Capt'n Quinn For The Win! (Winning the 1st Nucks goal of the <pre>season)

What a difference an almost complete roster can make. An almost NHL roster.

Where was the difference?

Everywhere - where it counts. The Nucks PK looked much improved - not just over last game. Didn't allow a single McOil PP goal in 4 attempts. Not even a single goal against. Not making it up.

Whether it was the addition of better Pkers, (Pkers, that's a word, right?) like Blueger and Soucy or the ToughTacoTalk strat, it remains to be proved over the long, long, the prolonged pursuit of the prestigious 30th worst PK in the NHL.

Where else?

The Nucking Power Play, of course. You'd think with Capt'n Huggie, Pete and Kuz on the 1st unit good things would happen. And did. Once. In 6 PP assaults. Ok, maybe that's not a great stat, but that goal won the game for the Nucks. A win that lasted over 3 minutes. Impressive.

Other than allowing the one goal lead to slip away. Still better than allowing a no-goal no-lead turn into a 10 GA blowout. So, there's that.

THE GOOD ENOUGH
It was a tighter game that the scoreboard would indicate. No, it wasn't.

McOilers dominated in the 1st. Nucks only had 3 shots on goal in the 1st. McD had 10 - or seemed like. Even still, the great goaltenderizing of DeSmith kept the Nucks off the depressing playing from way behind motif. A motif that never looked that good when it was invented by JB's shrewd sandbagging management style.

THE NOT QUITE GOOD ENOUGH

The Nucks started well... well... started not so well, had a good 2nd and a decent 3rd. So... 2 out of 3 isn't so bad. Just couldn't score another goal. Oil know what's that like. In their two previous preseasonal losses, they only scored once as well.

WHAT WE LEARNED

Better to score more than 1 goal to ensure a win. That's a tough Nucking lesson to learn. As we so well know. This almost full Nucks team is better than the farm team. Good that $85M payroll isn't totally wasted. Yet.

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

This is a safer one to watch. Still going to be an awfully long sportynet season as the humourless colour guy makes even Shortie seem like he knows how long the season will be. Nucks better win a bunch to make the loss of Cheech slightly more endurable.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Nucks roll into Seaberta for another loss at the Climate Crisis Arena tomorrow. Or later today if you're one of those forwards of timeline trickery.

Are you enjoying the Nucking preseason so far? Me neither.