Vancouver Canucks coach Alain Vigneault rips team for poor performance against Flames
The coach of the Canucks didn't bring any holiday cheer to his postgame news conference following a 3-1 loss to the Calgary Flames at Rogers Arena last night.
Alain Vigneault described his team's performance as "terrible".
“Divisional rival coming in, gave my guys a day off yesterday—I was expecting a lot more," the coach said. "It didn't happen."
Through the first two periods, the teams were scoreless. Calgary had the upper hand, outshooting the Canucks 24-13 in the first two frames.
Vancouver was only able to keep it close thanks to a solid performance by goalie Roberto Luongo.
At 2:36 of the third period, Curtis Glencross made it 1-0 on a nifty pass from Flames captain Jerome Iginla, who had outhustled Dan Hamhuis to prevent an icing call.
The Flames went up 2-0 at 14:08 of the the third period on a Mikael Backlund wrist shot, which seemed to catch Luongo unaware as the puck slid between his legs.
Hamhuis made it close at 16:59 with a wrist shot taken near the point, but an empty netter by Olli Jokenen finished off the home team.
The Canucks were only able to draw two penalties and skated rather sluggishly throughout the game.
Rookie Calgary goalie Leland Irving recorded his first victory of the year, stopping 30 of 31 shots, including a dazzling save on a Daniel Sedin scoring attempt in the final minute.
Comments
2 Comments
Pat
Dec 24, 2011 at 4:05pm
In all the years AV has been here, he has NEVER pointed the finger of blame at himself or the coaches after a poorly played game. He rips players when he talks to the reporters, but it never occurs to him that at least once in awhile, when the team comes out flat, that he might be partly to blame. Good coach, and the reporters love him for it, but when he calls guys out in front of the cameras, I wish he'd admit his own culpability occasionally.
Will
Dec 25, 2011 at 11:31am
When a team is ill prepared for a game it IS the Coaches problem!
Vigneault is often the cause of the Canucks troubles.
I've been saying this for years but, this team should be trouncing most teams on most nights, they're that good. The problem is, they have a coach that is not as good as they are!
This team should get a new coach for Christmas!