It's no surprise that if you are a Vancouver hockey fan that when the news came the boys in blue were set to play the gritty, fast skating and very much a pain the ass of the Canucks--Chicago Blackhawks, you pretty much felt a reply of last years playoffs coming on that landed the Canucks on the golf course a round earlier than they wanted.

So what's the difference going to be this year?

We aren't going to lose to them again.  Not this time, giving the Canucks the advantage even though they don't have home ice.  With scoring coming from Mikael Samuelsson, Daniel and Henrick Sedin and Luongo between the pipes many people think Vancouver's depth won't take them too far.

But the Canucks had points come from other sources like Steve Bernier, Pavol Demitra, they also got help from their back end in Kevin Bieksa, Alexander Edler, Sami Salo and Christian Ehrhoff.

What do they have to do?  Stay out of the box as the Canucks biggest problem against the Kings in round one was killing penalties allowing 10 pp goals to be scored against them, but found a way to strike back and kill a few in the last three games heading into game six to win the series.

Canucks and Blackhawks are pretty well matched up in the scoring department.  Season series is tied at two. I think Vancouver has an edge in the goal-tending department, although last time Vancouver met with Chicago, Luongo got pulled allowing five goals in a 6-3 loss.

Can the Canucks beat them?

Yes they can if they play the way they played against L.A. in games 1 and 5 and 6.  Gritty, hitting, penalty killing, moving their feet.  All they need is one of their top scorers Alex Burrows to get his notch on the scoreboard and they could find themselves heading into round three.  Burrows remained silent during the first round against L.A. except for an empty netter in game six which hopefully got the monkey off his back.

Game prediction:  I would love to say Canucks in four because I'm dreaming and a huge fan, but my guess is going to be Vancouver in six.

Time will tell.  Puck drops Saturday at 4pm. and if all goes well hopefully the Blackhawks will be seeing a little green.  Just ask Dave Scatchard.