out win, but not a shootout loss either. A worrying absence for the team of late are the whereabouts of brothers Daniel and Henrik Sedin. They don’t seem to be making as many waves on the offensive pushes for the Canucks lately. But Chris Higgins was back with his 2nd line mates again, and has made an impact already.

Speaking of comebacks, the Canucks welcomed back the Good, the Bad, and Ugly from their past tonight as they faced former teammates Tanner Glass, Kyle Wellwood, and the seemingly kinder gentler Dustin Byfuglien as they are now all wearing Winnipeg Jets colors. But even though the Jets are in a race for their playoff position lives, the Canucks showed they wanted the two points just a little more, and pulled out the gritty win.

The score could have definitely been higher for the home team if it weren’t for Andrej Pavelic and his his pesky goal posts! Especially for Ryan Kesler who even though scored the opening goal of the game with a short handed marker early in the second period, the majority of his scoring opportunities were ringing off the iron behind Pavelic. At least 3 of his quality scoring chances missed by half an inch or less as his shots bounced off the posts.

Schneider started for the Canucks which right from the start gave the Canucks the edge in goals against. Not wanting to take anything away from Luongo, but lately his play, especially at home has been less than confident. Schneider stopped 30 of 32 and only getting beat by short-round himself Kyle Wellwood in the second, and Blake Wheeler early in the third period. The Canucks peppered Pavelic with pucks though out the game as he stopped 42 of 45. Yes, the Canucks finally decided that the only way to get the puck in the net, was to shoot the puck from everywhere, especially in the first period as they shot 20 pucks at Pavelic in the first 20 minutes alone!

Kesler scored the shorty early in the second period, then after Wellwood tied the game late in second period, the Canucks followed up with a dominating couple of shifts in the Jets zone to close out the period. Another aspect of the Canucks game that has been lackluster lately is their power play, as it has been on life support and now sits third in the league going a paltry 3 for 37. But it looked as though the Canucks were trying to resuscitate the ailing pp as their first power play opportunity of the game was spent entirely in the Jets zone with a dominating effort. The Canucks finished the game going 0-1 on the pp, but it showed signs of life with their only opportunity!

Alexander Edler scored 6 minutes into the third period to re-tie the score at 2, and Samuel Pahlsson scored his first goal as a Canuck with just over 5 minutes left in the game by taking a Bieksa drop pass just inside the blue line and lasered his shot over Pavelic’s glove to give the Canucks the lead, and the win.

Let’s see if the Canucks are focused now as they continue their home stand and welcome the Montreal Canadiens to Rogers Arena for the early HNIC game on Saturday. The boys can not afford to look too far ahead towards the playoffs, but rather need to focus on the game at hand, like they did tonight if they want to retake the lead as top dog in the league!