What I saw in last night's game was an absolute debacle. The Canucks were completely humiliated on home ice. I saw a team that looked shell-shocked, rocked back on it's feet and unsure of how it got to where it was. When the opposition scored two goals in 24 seconds; the 'Nucks deflated. The Stanley Cup is won on "intangibles"...heart, soul, and the will to win. In Game 4, the Chicago Blackhawks could have rolled over and gave up. Instead, they're showing the will to win, fighting to stave off elimination.
I've seen heart and soul come from only two Vancouver teams (who both made it to the Stanley Cup finals) in the history of this franchise. The team in 82 and the team in 94. The rest of the time, the Canucks players have treated this organization like a Club Med resort, playing to their abilities, but lacking any sort of winning intangibles. For too many years, they've been mentally soft when it came to the winning intangibles. In the championship teams, that I have seen win the Stanley Cup, there's that mental toughness, the ability to ratchet up their skill level and intensity, the heart and soul and the desire to win it all, that manifests itself beyond the regular season and makes you see a different team altogether in the playoffs. A team that pulls together and overcomes adversity; a team that turns around and says "If the opposition brings their best game...we're going to go match that intensity and ratchet it up to a level that the other team can't match. We want to win!" I hate to say it in my almost 41 years of being on this planet...and being a Canucks fan; I have never ever seen the mental fortitude at all in this Vancouver Canucks team. Oh, yes...it has made itself visible in tempting glimpses, in the likes of players like Ryan Kesler or in Captain Canuck himself, Trevor Linden, but never in the team gelling together and saying "We're going to win the Cup...THIS YEAR!" like Mark Messier guaranteed in the Eastern conference final round of 94 when the Rangers were facing elimination in Game 6 while being down 3-2 in the series and eventually won the championship against Vancouver.
Game 7 of 1994 will forever go down in my mind...as an absolute heartbreaker. When the entire team folded around him, Trevor Linden tried to get his team back in the game. When the Rangers went up 2-0 early, Trevor got a goal...to try to keep the game close. Messier scored the 3rd Ranger goal, but Trevor responded in the third. Nate Lafayette tried as well but hit the post as the clock ran out. I still remember watching in disbelief with my Dad...as the Rangers defeated the Canucks in the championship final. The rest of the team was non-existent. The only three players who seemed to want it were Nathan Lafayette, Trevor Linden and Kirk McLean. And it will always be a thorn in my side that the one player who deserved a Stanley Cup win never got to hoist the Cup in his entire NHL career, yet never once complained wanting to go to a different team.
I may not be a player, but success is transferrable into other occupations. You don't give up, like the Canucks did in Game 5 in this series when the going gets tough. You keep kicking and clawing until you get there and you never ever lose the hunger, no matter what the other teams do. If they ratchet up their intensity. you match it and increase the intensity until the opposition can't match it and their hunger recedes into defeat. That's what the Hawks are doing to our team...and our team needs to respond in intensity.
What this team needs is a fanbase who is not satisfied with the Club Med atmosphere of players who aren't going to perform when the chips are down, who are satisfied with this team's performance "win or lose". We want fans who are not satisfied with their performance. In the regular work force; you don't perform, you don't succeed, you end up fired and looking for other work. There are performance expectations...and those expectations every year are not being met. No boss is tolerant of mediocrity and no boss is going to put up with slacking off year after year. And regardless of who signs the paychecks, it's the fans who are collectively "the Boss" of this team. And it's time that as the Boss, we stop being satisfied with mediocrity.
What I see is a team that is still emotionally and mentally fragile; unsure of whether it wants to win the Stanley Cup; unsure of even how to get there. We have the skillset, now it's time to take care of the intangibles. Get out there, Canucks...give your heads a shake and start finding that "WILL TO WIN" in Game 6.
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