“A beat down in British Columbia” – Liam McHugh

Vancouver’s 7-3 victory over San Jose had a lot of resemblance to the “pond hockey” style we saw in game two of the Boston vs. Tampa Bay series. There was certainly no shortage of action at the HP Pavilion Wednesday night.

Kevin Bieska of the Vancouver Canucks kept himself busy tonight earning the classic Gordie Howe hat-trick: a goal, assist, and, of course, a fight. Bieska had a beautiful breakaway goal that beat San Jose’s Antti Niemi on the ice through the five-hole. The cross-ice pass from Higgins to send Bieska on his way was almost as nice as the goal itself.

Bieska’s fight was against Patrick Marleau – not the man you would expect to find squaring off. With just a few minutes left in the second period, it was obvious that Marleau was trying his best to fire up the bench and bring some life to his team, and for that, I give him credit. When Marleau, a finesse player who hasn’t fought since 2007, decides to drop the gloves in the Western Conference finals, I would expect his team to rally behind him. Instead, the Sharks came out flat to start the third period, and obviously went on to lose the game by four goals. 

San Jose should be disgusted with Ben Eager’s performance tonight. Eager embarrassed himself, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t see the ice in game three. If I was Coach Todd McLellan, I would sit him. There’s a difference between playing hard and playing stupid. Tonight, Eager was just stupid. His only positive contribution to his team was his a goal with just over two minutes left in the game, and he even found a way to screw that up. After he scored, he continued to stand over Vancouver goaltender Roberto Luongo talking trash to follow-up his lame celebration. When Luongo was asked after the game what Eager had said to him, Luongo responded with “we’ll keep that between me and him, but it’s good that he’s on the ice because he takes penalties.” And penalties he took; Ben Eager’s name appears on last night’s penalty summary six times. I hope Eager is humiliated by the way he let his emotions control his every move tonight. He should consider himself fortunate if he dresses in game three, and make sure this appalling display of hockey never happens again - his team clearly cannot afford it. His team needs him to channel that emotion into something productive.  He had 20 penalty minutes in roughly 11 minutes of ice time.

Apparently Eager chose to defend his play in a post-game interview.  When asked about the fight between Kevin Bieska and Patrick Marleau, Eager had this to say:

We've seen that before with Kevin. It's sad that someone's gonna sign him for big money when he's a phony. He goes after our top players. He's been asked many times -- by lots of players throughout the League (to fight) -- and he's declined.

Marleau clearly wanted that fight to shift the momentum of the game.  It looks like Eager decided to add on to the embarrassment after the game.

The frustration of the entire San Jose squad was evident by the scrums at the end of the game.

I couldn’t help but feel bad for Antti Niemi. He had absolutely no help from his team in the defensive zone. Like Dwayne Roloson Tuesday night, Niemi still had some incredible saves, and I expect him to rebound for Friday’s game three in San Jose.

In other news, the Vancouver fans don’t have to worry any longer about when the Sedin twins are going to start producing again. Daniel had two goals - both off of the power play - and Henrik had three assists. The Canucks put on a passing clinic all night long, and their impressive puck movement on the man-up resulted in three power play goals in total. The Sharks are going to have to drastically cut down on the number of penalties they take in game three to limit the amount of time Vancouver spends on the power play. You can’t win hockey games when you spend the entire game killing penalties.

There was enough action to keep me up writing all night long.