Stick-taps and glove-drops is a recurring feature after every Canucks game giving some quick kudos and criticism before the longer I Watched This Game feature. That’s right: two post-game articles for the price of one! That price is still zero dollars.
Oh lord, how many gloves do you have? There are plenty of gloves to drop in one of the poorest efforts of the season from the Canucks, as they got out-shot 34-20 and out-attempted 72-40 by an undermanned Ducks squad that was missing Ryans Getzlaf and Kesler, along with a bevy of other players.
Let’s start by dropping the gloves with Chris Tanev’s unknown upper-body injury. Losing Tanev pretty much cost the Canucks this game before it even began, as it had a ripple effect on the rest of the Canucks’ defence. All three pairings were brand new pairings that hadn’t played together yet this season.
A tap of the stick to Kevin Bieksa, who momentarily forgot which team he played for and put a loose puck right on Sven Baertschi’s stick for the opening goal. Baertschi found a tiny gap between Ryan Miller’s pad and blocker and, for a moment, this game looked winnable for the Canucks.
Bieksa clears the puck right to ... who scores to put #Canucks up 1-0 pic.twitter.com/2ImSbDg9n7
— Ryan Biech (@ryanbiech) November 10, 2017
Hate to do it in his first game back from injury, but I’m dropping the gloves with Alex Edler. He struggled in every facet of the game and ended up on the ice for all three of the Ducks’ power play goals.
Edler wasn’t to blame on the Ducks’ first goal, as he made a nice defensive slide to cut off a backdoor pass. I’ll drop the gloves with Jacob Markstrom instead, who pushed across hard on the initial pass, then took far too long to react to Edler’s block. Hampus Lindholm banked it off his pad and in.
Really, the Canucks’ penalty kill as a whole deserves some dropped gloves. Without Tanev, they were constantly scrambling, chasing the puck to the boards and leaving checks open. That was the case on the Ducks’ second goal, as Brandon Montour had plenty of time to pick his spot and beat Markstrom.
Erik Gudbranson gets the gloves dropped for one of the worst defensive plays I’ve seen in some time. With Rickard Rakell coming out of the corner after winning a puck battle with Edler and Jakob Silfverberg in front of the net, Gudbranson made the inexplicable decision to defend the far post. Rakell passed it to the wide open Silfverberg, who easily beat Markstrom, but that far post was sure safe from harm.
This is bad defense. Bad. Bad bad bad. Taylor Swift would probably write a song about it. About how bad it is. pic.twitter.com/I2LB8jtVCZ
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) November 10, 2017
It’s really too bad, as I was prepared to give Gudbranson and Ben Hutton a stick-tap each, as they were the Canucks’ best pairing in this game. Hell, with so few stick-taps to give out, I’ll let it ride. Stick-taps for Gudbranson and Hutton! They weren’t terrible! Except for that aforementioned play.
Dropping the gloves with Derrick Pouliot for the Ducks’ fourth goal, as he stood by and did nothing to check Silfverberg as he scored his second goal in 35 seconds. He and Michael Del Zotto were on the ice for a frightening number of Ducks’ scoring chances, but I’m a little more forgiving of Del Zotto, who was playing on his off-side. I can’t see this pairing lasting for very long.
I’ll give Bo Horvat a stick-tap, as he was the best Canuck in this one, even if that’s a low bar. Horvat at least looked like he was trying to create scoring chances and finished with three shots on goal. He also went 15-for-21 in the faceoff circle. Can’t blame Horvat for the result in this one.
