This was the first game in what almost seems like a new era for the Canucks. It’s hard to avoid that feeling, right?
At the trade deadline, the Canucks admitted, perhaps most of all to themselves, that they’re rebuilding and won’t be making the playoffs this season. They traded away two of my favourite players in Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen, who won’t be winning any more Unsung Hero awards. And their rhetoric made it almost seem like they’re acknowledging that it’s a rebuild.
With two new young prospects in tow, it’s enough to make you feel like the future is bright. But then one tweet brought me back down to earth:
@passittobulis they have now successfully replaced the two young assets that they wasted on a 3rd pairing defenseman who's already redundant
— Aaron (@nobikes) March 3, 2017
Oh. Oh!
The Canucks sent Jared McCann (24th overall) and the 33rd overall pick to the Florida Panthers for Erik Gudbranson, ignoring for the moment the fourth and fifth round picks that also exchanged hands. At the deadline, the Canucks acquired Nikolay Goldobin (27th overall) and Jonathan Dahlen (42nd overall). Huh.
I was interrupted by an unexpected hot take while I watched this game.
- I’m not entirely sure I agree with the above hot take, by the way, but I do find it interesting. Would the Canucks be better off long term with McCann, last year’s 33rd overall pick (Rasmus Asplund), Goldobin, Dahlen, and no Gudbranson? I mean, maybe? Probably? It likely depends on how highly you think of Gudbranson and how much you think his struggles this season were due to his wrist injury.
- Anyways, to this game. Not only was this the first game after the trade deadline, it was the first meeting between the Sharks and Canucks since the traded Goldobin and Hansen. Regrettably, neither of them were in the lineup due to work visa issues for Hansen and immigration issues for Goldobin. I blame Donald Trump.
- My Baertschi’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble. Or not so much. Sven Baertschi made his return to the lineup and made a couple nice plays early, but got buried like Johnny Dingle in My Boyfriend’s Back. The Canucks were out-shot 8-0 when he was on the ice at 5-on-5.
- To be fair to Baertschi, no Canuck did particularly well on the shot clock in this one. The Sharks out-shot the Canucks 32-18 and looked completely demoralized in the third period, where they got out-shot 13-5 while down by two goals. It’s understandably hard to keep battling when there’s very little for which to battle.
- The Canucks may have been soundly outplayed in this game, but they did manage to open the scoring, taking advantage of a delay of game penalty with a power play goal from Bo Horvat. Baertschi’s shot was kicked aside by Aaron Dell, but Ben Hutton threw the rebound back out front. The puck came to Horvat, who, like the cheese, stood alone. The puck hit Horvat’s skate and heigh ho the derry-o, the former beat the Dell.
- Bo Horvat’s power play unit has been doing more than their fair share of the Canucks’ power play scoring, which makes you wonder when they’ll get deployed as the first power play unit over the Sedins. It started in this game, at least a little, as the Horvat unit came out to start the next two power plays, but it didn’t turn out too well. They seemed to have more trouble getting set up than these scout leaders and couldn’t muster much in the way of scoring chances.
- The best chance on the Canucks’ subsequent power plays was for the Sharks, as Chris Tierney picked off an ill-considered Daniel Sedin pass and turned it into a shorthanded breakaway. The breakaway turned into a failed penalty shot when Alex Edler dug his stick in for a goal-saving hook. It was a better hook than Christopher Walken.
- New Canuck Joe Cramarossa told John Shorthouse that he’s either Joe or Joseph, but never Joey. As someone who is Dan or Daniel, but never Danny, I immediately felt a profound connection to him.
- As is required by The Code, the new tough guy had to drop the gloves and fight. Cramarossa did his fighterly duty, getting in the first shot on Michael Haley, then getting falcon-punched in the face for his trouble. He went straight to the locker room with a cut on his face, but returned to the game. It was a Very Important Fight™.
- Reid Boucher played 18:30 last game and scored a goal while playing with Bo Horvat. So, of course, he was on the fourth line and played under eight minutes. Hey Willie! We know what Jayson Megna brings to the Canucks. It’s not much. How about giving The Mighty Boucher a little time to strut his stuff? He led the Canucks in corsi in this game, for what it’s worth, finishing minus-1.
- Side note: the Jayson Megna mic’d up segment might have been the saddest, most boring thing I have ever seen during an intermission.
- Ryan Miller, the Canucks’ lone significant trade chip that didn’t leave Vancouver, was very good in this game and if he keeps up this level of play through the end of the season, it’s going to be really easy to second-guess any team that loses in the first round of the playoffs due to lousy goaltending, particularly if it’s the Anaheim Ducks. Sorry, did I say “second-guess?” I meant “laugh at.” Particularly, as I said, if it’s the Anaheim Ducks. In the words of Joshua Sacco impersonating Kurt Russell acting as Herb Brooks, “Screw ‘em!”
- This was a truly lacklustre effort from the Canucks, but they did come out of it with one big moral victory: they prevented Joe Thornton from getting his 1000th career assist. I mean, sort of. It was more that the puck rolled off a Shark stick while the Canucks had the goalie pulled for the extra attacker, so it’s more like the Sharks prevented it, but I’m trying to be positive here!
- Finally, John Garrett let it be known that he’s giving up ketchup for Lent, mainly because the Oxford English Dictionary needed an updated definition for the word “sacrifice.”
