Canucks 4 Kings 0

After an evening of frustration against Tim Thomas and the Boston Bruins, you could almost feel Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks were going to come charging out of the gates Thursday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and that's exactly what happened. Slump busting nights from Daniel, Henrik and Taylor Pyatt and the best game of the year from Roberto Luongo led the Canucks to a 4-0 victory over the Kings, a team they struggled against last season.

The Kings ran into early penalty trouble, with Dustin Brown (who was shockingly given 3rd star honors... not much homerism there, eh?) drew a double-minor for high sticking, on a play that will go down in history as the time an NHL referee actually saw Ryan Kesler get high sticked. Matt Greene then took a hooking penalty during the sustained pressure, and while the Kings were able to kill off Brown's penalty, Daniel from Henrik and Kevin Bieksa opened the scoring. The Canucks made it 2-0 on a beauty from Mason Raymond while the teams were 4 on 4, faking out the defenceman and driving to the net and depositing a wicked wrist shot behind Jason LaBarbera. Another PP goal in the 2nd as Kyle Wellwood continues to put up points, getting his 3rd since being called up from Manitoba on a beautiful setup by the Sedins for an easy tap in. Taylor Pyatt got his 1st of the season, a fine reward for a very strong game as he deflected home a Willie Mitchell point shot to round out the scoring in the 3rd. Roberto Luongo stopped 28 for the shutout including a Dmitri Frolov penalty shot. Luongo is now 2 for 3 on penalty shots this season.

Pretty much a flawlessly executed road game, the Canucks capitalized on chances when they got them, and held the Kings to under 30 shots, 8 of them coming from Dustin Brown. Rookie Oscar Moller had a few good opportunities and was robbed by Luongo more than once. Mason Raymond now has 7 points in his last 7 games, and Willie Mitchell notched his 5th of the season already, on pace to shatter his career best 14 points in a season. The win was Luongo's 40th career shutout, making him the 28th goalie in NHL history to hit that mark. No time to rest though as the Canucks are heading across town to square off against the red hot Ducks tonight at the Honda Center. After a slow start the Ducks have rattled off 5 straight wins, and will be eager to get at the Canucks, who split the preseason series with them and won 3 of 4 last season. The game marks the regular season debut of Brendan Morrison against his old squad, and another ex-Canuck has joined Burke's ranks: Bret Hedican, who signed with Anaheim recently. Roberto Luongo should get the start tonight, while J.S. Giguere will likely get the nod for the Ducks. Gametime is at 7pm and it's on Rogers Sportsnet. Family commitments are keeping the podcasts out of commision for a couple days, but we will likely be back on Tuesday. More blog updates before then though...