[Today is the last day to get your contest entries in the Luongo Shots Contest. 4 p.m. PST and entries will be closed.]

Vancouver Canucks 2006-2007 Season

*Photo from Canucks.com. Names in order listed at the end of this post.

Wednesday night was awesome. Three games in the league and I got to see two of them. It’s hard to imagine that hockey has been gone so long… but it really has been a grueling wait, for Canucks fans in particular.

The Countdown Clock in the left sidebar has finally wound down and will be striking the Zero Hour this afternoon. Finally.

Missing the playoffs for the first time in years was a brutal reality-check for this city, then watching the team get gutted during the off-season was a tough experience for some people (me included). But now we’re ready to see what they can do. This entire team is made up of unknowns, individually and as a group, so what should we expect from this new season?

Tonight, a shiny new goalie protects the net and old ghosts have been sent to Florida to start anew. A fresh start for a new team. The Globe and Mail’s Grant Kerr makes these comments this morning:

The tenet for the Vancouver Canucks this season is simple: be responsible defensively, outwork the opponent and make percentage-wise decisions.

There’s nothing profoundly novel about the philosophy of head coach Alain Vigneault, as the newcomer just wants players to be workmanlike in the approach to their profession.

But when the Canucks begin their National Hockey League schedule in Detroit tonight, the deck will be stacked against their returning to the playoffs. The offence has been depleted, the defence is thin and the overall depth is scary.

Scary indeed. And aside from concerns about offence and defence, there’s also the missing toughness. Yesterday, Hockey Fights.com released their Toughness Preview, and sees these problems in Vancouver’s lineup:

…most of their traditional toughness has been lost as well. Heavyweight Wade Brookbank and pest Jarkko Ruutu have moved on leaving a much softer Canuck squad. That leaves Kevin Bieksa, the undefeated rookie middleweight from last year who now has a full time defensive job in 06-07. Fans are counting on him to be the team’s answer to rough stuff but he has never fought heavyweights before.

Other toughness-options mentioned include Rick Rypien (when/if he returns to the club) Matt Cooke, Willie Mitchell and Alexandre Burrows.

I’ll save the analysis for later — like many of you outside Vancouver, I’ve barely seen anything of this new Canucks squad. But listening to J.J. and Dave in the podcast yesterday, I’m more optimistic than ever. The pre-season games, while disappointing, showed the team was coming together more every game.

This team may not have Stanley Cups but it has it’s own history, a recent era of success that the likes of Markus Naslund, Trevor Linden and others will take very seriously. The Canucks have put some excellent hockey on the ice for half a dozen years now and I don’t expect they’ll let us down.

So BRING IT ON Detroit!. We’ve waited long enough to drop the puck on this season.

Names of players in photograph at top:

Top Row, left to right: Marty Dudgeon, Assistant Medical Trainer; Jon Sanderson, Assistant Medical Trainer; Jannik Hansen; Patrick Coulombe; Jan Bulis; Henrik Sedin; Alexandre Burrows; Daniel Sedin; Kevin Bieksa; Matt Cooke; Rick Rypien; Jamie Hendricks, Assistant Equipment Manager; Brian Hamilton, Assistant Equipment Trainer.

Middle Row, left to right: Roger Takahashi, Strength and Conditioning Coach; Mike Burnstein, Medical Trainer; Marc Chouinard; Luc Bourdon; Rory Fitzpatrick; Ryan Kesler; Sami Salo; Willie Mitchell; Mattias Ohlund; Taylor Pyatt; Tommi Santala; Lukas Krajicek; Josh Green; Pat O’Neill, Equipment Manager; T.C. Carling, Director, Media Relations.

Front Row, left to right: Wade Flaherty; Trevor Linden; Rick Bowness, Assistant Coach; Alain Vigneault, Head Coach; Francesco Aquilini, Deputy Chairman, OBSE and Alternate Governor, NHL; Markus Naslund; Dave Nonis, Senior Vice President & General Manager and Alternate Governor, NHL; Steve Tambellini, Vice President & Assistant General Manager; Mike Kelly, Assistant Coach; Barry Smith, Assistant Coach; Brendan Morrison; Roberto Luongo.