From his vantage point, Andrew Raycroft couldn't help but marvel at what he was witnessing Thursday.

ARTICLE TOOLS

• Printer friendly
• E-mail

Font:

• *
• *
• *
• *

"We're having fun and believe in each other," Raycroft said after backstopping the Vancouver Canucks to an impressive 5-2 victory over the Minnesota Wild.

"Every night, a new guy is stepping up and with the depth in the organization, it's kind of contagious. When one chips in, the next guy wants to do his thing."

Raycroft did his thing when it mattered most to finish with 28 saves and post his third straight win.

Late in the second period, with the Canucks leading 4-2, Raycroft stoned Petr Sykora and then Owen Nolan on a partial breakaway.

In the third period, he got his right pad on a hot slot shot from Nolan and then stymied Martin Havlat on his doorstep. Nolan finished with four shots.

"In my mind, that was the best one," Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said of Raycroft's relief work in the absence of the injured Roberto Luongo.

"This is the one in which he had the most work, and they had a strong push in the third period."

In easily outplaying struggling Wild starter Niklas Backstrom, who was pulled after two periods in favour of Josh Harding, Raycroft gave another example of showing enough game to keep the Canucks competitive on this tough five-game road trip.

He looks like a bargain at the basement rate of $500,000 US.

The only blemishes came on a pair of Kyle Brodziak goals that Raycroft would like to have back.

And it wasn't so much the goals as it was coughing up a pair of rebounds that resulted in easy tap-in efforts.

First, there was a rebound on a Cal Clutterbuck shot, and then a right-pad rebound off a Marek Zidlicky shot.

"The first one, I didn't know where it [the rebound] was and I moved my pad, which was silly, and the second was a bad rebound and I felt bad on that one," said Raycroft.

Then again, that's like complaining about a blemish on Angelina Jolie's face. Like any goalie, the more Raycroft plays, the better he appears to be.

And that's encouraging.

"I like to get in a rhythm to a point, but at the same time, I have enough good mechanics and technique," he said. "As long as I'm sharp in practice, I can get away with a bit if I stay solid."

The Canucks set the tone by limiting the Wild to three first-period shots, even though they had three power plays.

"We killed all the penalties and played real solid, and the defence did a good job keeping shots to the outside," summed up Raycroft.

bkuzma@theprovince.com