A few days ago, I said of Jacob Markstrom that, “he’s rarely been the reason the Canucks have lost a game, which is sometimes all you want from a goaltender.”
You could make a pretty compelling argument that Markstrom was the reason the Canucks lost this particular game. The Rangers managed just 20 shots on goal, but scored three times in regulation. Any time you make just 17 saves on 20 shots, you haven’t had a good night.
To be fair to Markstrom, he didn’t have much chance on two of the goals. It’s the one that he did have a chance on that was the trouble. Unfortunately, when you’re a goaltender, you get judged primarily on your mistakes, particularly when that mistake is the difference between a 3-2 win in regulation and a 4-3 loss in the shootout.
Markstrom took all the blame and the aqua seafoam shame when I watched this game.
- Late in the second period, a friend of mine who shall remain nameless so as not to incriminate them, texted me saying, “This is Markstrom’s shutout game.” They were convinced that with how poor the Rangers were playing that Markstrom would finally earn his first career shutout and avoid breaking “Pokey” Reddick’s NHL record of 132 games without a shutout. Not two minutes later, the Rangers scored. I’m not saying it was my friend’s fault, but he at least gets a secondary assist on the goal.
- Markstrom has now played 127 games without a shutout, just five games removed from Pokey's record.
- On the plus side, this was a legitimately fun game to watch. At least, from a Canucks perspective it was, as they dominated in most aspects of the game. They out-shot the Rangers 32-20 and out-attempted them 63-49, spending the bulk of the game in the Rangers’ zone. And, from a Rangers perspective, they won the game. So everyone got a dose of entertainment. Fun for the whole family, unless you’re related to Travis Green, who said he wasn’t disappointed, but he can’t have been enthused about giving up a two-goal lead.
- The Sedins were buzzing like honeybees that mistook Red Bull for nectar in this game, revelling in reuniting with Loui Eriksson. They opened the scoring in the first period: Henrik stole the puck at the blue line gave the puck to a streaking Eriksson, who put some torque on his stick and ripped the puck through Lundqvist’s legs. Like a Boston decathlete on the first day of competition, he took a wicked shot.
- With Brandon Sutter out of the lineup, Green made the odd decision to break up the Canucks’ highest scoring line, moving Bo Horvat between Thomas Vanek and Sam Gagner and putting Alexander Burmistrov, who was a healthy scratch for six games, between Sven Baertschi and Brock Boeser. It didn’t last long: the usual first line was reunited shortly into the first period, but Burmistrov and Horvat switched lines a few times in the third period. None of the combinations seemed to gel particularly well, likely because they didn’t have any Collective Soul on their pre-game mixtape. I blame DJ Del Zotto.
- At some point, Jake Virtanen has to get more ice time. He had 9 shot attempts in just 10 minutes of ice time. Sure, some of those shots were from distance, but even with that in mind, that’s a crazy number of shots. Yes, he makes mistakes, but those mistakes have yet to truly cost the Canucks: he has the lowest rate of goals against on the team and the fifth-lowest rate of shots against. Whatever errors he makes in the process or details of the game are not producing bad results, so give him a little more leeway.
- I liked Virtanen’s line with Brendan Gaunce and Markus Granlund, but I’m not ready to crown them a shutdown line like some Canucks fans. The biggest issue is that no one on that line can consistently win a faceoff, so Green will be hesitant to deploy them regularly in the defensive zone. The trio was on the ice for just three faceoffs, with Green preferring to send them out on the fly.
- Virtanen gave the Canucks a 2-0 lead after some strong work by Brendan Gaunce and Markus Granlund along the boards. As they battled, the puck popped out to Virtanen, who quickly put the puck on his forehand, then put it just as quickly into the top corner. He went upstairs faster than a character in a horror movie who is running from the killer. Why would you run upstairs? There are no exits! You’re intentionally running into a dead-end! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!
- My initial reaction was to blame Alex Edler on the first Rangers goal, but after some reflection, it just seems like bad luck. Edler was in tight on Markstrom in front of the net, but Markstrom was able to see the initial shot and went down into his butterfly to make the save. The issue was that it took a deflection of Sam Gagner’s stick, leaving Markstrom out of position for Jesper Fast’s tip-in from the top of the crease.
- Michael Grabner tied the game 2-2 just 19 seconds into the third period. It’s a shot that Markstrom should have stopped and, in fact, was going wide before it hit his glove and deflected into the net. Markstrom doesn’t let in a soft goal every game like some people suggest, but it’s a narrative that’s hard to shake when a shot like that gets past him.
- It’s high time Anders Nilsson gets a stretch of starts to give Markstrom a rest and see if Nilsson can take the reins. It’s likely he was meant to start this game, but he has apparently been under the weather recently. Expect to see him start a few in a row when he’s feeling better.
- Sam Gagner has had some bad luck this season, with just two goals on 49 shots heading into this game, so it was nice to see a bounce go his way. The puck took a weird bounce (aka. a Brock Boeser) off the glass on a Brendan Smith clearing attempt and it came right to Thomas Vanek. He centred for Gagner, who seemed to be the only player other than Vanek that saw the puck take a carom. Gagner made like Eleven and waffled the shot through Lundqvist. I mean, the way it went past him, he must have been controlling it telekinetically.
- On the Rangers’ third goal, the Canucks were like a crane kick done right: no can defence. With Troy Stecher up ice, Loui Eriksson tried to cover for him, but got burned by Rick Nash when he pivoted to skate backwards at the wrong time. Michael Del Zotto sprawled to take away Nash’s lane to the net, but he spun and passed to Jimmy Vesey, who was wide open with Daniel Sedin skating back too casually on the backcheck. Vesey went hard to his backhand and beat a helpless Markstrom.
- Alex Edler made a kick-save with just under 10 minutes remaining in the game that saved a goal and ensured a point for the Canucks. Markstrom committed too early and couldn’t recover when Kevin Hayes fed Nash at the backdoor for a wide open net, but Edler flashed out his left skate to turn it aside. Someday, Edler is going to be a really good beer league goaltender.
- The Sedins were dominant in possession in overtime, but were ultimately only able to create two shots on goal, though two more were blocked. It’s easy to get frustrated with them for not getting more shots with their possession, but at the same time it’s the best they’ve looked in quite a while and we’ve seen them ragdoll defences and set up a perfect scoring chance to win many times in the past. Lundqvist robbed Daniel on the best chance they created; if he scores there, no one is complaining about the lack of shots.
- Brock Boeser was held off the scoresheet, ending his point streak at six games. He never really threatened, in fact, finishing without a shot on goal for the first time in seven games. He only had one shot attempt. He did score in his first career shootout attempt, however, weaving in slowly before beating Lundqvist with his quick release from inside the hashmarks.
- I don’t blame Green for going with Ben Hutton in the seventh round of the shootout ahead of, say, Virtanen. While Hutton hasn’t been in the shootout before, he did score a lovely goal on a penalty shot last season against the Arizona Coyotes. He basically tried the same move, faking a shot on the forehand, then deking to the backhand and sliding the puck five-hole. It nearly worked too: you can see the puck trapped under Lundqvist’s pad, as he got it down on the ice just in time to make the stop.
- Jimmy Vesey scored the tying goal and he came through with the winner in the shootout, beating Markstrom with a top-shelf snipe. It was a disappointing finish for the Canucks, but they still held onto a point. They are now 2-1-1 on their current road trip and will look to win against the New York Islanders on Tuesday to guarantee a winning record for the trip.
