It’s amazing what a day of rest can do. No wonder God took one after creating the world: everyone needs a break now and then.
Sunday was one of the most dreadfully boring games of the season, partly because both the Canucks and Jets had played the day before. Both teams seemed tired and the game was nearly unwatchable.
Given Monday to regroup and rest, the Canucks cranked up the entertainment factor against the Kings, scoring three times in the first six minutes, then adding three more goals before the game was even half over. Sure, they didn’t score (or allow) any goals in the back half of the game, but the first half was worth the price of admission all on its own.
But I didn't just watch half a game. I watched this whole game.
- In Bo Horvat’s first game back from injury, Travis Green split up the youth and the veterans on the top two lines, putting Horvat with Sven Baertschi and Brock Boeser, while matching Thomas Vanek with the Sedins. It didn’t work. In this game, he took a different tack, mixing youth and veterans, with Boeser providing spark to the Sedin line and Horvat getting some veteran aid from Vanek and Loui Eriksson. It worked perfectly, though we’ll see how long it lasts.
- The Canucks opened the scoring just a minute into the game, which was a nice switch from the rest of the season. Eriksson and Horvat got in aggressively on the forecheck, giving Jonathan Quick few options to move the puck from behind his net. His soft ringaround was picked off by Vanek and quickly centred to Eriksson, who tipped it on net. Quick got a piece, but the puck sat in the crease, and he was again too soft with his stick, sweeping at the puck but only moving it a few inches to a better spot for Eriksson to make like The Grateful Dead and jam it home.
- Man, it’s good to have Bo Horvat back in the lineup. That’s what Eriksson must have been thinking when he gave the puck to Horvat on a 3-on-2 and the young centre evaded a pokecheck from Drew Doughty and backhanded the puck back to Eriksson for the easy finish. I haven’t seen Doughty embarrassed like that since the last time the Canucks played the Kings.
- Eriksson completed his three-point night by threading a breakaway pass through Doughty and Derek Forbort for Vanek, who loaded up his best don’t-give-a-damn slap shot from the top of the right faceoff circle and blasted the puck past Quick. You could tell Vanek was pumped up, because he busted out his punch-Martin-St-Louis-in-the-face goal celebration.
- It was great to see Ben Hutton back with Chris Tanev. At 5-on-5, the Kings had more shot attempts than the Canucks — score effects tend to kick in when you take a three-goal lead early in the game — but when Tanev and Hutton were on the ice, the Canucks out-attempted the Kings 14-13 and out-shot them 11-5. When Tanev was on the ice with any other defenceman — he had brief turns with Edler, Del Zotto, and Stecher — the Kings out-attempted the Canucks 10-0.
- To be fair, defencemen generally only end up on the ice with someone other than their usual defence partner when something goes wrong and they’re stuck in the defensive zone. But I still think that with Hutton and Tanev, we’re on to something good here.
- Earlier in the day, Travis Green mounted a defence of Michael Del Zotto, pointing out his hard work and compete level, as demonstrated by how many hits and blocked shots he has. There are plenty of holes to poke in his arguments — hits and blocked shots happen when the other team has the puck, which is a bad thing — but you could argue that Green himself scarcely believed them in the first place. A man is judged by his deeds, not his words, and Green taking Del Zotto out of the top-four and placing him on the third pairing with Alex Biega for this game tells me something different than his words.
- If you freeze the frame on a goal against, it can be easy to hand out blame. On the Kings’ first goal, Alex Iafollo was left wide open in front of the net, so it’s natural to point the finger at one of the two players that could have covered him: Del Zotto or Brandon Sutter. Del Zotto chased a hit to the boards and didn’t get back to the front of the net, while Sutter skated right past Iafollo. But neither Del Zotto nor Sutter should have been covering Iafollo; in their minds, they were getting in position for the breakout, as Edler should have picked the puck up off the boards. When he missed the puck, that threw everything off like Red Rock, the legendary unrideable bull.
- The Canucks’ second power play unit were the first to strike with the man advantage, as Sven Baertschi darted through the middle of the ice and Vanek sliced the puck through to him. Baertschi’s original redirect got blocked by Doughty, but the puck came right back to Baertschi with Quick down and out from trying to stop the original shot. Doughty was on the ice for all but one of the Canucks’ five goals, by the way.
- A while back I asked if the Canucks’ power play was better without Horvat. At the time it was a reasonable question, as, in a very small sample size, the first unit was shooting and score more without him. Horvat erased the question on the Canucks’ fifth goal, creating three great scoring chances in front of the net in rapid succession. On the third, Quick kicked out the rebound to the wrong person: Brock Boeser. The Canucks’ leading scorer broke his mini-slump with a backhand finish.
- That ended Quick’s night, though he wasn’t happy about it. Quick had a discussion with head coach John Stevens, then even as Darcy Kuemper was suiting up, Quick skated back to his crease, as if denying the inevitable. I couldn’t help but think of Kuemper turning around and seeing Quick back in his net and throwing up his hands in exasperation like Brock Osweiler seeing Peyton Manning take the field before sitting back on the bench. But no, Quick came out, Kuemper went in.
- Jacob Markstrom didn’t have to be at his best in this game with the Canucks’ offence coming alive, but he was still very good, making 30 saves on 32 shots. He was only beat by Iafollo, who was all alone in front of the net, and by Anze Kopitar on a shot that he never saw thanks to Dustin Brown’s sizeable rear end hovering a foot in front of his face.
- Boeser struck again on a 5-on-3 that he created by drawing both penalties. The second penalty was mildly controversial: Trevor Lewis crosschecked Boeser from behind at a dangerous distance from the boards, sending Boeser face first into the dasher. Fortunately, it seemed more like an abrasion than a concussion and Boeser was okay.
- Since the referees blew the whistle because Boeser appeared injured rather than a change in possession, Boeser was required to start the 5-on-3 on the bench. Already angry about the hit, his brief time on the bench allowed him to quickly stew in that anger, like he was sitting in an Instant Pot, and he came out fired up. As soon as he got the puck at the right point, he opened up the pressure cooker while it was still under pressure and sent the puck exploding off his stick and into the back of the net.
- I could not possibly care less about whether the Canucks had a “pushback” after Lewis hit Boeser. Going after Lewis wouldn’t go back in time and erase the hit nor would it deter anyone from hitting Boeser again. Teams are always going to go after star players physically, whether they risk retaliation or not. At worst, it gets you a penalty and takes you off the power play. At best, it says, “We won’t be pushed around,” but what says that as, if not more, effectively, is an eff-you slap shot into the back of the net. Hockey players fear being embarrassed more than they fear getting shoved around after a whistle.
- During 4-on-4 action in the third period, the Canucks sat back, seemingly treating it like a penalty kill. It seemingly backfired, as the Kings scored for a third time, but a coach’s challenge for goaltender interference wiped out the goal. Turns out Adrian Kempe hit Markstrom in the mask with his stick, which isn’t allowed. Everyone knows you have to use your elbow or shoulder to hit the goaltender in the face, at least judging from what has and hasn’t been called goaltender interference this season.
- Travis Green spread the ice time around in the third period and, in particular, gave the Sedins a rest. Daniel and Henrik each played just over two minutes in the third period, while their linemate, Brock Boeser, played just under three minutes. That meant he didn’t get much of a chance to complete the hat trick, but it did give him some time for victory selfies on the bench.
