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Blackhawks begin Cup defense against top-seeded Canucks

Apr 13, 2011 - 3:29 PM (Sports Network) - Given their record-setting regular season and third straight Northwest Division title, the Vancouver Canucks have to feel good about their chances at capturing a first ever Stanley Cup.

Just don't tell them that the last two winners of the Presidents' Trophy haven't even made it out of the first round.

The top-seeded Canucks will try to take a step towards avoiding that trend when they host the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks at Rogers Arena for Game 1 of the best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinals.

Not only are the Blackhawks a dangerous eighth-seed, but they are also the team that ended Vancouver's playoff run in the second round in each of the past two seasons.

However, the high-powered Canucks are a team that led the league in both goals scored (262) and goals against (185) while featuring a netminder whose 38 victories were tied for the most in the NHL. The Blackhawks, on the other hand, are a much different team than the one who won the franchise's first championship since 1961 last year.

"They're a great team, we have a lot of respect for them," Canucks forward Alexandre Burrows told his club's web site. "They're still the Stanley Cup champs and obviously any team we were going to play in the West was going to be good, they're all good teams, and we know this is going to be a tough matchup."

Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo is coming off one the best seasons of his career at the age of 32. While his win total (38-15-7) was two off the pace from last year, Luongo's 2.11 goals-against average was the best of his 11- year career and went together nicely with a .928 save percentage.

Also important was the fact that the Canucks' finished with the best record in the NHL -- as well as franchise bests in points (117), wins (54) and road wins (27) -- with Luongo starting just 60 games. That was his lowest total since making only 56 starts with the Florida Panthers back in 2001-02.

On the offensive end, a Sedin brother was the NHL's leading scorer for a second straight season. Following his twin brother Henrik's lead from a season ago, Daniel Sedin captured the Art Ross Trophy with a career-high 104 points on 41 goals and 63 assists. Henrik Sedin wasn't far behind, leading the NHL with 75 assists while finishing fourth with 94 points.

Mix in Ryan Kesler, who matched Daniel with a career-best 41 goals, and the Canucks have three snipers who can take over a game at anytime.

Though Burrows was the only other Canuck player beside Daniel Sedin and Kesler to surpass the 20-goal mark with 26 tallies, six other Canucks skaters finished with double-digits in goals scored, including Mikael Samuelsson (18) and Mason Raymond (15).

On the injury front, a serious eye injury by Manny Malhotra suffered on March 16 will cause him to miss the postseason, while fellow forward Raffi Torres will miss the first two games of this series as he wraps up a four-game suspension for an elbow to the head against Edmonton.

One wild card for the Canucks is the defense, which didn't feature the projected top six starters on the ice at the same time until Vancouver's regular-season finale. Christian Ehrhoff was the one constant, playing in 79 games while tying for seventh among NHL defenseman with 50 points.

The rest of the group combined to miss 137 games, with Sami Salo appearing in just 27 games. Vancouver will also have to keep an eye on Dan Hamhuis, who suffered two concussions this season. The latter kept him out for five straight contests before he returned for the finale.

After last summer's roster purge, many wondered if the Blackhawks would even get a chance to defend their Stanley Cup title. In the end, Chicago did get that chance, but barely.

After besting the Philadelphia Flyers in last year's title round, the Blackhawks didn't clinch the Western Conference's eighth seed until the very last game on the NHL schedule. Having won the Central Division a season ago, the Blackhawks finished third with 97 points, 15 off their pace from 2009-10.

The Blackhawks' less than spectacular season isn't a huge surprise given that salary cap concerns caused Chicago to move multiple players off its championship-winning roster during the offseason. Jettisoned were the likes of forwards Dustin Byfuglien, Kris Versteeg and John Madden, defenseman Brent Sopel and rookie goaltender Antti Niemi. Byfuglien matched Patrick Sharp with a team-leading 11 goals in last year's playoffs, while Versteeg added 14 points.

Niemi, meanwhile, came out of nowhere during the regular season to become the No. 1 goaltender and went 16-6 with a 2.63 goals-against average and two shutouts in the postseason. That success, though, forced the Blackhawks to let the restricted free agent walk following arbitration.

Now Chicago pins its hopes on another rookie goaltender in Corey Crawford, who outplayed free agent addition Marty Turco to make 55 starts during the regular season. He went 33-18-6 with a 2.30 GAA in 57 total games.

As for what is left of last year's title team, few can do better than Chicago's core of Sharp, Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa and 2010 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Toews, who led the Blackhawks with 76 points this season and picked up his game toward the latter stages of the campaign. Chicago's captain led all of his team's forwards with a plus-25 rating to go along with 32 goals and 44 assists.

It has taken six games in each of the past two seasons for the Blackhawks to knock the Canucks out of the postseason, but Vancouver held a slight 2-1-1 edge in the regular-season series this year.

Chicago and Vancouver have met two other times in the postseason in addition to their 2009 and 2010 semifinal bouts, and the Blackhawks own a 3-1 edge all- time against the Canucks in the playoffs.

The Canucks had a 27-9-5 record as the host this season, while Chicago struggled to a 20-12-9 mark as the guest.

Game 2 of this series is set for Friday night in Vancouver.