Another day, another loser point for the Canucks. The club is now up to seven OTLs on the season, the most in the NHL, so if you're looking for a silver lining after Friday's 3-2 shootout loss to the Western Conference-leading Dallas Stars, it's this: nobody manages their losses like Vancouver. Really, they're not even losses. They're half-losses. Which means they're half-wins.
This might explain why I'm actually half-impressed with the Canucks' performance tonight. They outplayed the Stars from beginning to end; the Sedins continue to produce; the team had a rare, strong third period, and they even survived the three-on-three overtime. Really, the only part where they screwed up was in letting one more shootout goal, and that seems pretty minor to me. After all, it's only worth one extra point. I watched this game.
- This could have been a mismatch. The Stars are one of hockey's best teams these days, and the Canucks are one of hockey's most inconsistent. But Vancouver pushed the pace from the opening puck drop, outshooting the Stars 14-8 in the first and out-attempting them 21-13. Unfortunately, they couldn't beat Antti Niemi, and twice as unfortunately, they surrendered a powerplay opportunity to a group that boasts Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, Patrick Sharp, and Jason Spezza. Those guys are pretty good, and they didn't need long on the man advantage to make the Canucks' penalty-kill look as bad as Dennis Rodman wants to be.
- Fortunately, the Canucks have a couple impressive forwards of their own. The Sedins are rolling like Proud Mary these days. Daniel Sedin had another two-point night, pushing him to 12 points in his recent, seven-game point streak and giving him 16 points in his last nine games. When you're on a run like that, the puck occasionally just comes to you, and it sure did on the Canucks' first goal. An errant pass from John Klingberg landed right on the stick of Jannik Hansen in front of the Dallas net. Hansen smartly slid the puck across to Daniel. All Daniel had to do tap the puck like it was Angela Merkel and he was the NSA.
- The Stars would get that one back on another powerplay thanks to a lethal Jason Spezza slapshot. It really is incredible that the man who laughs like this can shoot like that. After the game, Miller lamented how he played the shot: "I’d like to make a save on Spezza," he said. "He stepped into it, but I’ve got to be more assertive on that play.” Yes. More assertive. I'm hopeful for a future where Spezza winds up, and Miller just skates up to him and strongly says, "No. Don't. Quit it. I said stop." That's a level of assertiveness I can get behind.
- I won't rag on Miller too much. He can blame himself for that goal. I blame no one. That was a perfect shot. And he was excellent otherwise, especially in overtime, where the Canucks tried a new approach to beating the three-on-three formation: four guys. Turns out you can't do that. On the ensuing powerplay, Miller was incredible. He played the entire extra frame telegram style, which is why it was so characteristically full of STOPS.
- I think the Canucks had the right idea in trying to ice four guys during overtime. Their mistake was in who they sent over the boards. Next time, tap Sven Baertschi as the extra man. He's invisible.
- The Canucks had an answer for the Spezza goal too, and once again, it came from a Sedin. On their seventh and final man advantage of the game, the twins combined to give the Canucks a powerplay goal for the eighth consecutive game, as Daniel set up Henrik with another unbelievable feed. This one was a backhanded saucer pass through the legs of Johnny Oduya. Downright amazing, this thing. Someone should screencap the airborne pass and caption it "I Want to Believe", because that was one Hell of a flying saucer.
- Let's give credit to Henrik for the shot too. He releases this puck from below the goal line, which appears to be his new favourite spot. It's no surprise. Considering the Sedins' love of cycling the puck down low, you knew they'd eventually figure out how to finish the job without leaving the office.
- Yannick Weber had a game-high 10 shot attempts tonight. That's how you get into the lineup. The other way is to be one of the five usual suspects.
- Finally, Jared McCann had another great night tonight, generating four shots on goal. (We'll ignore that he won jsut two of 11 facoffs.) It really is amazing comparing the McCann we're seeing now with the one from a few weeks ago. Not long ago, he was fighting the puck. Now he's pursuing it doggedly. I've seen this romantic comedy. Soon, he and the puck wlll fall in love. Then at some point there will be an obstacle, and they'll spend some time apart, but you just know they're going to end up together.
