CALGARY — Yes, that was Roberto Luongo, on the ice at the Pengrowth Saddledome Tuesday morning, preparing for tonight's game against the Calgary Flames. So far, no visit from the stork to send him on his way to sunny Florida, to be with his pregnant wife Gina.
The Canucks and Flames flipped practice times today, Vancouver going on the ice first, because they were in town already on Monday night, while Calgary was off in Colorado, dropping a 2-0 decision to the hometown Avalanche, a result that further tightened the Northwest Division playoff race.
Calgary continues to mix-and-match its forward lines, ever since Kristian Huselius has fallen into coach Mike Keenan's doghouse. Huselius has played limited minutes in each of the past three games, with Marcus Nilson getting most of the minutes with Jarome Iginla and Daymond Langkow in what has been a rotating cast of left wingers.
Despite being Calgary's second-leading scorer with 65 points in 76 games, Keenan said Huselius will not played tonight. The Flames coach suggested it was because "he wanted to give Dustin Boyd an opportunity."
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The question was put to Keenan: What has Huselius not been giving the team lately?
Keenan paused, considered for a moment, then answered: "I don't really want to get into that discussion."
The most noticeable absentee on the Canucks side was defenceman Willie Mitchell, who is generally instrumental in shutting down Calgary's top scorer, Jarome Iginla. Canucks' coach Alain Vigneault said Mitchell was given the morning off because he was "just a little bit under the weather, so we had him stay back (at the hotel), but he'll be fine tonight."
Five points separated five teams with 12 days to go in the regular season and the Flames and Canucks are scheduled to face each other three more times in that span, a mini-series that could decide anything from first-place in the division to possibly being the odd-team out.
This will be the 11th time the Flames have played on back-to-back nights this season; so far, they are a thoroughly respectable 7-3. Yesterday, the practice was optional, and only a handful of players bothered to turn up.
The Canucks, for their part, were out in full force, with only one line-up change in the works — centre Byron Ritchie in on the fourth line ahead of Rick Rypien.
It is the first time the teams will meet since New Year's Eve, when Calgary squeezed out a 2-1 win, their only victory thus far against Vancouver against four losses — and as a result, the first time the Flames will have a look at the Canucks new forward configuration, with Henrik and Daniel Sedin playing on separate lines in even-strength situations.
Generally, Henrik plays with Taylor Pyatt and Ryan Shannon; Daniel with Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler. However, they play together four-on-four; on the power plays and also on the first shift after a penalty kill, so they still do get considerable playing time with one another, even though they are nominally on different lines.
"They haven't seen that," acknowledged Vigneault, "but you can bet that they'll see them together also. Right now, we've got a few (new) line combinations, but at the end of the day, it's their top players and our top players going on the ice and performing. Iginla's played real well lately. Their goaltender (Miikka Kiprusoff) has been on top of his game, so obviously, we're going to have to a job on their scorer and have to try and find a way to beat their goaltender."
Historically, the Flames may hold a significant advantage over the Canucks (a lifetime 110-66-33-4 mark), but Vancouver generally does a good job against Calgary, in part because they play Iginla so effectively. Iginla has one goal in five games this season and two in eight games last season — which coincides with Luongo's time in the Vancouver goal. Defensively, the Canucks generally do a good job of taking away Iginla's time and space, no matter which defenceman gets the job of shadowing Iginla. With Mattias Ohlund (currently injured) not available, the task will fall to Mitchell and Sami Salo.
"I think it's about reading the plays," said Salo. "Sometimes, the right play is to hit the guy. Sometimes, it's not the right play because he's very good with the puck and protecting it, so if you're running around, you can easily get out of position and that's when he's the most effective."
In his final six games, Iginla has a chance to get to the 50-goal plateau for only the second time in his career; with three of those matches against the Canucks, their hope is to keep him from achieving that increasingly rare milestone.
The Canucks are still without Ohlund, Aaron Miller and Lucas Krajicek among their top six defencemen and it is possible that Miller may not get back this year.
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