With end of the world out of the way, the Canucks either, world

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With end of the world out of the way, the Canucks must repent on the ice versus Sharks

SAN JOSE - It turns out it was only one game, not like it was the end of the world or anything.

Oh, wait ...

No, 6 p.m. has passed, and we're still here.

The Rapture didn't arrive on schedule, so it looks as though the Vancouver Canucks are not going to get to go to heaven, or hell, either, holding a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven Western Conference final against the San Jose Sharks.


They're going to have to play it out -- and play it with a lot more intelligence and discipline than they showed while losing 4-3 Friday night at HP Pavilion.


What they did in Game 3, the good preacher would call backsliding.

After repenting in the off-season and promising to be choir boys -- and mostly sticking to it all year -- Canucks' not-quite-reformed provocateurs Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler fell back into their sinful, chirping ways, hacking, whacking, and slyly (though not slyly enough) taking a piece out of every Shark within a stick's length.


And it was they who sat side by side in the confessional, feeling shame, while Dan Boyle was scoring what would prove to be the Sharks' winning goal.


That goal came on a long, apparently unscreened point shot that went through Roberto Luongo's suddenly suspect five-hole, the very same portal that allowed goals by Ryane Clowe and Patrick Marleau, leaving the faithful to wonder, not for the first time, whether their No. 1 saviour can out-save the doughty Finn at the other end, Antti Niemi, four times out of seven.


Others, too numerous to mention, also transgressed.

Kevin Bieksa, the stud of the blueline this post-season, strayed often from the righteous path and -- though none of his three minor penalties resulted in a San Jose goal (and he somehow ended the night plus-one and scored the third Canuck goal on the power play) -- abandoned the disciplined play that has characterized his game in the playoffs. He was a ramblin', gamblin' man again, not a good thing against the explosive Sharks.

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Third-line centre Maxim Lapierre, thought to be cured of his melodramatic thespian leanings from Montreal days, reverted in the final minute of play and earned a 10-minute misconduct. Defenceman Aaron Rome, before being knocked loopy by a charging Jamie McGinn -- who in his 5:32 of ice time managed also to eliminate Christian Ehrhoff from the game and maybe the series -- took a pair of minor penalties.


Ehrhoff himself was culpable on the first Sharks goal and was in the penalty box when they scored the second one. And now, down a pair of defencemen, Alain Vigneault appears forced to allow the Prodigal Son, Keith Ballard, to return from his exile in the press box.


Vigneault even bore a little false witness in the interview room after the game, fatuously praising his boys' discipline while hinting that the 10 power plays the referees handed San Jose were ... well, he didn't say what, exactly, which will save him some money.


All in all, not a good evening's work.

The Canucks were rather single-mindedly putting Friday's performance behind them by Saturday, which might be easier said than done.


"I think we've got to move on now," said Bieksa. "Last game's over with. We have to be more discIplined. I'm not saying we were undisciplined in the sense that we were punching guys in the face after the whistle and stuff like that, but when you're putting your stick in somewhere it doesn't belong and the referees want to call it tight, that's what's going to happen."


Ten power plays against, even if the Canucks killed seven of them, still leaves them three to the bad.

"It just takes away momentum," Bieksa said. "Takes away rhythm, guys are sitting on the bench longer than they should be, you get out there and you're a little cold, and next thing you know there's another penalty and you're sitting on the bench for 10 minutes.


The Canucks' frustration level was so high by the end, Kesler took a two-handed whack at San Jose defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic that would have made a lumberjack proud.

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"Yeah, he was trying to take my hand off. Hard enough to knock my glove off," said Vlasic. "But, you know, you're down a goal, two seconds left. It's an emotional game. It goes back and forth. When things are going you're way, its great. When you're not ... we've been in that situation.


"Even for us, when it was 7-3 [in Game 2], end of the period, you send a message. But there's a right way of sending it and a wrong way."


Kesler, a powerhouse against Nashville who's been blunted in this series, didn't look or sound particularly contrite Saturday. He didn't skate with the team, and was terse with reporters.


"We're a pretty good team when we stay out of the box, and that's going to be the theme," he said. "I have to be better. Team-wise and me. We all have to be better, and we're going to be, tomorrow."


Luongo was singing from the same songsheet.

"You don't want to put those guys on the power play that often," he said. "In this series, we want to keep it 5-on-5 as much as we can, and we like our chances if we do."


It's a plan worth adopting.

Perhaps in the harsh light of day -- which is when Sunday's Game 4 takes place, at high noon California time -- they will all see the error of their ways and get back on the straight and narrow in time to avoid a lot of uncomfortable analysis.


They may have been spared the Apocalypse, but in the Stanley Cup playoffs, judgment day is only as far away as the next game.

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Canuck forward Alex Burrows is one of the team members who will need to atone for sinful ways in Game 4 of the Western Conference final.