There goes the streak of not losing in the Staples Centre since Dec. 13, 2001...

The Canucks' power play was good last night, but it wasn't great tonight. They hadn't lost in the Staples Centre (the L.A. Kings' rink) since Dec. 13, 2001. Tonight, the Kings had two goals in 53 seconds in the first period from Lubomir Visnovsky... both were power-play goals: the first with a two-man advantage, and the second on a one-man advantage. In the third, the Kings had two goals in 16 seconds from Jeff Cowan and Craig Conroy. After that, it was time for a Vancouver goaltending change from Cloutier to Auld. I think we had way too many penalties, although at least with these new rules, you can't have the game in the bag at the end of the second period. Naslund had back-to-back goals (and went for a hat trick) in the third period after Bertuzzi scored in the third, but it was too little too late. Now they're 12-6-2 at the 20-game mark of the season. When is this Canucks team going to play 60 minutes of hockey? They certainly dug themselves an awful hole early on... by Shorty's count, they've had six wake-up calls in the first quarter of the season so far! o_O

Pavol Demitra had three assists tonight, in this game where the coaches are actually good friends: Marc Crawford wanted to bring Andy Murray into Vancouver as an assistant coach or an associate head coach. The badly-sung national anthem included an "ai-yi-yi," which was pretty painful in itself... the worst ever! Three stars of the game: Alexander Frolov, Visnovsky, and Naslund. The Florida Panthers now have a 10-game losing streak. Next game is Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond at 1... the first of only two afternoon games for Vancouver all year. (we don't even PLAY an Eastern Conference team till next month!)