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.
A tap of the stick to good guy Sam Gagner for looking past the Minnesota Wild jersey on the young hockey fan hanging out by the Canucks’ tunnel after warm-ups and giving the kid his stick. The look on the kid’s face was priceless, as he likely just became a lifelong Gagner fan.
He knows only one word and it’s “stick”!
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) October 25, 2017
And it totally paid off!!! pic.twitter.com/G0mD9Co7kp
Dropping the gloves with that kid’s parents, though, for not teaching him to say please and thank you.
Both the Wild and the Canucks get dropped gloves, because that game was remarkably dull. That’s ideal for a team on the road like the Canucks, but embarrassing for the home Wild. That game deserved cliched “Canucks tame Wild” headlines.
With that in mind, a tap of the stick to Telus for making this game so difficult to find. It was only on Sportsnet Vancouver, but it simply showed “Blackout: Canucks” on the guide. Somehow they knew what a snoozer this one was going to be and wanted to protect their customers.
Looks like @TELUS had it right all along pic.twitter.com/vZ35IX7Ik2
— Rob Williams (@RobTheHockeyGuy) October 25, 2017
With his second shutout in three starts, Anders Nilsson gets a whole benchful of stick-taps. He was as good as he needed to be, making 29 saves. While the Canucks kept most of the shots to the outside, Nilsson made a handful of great saves. He manages to make tough blocker saves look incredibly easy.
A tap of the stick for Markus Granlund, who played 6:28 against his older brother Mikael and held him pointless. The shots were two apiece when the Granlund brothers were on the ice at 5-on-5 and when Markus was penalty killing against Mikael, the Wild got just one shot on goal.
Ben Hutton and Chris Tanev deserve a couple taps of the stick. They led the Canucks in ice time, playing big minutes against the Wild’s top offensive producers, and shut them down. Great game from the Canucks’ top pair.
The biggest stick-tap is reserved for Jake Virtanen, who enlivened this game with the only goal. He picked off the puck in the neutral zone to create the counter-attack, then stuck with the play when his initial shot got blocked and whipped it past Devan Dubnyk.
A tap of the stick to whoever shouted out “Attaboy Big Tuna!” as the Canucks were walking down the hallway to their locker room after the game. Big Tuna is evidently a nickname Virtanen picked up while in Utica, likely from a fan of The Office. It is the best nickname and we should all use it, particularly since it feels like a throwback to the Canucks' former animal nickname ways.
