Enroute to winning Super Bowl XLVIII, the Seattle Seahawks dominant defensive backs, the Legion of Boom, were known for their tendency to commit illegal contact on pretty much every play. They knew the refs were never going to throw a flag on every single play and they reasoned that the benefits of holding and interfering on every play outweighed any penalties they might receive.
The Legion of Boom came to mind because that’s the way the Anaheim Ducks seem to play, constantly hooking, holding, roughing, and slashing. It’s a sound strategy, particularly since NHL refs tend to avoid calling everything by the book, but follow the mysteries of game management.
Except in this game the refs called the Ducks for penalties early and often, with nary a makeup call to be seen. They even gave a non-coincidental minor to someone for punching Alex Burrows, which has never happened before in the history of the NHL.
The Ducks kindly spotted the Canucks an extra skater when I watched this game.
- Alex Burrows played in his 800th career game, becoming just the sixth player in franchise history to play 800+ games for the Canucks. You just know he’s going to rub it in Ryan Kesler’s face when he gets into the Ring of Honour and Kesler doesn’t.
- The highlight of the first period for me was when Ryan Getzlaf lined up a big open ice hit on Nikita Tryamkin, but the big Russian nimbly side-stepped Getzlaf, sending him flying a good twenty feet. Tryamkin is surprisingly light on his feet for a refrigerator on skates. Getzlaf got a laugh out of me, I’ll tell you that much.
- Unfortunately, Getzlaf had already gotten the first laugh, opening the scoring with a shorthanded goal. Like a child at Christmas whose parents don’t understand what’s cool anymore, Ben Hutton gave Getzlaf too much gap.
- The Ducks earned all of their penalties, but they could lodge a complaint that they didn’t get enough power plays of their own, particularly when Michael Chaput literally clotheslined Cam Fowler away from the puck at the end of the first period. And when I say "literally" I mean it: clothes pegs and everything.
- But the Ducks can’t complain too much, because their second goal was as bogus as Bill and Ted’s second, slightly less excellent, adventure. Hampus Lindholm’s shot squeaked past Ryan Miller and sat in the crease, at which point Rickard Rakell pushed Miller’s pad into the puck, forcing it into the net. The Canucks challenged to no avail and Rakell even got credit for the goal despite never actually touching the puck.
- Heck, the goal was originally awarded to Lindholm, because the stats keepers used their eyes to observe what actually happened on the ice, while I suppose the situation room in Toronto was too busy using their eyes to observe the insides of their own butts. I suspect that the goal was changed to Rakell in order to cover those same butts.
- The Canucks finally capitalized on their fourth power play opportunity when Loui Eriksson snuck a mickey at the bench and got a little tipsy, deflecting a Ben Hutton point shot up over John Gibson. With the goal, Eriksson tied Daniel Sedin for the team lead in power play goals. The fact that he’s not on the first power play unit is the hottest nonsense of the season.
- Ryan Miller didn’t have to make many saves, finishing with 24 stops on 26 shots, but he came up with one of the best saves of the season on Corey Perry, stretching out like Mr. Fantastic to snare a puck headed for an open net. Perry could only smile in disbelief.
- Bo Horvat was superb against the Ducks, but didn’t even get an assist for the best play of the game. He went full Sedin, shedding his check by banking the puck off the back of the net to himself, then setting up Alex Edler for a scoring chance in the slot. His shot bounced off a Duck, hit Sven Baertschi, and Jack Skille took two whacks at the puck to beat Gibson. That’s a primary assist for Baertschi for getting hit with the puck, a secondary assist for Edler for having his shot blocked, and bupkis for Bo.
- When Skille scored while on the ice with Horvat and Baertschi, and Jayson Megna came out with Brandon Sutter and Markus Granlund, I thought that the Line Blender 3000 had reunited Alex Burrows with the Sedins for his 800th career game, which seemed like a nice touch. So when Loui Eriksson stepped onto the ice on the top line, I was momentarily disappointed. Then I remembered that this is what I wanted all along. It was beautiful: the Sedin cycle game suddenly rematerialized, almost as if Eriksson had years of prior experience playing with the twins before he signed with the Canucks.
- Eriksson even assisted on Henrik’s game winning goal in overtime, waiting patiently with the puck on a 2-on-1 before making like Brodie Smith and saucering a perfect pass. Henrik’s shot was even more perfect, pinging off the exact centre of the back bar. That may have been the greatest shot of Henrik’s career. Seriously.
