Rome, Raymond spark Canucks win over New Jersey Devils

NEWARK, N.J. ? It's a place of contrasts, this self-styled Garden State that's pock-marked with what seems like toxic wastelands.

New Jersey inspired The Sopranos, but also Jersey Shore.

The state gave us Bruce Springsteen and, alas, Jon Bon Jovi.

There's an Ivy League school . . . and three state-run youth prisons.

Then there's their hockey team, rejected by Kansas City and called a Mickey Mouse organization by none other than The Great One himself, yet they've won three of the four Stanley Cup finals they've contested, its stars a goalie and a couple of defencemen, entertainment the last thing on the mind of the no-nonsense general manager.

So, stark contrasts are part of what make up the state, and you couldn't have had a starker contrast between the game the Canucks played on Thursday night in Detroit and Friday's 2-1 Canucks win.

The Canucks got goals from Aaron Rome, putting home a rebound off a Chris Tanev shot after the young defenceman had a brilliant shift, and Mason Raymond.

For Rome it was his first goal since he scored three in four games, 29 games ago. For Raymond it was his first in 11 games.

?At this time of year, you need different guys to step up and score,? Rome said. ?The twins can't score every night.?

The Canucks had a league-high 21 road wins coming in and the Devils were on a 9-1-1 run: You might have thought, hmmm, the NHL's best road team against the league's hottest team, an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, that's probably why pretty much nothing happened.

You'd be wrong.

The Canucks, like they did after their emotional win at Boston on Jan. 7 when the played Florida next and lost, had nothing left in the tank a night after ending Detroit's description-defying 23-game home winning streak.

But even running on fumes ? it was their fifth game in seven days, after all ? offence from the unlikely pair of Rome and Raymond put them up 2-0, even though Rome's goal at 8:44 of the first period was the sixth and final shot for the Canucks in the opening frame.

They didn't get another until Raymond put home David Booth's drop pass at 2:07 of the second.

?The tank was low, but we got in front early, which was important,? Ryan Kesler said. ?That was our game plan, to get in front and really play a sound game.

?You could tell we didn't have all our energy tonight, but mentally we were there.?

When New Jersey, playing without energy themselves, finally beat Cory Schneider, the puck went in off David Clarkson's skate in a seemingly identical manner that Manny Malhotra had scored the week before against Colorado ? only Malhotra's was waved off after review, while Clarkson's stood.

Alain Vigneault went to his blender right away, trying Jannik Hansen with the Sedins, reuniting Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler with Chris Higgins on the other side, sliding Cody Hodgson between Booth and Raymond.

And he started Byron Bitz in place of Dale Weise and Andrew Alberts in place of Sami Salo, who was given a breather in the second of a back-to-back pair.

Yet Booth was almost the only Canuck with any jump.

Almost ? Cory Schneider saved the Canucks' bacon in the third period.

And, just like that, just by showing up, the Canucks moved into first place in the hunt for the Presidents' Trophy.

They finish up this six-game trip with games Sunday at Dallas and Tuesday at Phoenix and play 14 of their final 19 games at Rogers Arena.

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Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F255/~3/pSc273E3M-k/story.html

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