With the Canucks coming off a 5-game Eastern swing, it was fair to expect a bit of a road-trip hangover for the home team. Instead, the Capitals looked like they were all playing with actual hangovers.
Before the Capitals seemed to realize they were in an actual hockey game and not a hockey-themed costume party, the Canucks were up 5-0 and the game was essentially over. And now the Canucks are third in the Pacific, right behind the Las Vegas Golden Knights, because that makes perfect sense. Of course the Golden Knights and Canucks are two of the best teams in the Pacific Division. Of course.
I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming when I watched this game.
- The Canucks scored 6 goals in a game just once last season, and it was in a debacle of an 8-6 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. The last time they scored 6 goals in a win was November 21, 2015, nearly two years ago. I had begun to think 6-goal games were just a myth, like Bigfoot or Swedish twins.
- Before the Canucks started pouring out goals like sugar on Def Leppard, they had a brutally ineffective power play. They struggled to even break out of their own zone and, like Prison Break, it seemed like they had no idea what to when they finally did break out. If a Canucks fan watched just the first ten minutes of this game and you told them the Canucks went 3-for-6 on the power play, they would laugh in your face.
- Thomas Vanek opened the scoring thanks to Braden Holtby’s surprising lack of depth perception. Sam Gagner shot from a bad angle looking for a rebound and got what he wanted: the puck popped up into the air and Holtby tried to snare it with his glove and completely missed, allowing Vanek to knock it netward.
- Sven Baertschi had the best assist of the 2016-17 season on Brock Boeser’s first NHL goal, a cheeky backheel after his stick broke, and he already has a candidate for best assist of the 2017-17 season. Baertschi corralled Derrick Pouliot’s rebound, then sent the puck back between his own legs like a bulldog on a skateboard to Bo Horvat with an open net.
- Ben Hutton didn’t pick up an assist on Horvat’s goal — he would have had a tertiary assist if those existed — but he had a superb power play shift, holding the blue line on two clearing attempts and quickly moving the puck from the point, clearly demonstrating why he’s such an effective power play quarterback. Honestly, the Cleveland Browns should look into seeing if his quarterback skills translate to the gridiron. Can’t be much worse, right?
- Derek Dorsett saw his point streak end on Wednesday against the Wild, but he picked up right where he left off with a two-point night. His assist started with a strong forecheck on a Hutton dump-in, knocking Dmitry Orlov off the puck. His centring pass deflected off a skate to Markus Granlund for the goal. It seemed like a lucky break, but with so many lucky breaks surrounding Dorsett of late, don’t we have to start entertaining the possibility that it’s entirely intentional? Dorsett is out there calculating vectors and angles like Amadeus Cho.
- If necessity is the mother of invention and Chris Tanev is the father of shot blocking, the two of them hooked up to spawn a brand new way to block shots: flat on your belly, facing the net, with your butt towards the shooter. It may have been weird, but it worked, saving a goal when the game was still within reach for the Capitals.
Your move, Edler. pic.twitter.com/ry3IPQJq5f
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) October 27, 2017
- Erik Gudbranson took Brett Connolly out of the game with a hit from behind, but he was far less to blame on this one than his suspendable hit on Frank Vatrano. Connolly was carrying the puck along the boards, then cut back just as Gudbranson stepped in for the hit, turning to face the boards at exactly the wrong moment. Connolly was less culpable earlier in the game, however, when Gudbranson hit him in the head from the blindside away from the play.
- Apparently Baertschi was born to be a net-front presence on the power play. All 5’11” of him was parked in front of the Capitals net when Pouliot pinballed a puck towards him. The puck nicked off Baertschi’s skate and slid ever so gently across the goal line like a curling rock towards the button. Hutton rushed to the net as it slid, though whether it was to sweep or shoot the puck in, we’ll never know.
- The Canucks finally chased Holtby from the game with a goal by Dorsett. His initial shot off the rush trickled wide, but Holtby got caught staring at where the puck was and completed missed where it was going to be: stuffed in on a backhand wraparound. And with that, Dorsett moves into a tie for 11th in the NHL in goalscoring. Dorsett has more goals than Patrick Kane, Sidney Crosby, and Connor McDavid. You can’t stop him; you can’t even contain him; you can only hope that he chooses to fight you instead of score on you.
- With the game out of reach in the third period, Tom Wilson started looking to get revenge on Gudbranson for injurying Connolly. This was a spectacularly bad idea. First he went for the big hit, but just bounced off Gudbranson. Then he chased Gudbranson all over the ice looking for a fight, but Gudbranson just ignored him, drawing a penalty in the process. Then finally, after the whistle blew, Wilson literally jumped Gudbranson, forcing a fight that Wilson proceeded to lose badly. He needs to go back to hiding behind a fence, providing esoteric advice for his socially-inept neighbour.
- Hutton picked up another tertiary assist on Baertschi’s second goal, giving Hutton zero points on the night, even though he was on the ice for five of the Canucks’ six goals. His point shot created a rebound for Brock Boeser, who shoveled it back on goal. That created a rebound for Horvat, who tapped it over to Baertschi for the easy finish.
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That was Boeser’s third assist of the night, giving him the team lead in points with nine in eight games. He’s now just two points back of Clayton Keller in the rookie scoring race and Keller has played two more games than Boeser. Two more games, eh? I wonder how that happened...
