With a 4 game sweep of the St Louis Blues, many see this as a lop sided series where the youth of the Blues showed and the great goaltending of Luongo propelled the Canucks into the second round, while creating Canucks history of the first 4 game sweep the franchise has ever had. But for the many that watched every moment of every game they all know this was a battle until the end, and alhtough the stats show otherwise, this was a very close series, and if it wasnt for a early whistle this series could easily be back in Vancouver for game 5, and even back to St Louis for game 6. By no means am I saying the Blues could pull off the improbable 3-0 come back to win four straight, but this series was a lot closer than many may think from an outside view looking in.

Although it wasn't the most hard hitting, bone shattering or physcially demanding series such as the Flames/Hawks, Pens/Flyers, it still had its fair share of big hits, scrums after the whistle and a general hate on for the other team. But in every game as every shift became more imporant, each penalty becoming more costly, we saw less and less of the borderline hits and less scrums after the whistle. This is not to say that these teams didnt have the general hate for each other, rather it seemed as if the players quickly realised that they could not be in the box for a game ending goal, as all the games, even the 3-0 shutout, were close all the way to the final horn. Only one game, game 4, went into overtime, but all of the third periods had that sudden death feeling, and everyone had that feeling of next goal wins, or the next goal may shift the momentum one way.

With the Canucks recent success since the end of January, going 16-3-1 in there last 20 games, there has been one aspect of the team that they need to improve on, otherwise it may come back to hurt them down the road. And that aspect is empty net goals at the end of games when the opposition is pushing for a tie and has pulled their goalie.

Although overall this season as a team the Canucks are around the average if not in the upper third of the leauge in empty net goal with 7, but are still a few away from the leauge leaders such as the Bruins and Capitols who have 12 each, nor are they as bad as the Avalanche who have none this season. But the problem is not the number of goals this team is scoring into empty nets, rather the fashion in which this team is missing empty nets, and their inability to put a team away late into a game.

Well before the season began I wrote a blog about the 10 reasons the Canucks would make the playoffs this year. No I didnt predict the horrible January the team had, or Luongo being hurt, nor did I ever think Burrows and Kesler would play this well. I did however see a few things that occured this season, and here is my original list and a look how many of my predictions came true, or how wrong I actually was.

10. Young Talent Contributing