The fat lady’s warming up but she ain’t singing yet
I don’t blame Canucks fans for their exuberance (or even overexuberance) going into tonight’s game 4. I don’t know if the Canucks have ever been in this situation – a 3-0 lead in a 7-game series – but I know they’ve never completed a 4-0 sweep. It’s certainly exciting to think that it could happen tonight.
I like that the Canucks realize how tough tonight’s game is going to be. I like that they realize they may have narrowly escaped defeat last Sunday. I like that they know they have to be better.
From CBC Sports:
Foremost on the minds of most Canuck players and coach Alain Vigneault after Sunday night’s 3-2 win was to improve on how they start the game.
In Game 3, the Canucks could have been overwhelmed had the Blues been able to make it 2-0 with all the power-play time they enjoyed in the first period.
“I guess it’s human nature that when the other team has its fans going and they’re down in the series that maybe they’re going to start quicker than us, but we’ve got to do a better job of responding,” said forward Alex Burrows.
Vigneault expects his players to come out of the gate stronger in Game 4.
“We really want to stress our start Tuesday night,” said Vigneault, who said he was happy with the way his team responded in Game 3, but didn’t like the idea of taking so many penalties.
They’re not resting their laurels on a 3-0 lead and they shouldn’t. The Blues may be a bit battered but they haven’t given up.
From Norm Sanders (Belleville News-Democrat):
Since only two teams in the history of the NHL have overcome 3-0 playoff deficits to win a series, Blues center David Backes has shifted his comeback focus to baseball.
Backes and the Blues will be trying to avoid elimination tonight when they take the ice at Scottrade Center for Game 4 against the Vancouver Canucks.
Over? Nothing is over until the Blues say it is.
“They probably told that to the Boston Red Sox before the they won the (2004) World Series, too,” Backes said, referring to the Red Sox erasing a 3-0 deficit to beat the New York Yankees in the playoffs on the way to the world championship. “We can’t think about being down 3-0. We’ve got to think about winning a 60-minute hockey game and getting the job done.
“Otherwise the task seems so big, like it did in January and we were sitting in 15th place thinking the playoffs were way out of reach.”
As Backes said, the Blues have thrived on the underdog role all season, and in fact, it motivated them to make their run towards this postseason. The fat lady may be warming up, but she ain’t singing yet.
