Sometimes things just plain don’t go your way. You do everything right, but the results just don’t pan out the way you had hoped.
Somedays you leave for work early, full of positivity for the day to come, and you run into the worst traffic jam of the year. You wear your best suit because you have an afternoon meeting with the boss, then spill mustard on your shirt at lunch. You have a great powerpoint presentation saved to the cloud for that meeting, which then gets rescheduled at the last minute to the only meeting room in the building that never gets a Wi-Fi signal. You tell yourself not to worry, because you know the topic backwards and forwards and can wing your presentation, then a bee flies into your mouth and stings your tongue, triggering an allergic reaction, swelling your tongue to the point that all your words become an indecipherable dirge.
Sometimes, you have a metaphorical open net with a metaphorical puck in the metaphorical crease and you metaphorically chip it over the metaphorical crossbar. And sometimes, if you’re Daniel Sedin, all of those metaphors are painfully literal. I watched this game.
- Daniel’s miss in the third period was truly incredible. I honestly don’t think he could do it again if he tried. Jannik Hansen sprung Henrik on a breakaway and Henrik’s strong move to the backhand forced Anders Nilsson right out of the crease to make the save, leaving a literally wide open net for Daniel. It looked impossible to miss, which I think was the problem: the Sedins are so accustomed to doing the impossible that Daniel couldn’t resist.
- That miss was just the most extreme example of what plagued the Canucks all game. Like a tardy monk of Solesmes, they missed chance after chance. They missed the net 13 times, which is not that many times, really, but every single one of those misses seemed like a great scoring chance, including two misses by Radim Vrbata and Chris Tanev in overtime.
- That isn’t to take anything away from Nilsson, who was stellar, making 33 saves. Fans often complain about the Canucks making lousy goalies look good, but Nilsson, despite his lousy rookie year with the Islanders, is legit: he was the top goaltender in the KHL last season and he’s athletic for his 6’5” size. Between him and Cam Talbot, the Oilers finally have decent goaltending. Unfortunately, in front of him and Cam Talbot, the Oilers still have no defence.
- The more I watch the Oilers’ opening goal, the less I understand what Luca Sbisa was thinking. As Connor McDavid enters the zone, Jannik Hansen is already pressuring him at the blue line, but Sbisa inexplicably jumps up, taking neither the puck nor the man, and McDavid blows by him, giving him acres of space and millenia of time to find the trailer, Nail Yakupov. Yes, McDavid is good and yes, Bo Horvat should have picked up Yakupov, but Sbisa’s decision-making here is just baffling. I want you to be good, Luca! Why won’t you let me love you?
- The Canucks got the equalizer before the end of the period from an unlikely source: Matt Bartkowski. It was his first career NHL goal, because we’ve all agreed to ignore his goal in the 2013 playoffs. Bartkowski went 135 regular season games without a goal and it’s easy to see why: he scored on a weak wobbling waffler of a wrist shot that Nilsson waved at and whiffed on.
- That last bullet point was brought to you by the letter W.
- Sven Baertschi assisted on the goal after a nice hit by Horvat freed up the puck. It must have felt good for the 23-year-old after he was scratched against the Blues and he had a strong game overall, with the Canucks outshooting the Oilers 6-2 when he was on the ice. That is, of course, why he had the second lowest ice time on the Canucks in this game.
- The only Canuck with less ice time than Baertschi was Jake Virtanen, who led the team with 4 hits and added 3 shots on goal. Halfway through the second period, Virtanen steamrolled Mark Fayne and knocked over Andrej Sekera in the process, springing Baertschi on a breakaway. Virtanen had just one more shift in the second period after that and played less than 3 minutes in the third, likely because Willie Desjardins was worried for the Oilers safety.
- I actually completely understand why Virtanen and Baertschi got semi-benched, though I don’t agree with the decision: in the shift prior to Virtanen’s big hit on Fayne, that line was stuck in the defensive zone for a full minute. You have to expect that when you put three kids on a line, they'll get hung out to dry. That doesn't mean you should stick them in the dryer, though. Check their tags first.
- I finally got my wish: Jannik Hansen played on the top line with the Sedins and looked completely at home, setting up Daniel with a great touch pass early in the second period and springing Henrik on the breakaway that led to Daniel’s field goal. The line dominated puck possession and Daniel put up a team-high 7 shots on goal. I hate to say I told you so -- actually, I’d really like to say I told you so, but I should probably wait until the line actually produces a goal.
- I feel like I’ve already become numb to how good Ben Hutton has been early in the season. He finished with nearly 19 minutes of ice time, third on the Canucks’ defence behind Alex Edler and Chris Tanev. The Canucks out-shot the Oilers 12-5 when he was on the ice -- heck, Hutton alone out-shot the Oilers 6-5. I’m pretty sure Ben Hutton alone is better than the entire Oilers’ defence corps put together.
