A Bag of Pucks: It's a Circus with Roller Coasters & Lions!

I'm not sure what's a better roller coaster: the wooden roller coaster at Playland (at the PNE) or the Canucks over the past ten games. Yesterday, when I was brainstorming topics for today's Bag of Pucks, I could only focus on the fact that once again, it seemed as if the Canucks season was imploding. Now, after that fantastic performance last night against Nashville, I'd have to say otherwise.

Last night's game was the Canucks' biggest game of the season. They sat two points out of the playoffs and were facing off against the team occupying the last playoff spot. Then came the onslaught: the goals came from everywhere! During the four game losing streak, fans started questioning Coach Alain Vigneault's system, calling it too defensive and inherently flawed. Fortunately for him, the players played his system perfectly last night and it resulted in a great win, with goals coming from grinders to defenders. I hope to dear (insert religious deity here/Roberto Luongo) that the Canucks keep playing like that for the rest of the season.

Other Canucks news - Mattias Ohlund is injured and may require surgery, but he is hoping to have it pushed off until the end of the season. I'm torn on Ohlund. I want him to play because he's one of our best defenders, but I also want to see Luc Bourdon play some quality minutes. I think the Canucks have invested too much money in their blue line, and the only away to alleviate that problem is to trade one of their back-end highest money makers. I wouldn't trade Salo because he is a good two-way defender, Willie Mitchell ranks among the best shutdown defenders in the league and Kevin Bieksa still has untapped potential. If we shut down Ohlund for the rest of the regular season, we could get him healthy for the playoffs (making him a valuable trading chip) and get Bourdon some great experience.Trading Ohlund would give us salary cap relief which perhaps embattled Canucks GM Dave Nonis could pour into a decent winger.

Karl detailed how BC Place may get a facelift in the near future, which is about the only BC Lions news of the week, but a major trade went down in the CFL this week which will have a massive impact on the Lions' upcoming season. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, arguably the Lions' biggest rivals in the CFL, traded reigning league MVP Kerry Joseph to the Toronto Argonauts for a phalanx of young players and picks. The Lions had trouble with Joseph last season, especially in the Western Final, when he converted some ridiculous plays. Instead of playing him four times this season on a very talented team, the Lions will only see him twice on a mediocre team in games that will mean very little. With the turmoil in Saskatchewan, the ineptness of Danny Maciocia and the Edmonton Eskimos and the mere existence of Henry Burris in Calgary, the Lions should romp to the CFL Western Conference title.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Mike Nbg