page_title: Vancouver Canucks
section_title: 2005–2011: After the lockout
hierarchical_section_title: Vancouver Canucks / History / 2005–2011: After the lockout
caption_attribution_description: LA @ Van, Round 1 of Stanley Cup Playoffs
context_page_description: The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The Canucks play their home games at Rogers Arena, formerly known as General Motors Place and nicknamed The Garage, which has an official capacity of 18,910. Travis Green is the head coach and Jim Benning is the general manager.
  The Canucks joined the league in 1970 as an expansion team along with the Buffalo Sabres. In its NHL history, the team has advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals three times, losing to the New York Islanders in 1982, the New York Rangers in 1994 and the Boston Bruins in 2011. They have won the Presidents' Trophy in back-to-back seasons as the team with the league's best regular season record in the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons. They won three division titles as a member of the Smythe Division from 1974 to 1993, and seven titles as a member of the Northwest Division from 1998 to 2013. The Canucks, along with fellow expansion team, the Buffalo Sabres, are the two oldest teams to have never won the Stanley Cup.
context_section_description: Upon the resolution of the labour dispute between NHL players and owners, new gameplay rules were set in place for the 2005–06 season that were intended to benefit skilled players and generate more goal-scoring. As the Canucks' basis of success in previous seasons was built on playing a fast-paced, high-scoring style of play, expectations for the team were high going into the season. However, the team failed to qualify for the playoffs, completing the regular season ninth place in the West. The first line of Naslund, Bertuzzi and Morrison suffered offensively, as all three players recorded decreased points totals. Head Coach Marc Crawford later recalled the campaign as a turning point for the team's offensive leadership as the Sedin twins began their rise to stardom, matching the top line's production. Crawford was fired in the off-season and replaced with Alain Vigneault, who had been coach of the team's American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Manitoba Moose. Three days after Vigneault's hiring, Nonis dealt Bertuzzi to the Florida Panthers, ending the "West Coast Express" era. (Naslund and Morrison would leave the team two years later.) In return, the Canucks received All-Star goaltender Roberto Luongo as part of a six-player trade. With the acquisition of Luongo, Cloutier was traded away to the Los Angeles Kings.
  With widespread changes to team personnel in 2006–07, the Canucks won the Northwest Division title for the second time in three seasons. In his first season with the Canucks, Luongo was nominated for the Hart Memorial and Vezina Trophies. He also tied Bernie Parent for the second-most wins in a single-season by an NHL goaltender, with 47. The Canucks opened the 2007 playoffs with a quadruple-overtime win against the Dallas Stars. Ending at the 138-minute mark, the game was the longest in club history and the sixth-longest in NHL history. The Canucks also set a league record for shots against in one game, allowing 76. Vancouver won the series in seven games despite a lack of goal-scoring; Stars goaltender Marty Turco recorded three shutouts in the series, becoming the only goalie to achieve the feat and still lose a series. Advancing to the second round, the team was defeated in five games by the Anaheim Ducks, who went on to win the Stanley Cup that year. Following the playoffs, Head Coach Vigneault received the Jack Adams Award.
  Suffering numerous injuries to players in the 2007–08 season, the Canucks struggled and finished three points out of a playoff spot. The final game of the season, a 7–1 loss to the Calgary Flames, marked Trevor Linden's last NHL game, as the former Canucks' all-time leading scorer retired. Having missed the playoffs for the second time in three years, the team underwent numerous personnel changes in the off-season. After Nonis was fired and replaced with former player agent Mike Gillis in April 2008, longtime Canucks captain Markus Naslund, as well as Brendan Morrison, were let go via free agency. Also in the off-season, on May 29, 2008, the Canucks lost defensive prospect Luc Bourdon to a fatal motorcycle crash near his hometown of Shippagan, New Brunswick.
  With Naslund's departure, Gillis announced on September 30, 2008, that Luongo had been named team captain, marking the first time since Bill Durnan of the Montreal Canadiens in 1947 that a goaltender had been named the captain of an NHL team. During the ensuing season, the Canucks retired their second jersey number in team history, hanging Linden's number 16 beside Smyl's number 12 in a pre-game ceremony on December 17, 2008. Later that month, the Canucks acquired unrestricted free agent Mats Sundin. The arrival of the former Toronto Maple Leafs captain and 500-goal scorer in the NHL came with high expectations. However, Sundin scored at a pace below his usual pace and retired in the subsequent off-season. The team finished the regular season with another Northwest Division title and the third seed in the Western Conference. In the 2009 playoffs, the Canucks swept their first round series against the St. Louis Blues (the first
caption: Ryan Kesler with the Canucks during the 2010 Western Conference Quarterfinals. Kesler spent the first 10 seasons of his NHL career with the team.
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ35", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2010:04:17 20:29:23", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "572", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "22/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:04:17 20:29:23", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:04:17 20:29:23", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Fine weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "416/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "468", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}