Skip to content
Join our Newsletter
  1. Home
  2. Canucks Hockey - Pass it to Bulis

Stick-taps and Glove-drops: Canucks at Leafs, January 6, 2018

Quick kudos and critiques from tonight's game.
Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
Stick-taps and Glove-drops
Stick-taps and Glove-drops

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. Feel free to leave your own stick-taps and glove-drops in the comments.

A tap of the stick to Don Cherry for pumping up Erik Gudbranson’s trade value. In the first intermission Coach’s Corner, he suggested the Leafs would love to have him, but “You’d have to give up a guy like Brown or Marner or something like that.” Thanks, Don!

Dropping the gloves with the puck, which had the temerity to smash into Chris Tanev’s face in the first period, knocking out a couple teeth (or fake teeth, perhaps) and causing Tanev to miss the rest of the game. Here’s hoping he won’t be out long-term.

 

 

Stick-tap to Michael Del Zotto, who picked up a lot of Tanev’s minutes, but also helpfully picked up Tanev’s teeth. Gross.

 

 

Tap of the stick to Brock Boeser, who halted his “drought” at two games, opening the scoring early in the second period. He knocked down the clearing attempt at the blue line, then took Thomas Vanek’s drop pass and fired the puck just inside the post.

Stick-tap to Vanek as well, as that was a lovely pass, drawing in the defender before dropping the puck off right in Boeser’s wheelhouse.

 

 

Travis Green gets a stick-tap for a good challenge for offside on what could have been an embarrassing goal on Jacob Markstrom. It was still embarrassing, but it wasn’t a goal. Markstrom tried to catch a lofted puck, but knocked it into his own net instead, but the puck was kicked into the zone offside by Morgan Rielly.

A tap of the stick to Sam Gagner, who scored his seventh goal of the season on a 5-on-3. The power play itself was a bit of a hectic mess, but the puck eventually found its way to Gagner on the left side and he ripped a slap shot from 15 feet out. He's now on pace for 14 goals and 38 points, which isn't that bad, actually.

 

 

Dropping the gloves with the refs for calling too many soft penalties in this game, so that they felt they couldn't call yet another penalty when Zach Hyman interfered with Alex Edler on the Leafs’ first goal. I mean, that’s one explanation. Maybe they just thought Edler went down too easily. In any case, Hyman got in behind Edler, then centred for the Auston Matthews finish.

A drop of the gloves to Troy Stecher, who didn’t noticed Tyler Bozak sneak behind him on the game-tying goal. Alex Edler gets the gloves dropped too, as he just didn’t get across quickly enough to help out his partner. It was a nice stretch pass by Rielly, though.

Boeser gets another stick-tap for his absurd shot that went off both posts in overtime. It was such a good shot that even the ref was fooled, as he indicated a goal. No such luck.

 

 

A tap of the stick to Alex Edler for playing nearly 30 minutes in this game. He had a bit of an up and down game, but he was at his best on the Leafs’ overtime power play, doing a marvelous job killing Boeser’s slashing penalty.

Gloves dropped with Gudbranson, who got everyone’s hopes up with a shorthanded 2-on-1 in overtime, then fanned on the puck and tripped over Rielly and slid comically into the boards for good measure. He had a decent game, but that was just hilarious.

 

 

Dropping the gloves with Travis Green for making the odd decision to play Nic Dowd for the final shift of overtime. Meanwhile, players who seem a lot more suited for 3-on-3 like Jake Virtanen, Nikolay Goldobin, and Thomas Vanek remained on the bench.

Stick-tap to Gagner for scoring in the shootout. Gloves dropped with Boeser and Vanek, who didn’t. Those are the rules, I didn’t write them. Oh wait, yes I did. Hm, maybe I should change those rules.