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.
Adam Gaudette gets a tap of the stick in his Canucks debut, because of course he does. Gaudette didn’t light the world on fire in his first game, by any means, but he played a solid two-way game. He finished with two shots on goal in just over ten minutes of ice time on a line with Brendan Gaunce and Reid Boucher.
Tap of the stick to Jacob Markstrom, who was outstanding in net. He made 35 saves on 36 shots, and the only puck that got past him came off the stick of Connor McDavid, which is pretty excusable. That brings Markstrom up to a .927 save percentage in March.
I’ll drop the gloves with Sam Gagner, who bears the brunt of the blame on the McDavid goal. Andrej Sekera lofted the puck out of the Oilers’ zone and, after failing to knock it down out of mid-air, Gagner stopped moving his feet. McDavid went right by Gagner, collected the puck, and snapped it past Markstrom.
Michael Del Zotto gets the gloves dropped as well, as he had an opportunity to come across and help Gagner, but took far too long to read the play and see that McDavid was going to get to the puck. By the time he moved to the puck, it was too late to disrupt McDavid.
A tap of the stick to the Connor McDavid Shutdown Crew: Alex Edler, Troy Stecher, Brandon Sutter, Tyler Motte, and Darren Archibald. They were hard-matched against McDavid and, while they didn’t keep him entirely in check, they kept him off the scoresheet when they were on the ice.
Alex Edler, in particular, deserves a stick-tap. After playing over 30 minutes on Tuesday night, he came close to doing so again, finishing with a game-high 29:12 in ice time. The Oilers may have had the edge in shots on goal, but the Canucks out-shot the Oilers in the half a game that Edler was on the ice. In one key moment at the end of the game, McDavid came flying up the right wing with the net empty behind him, and Edler just drilled him into the boards, erasing the danger.
I’d better give a stick-tap to Troy Stecher as well. Edler’s defence partner was not far behind him in ice time at 26:58, and he was just as key defensively. He made a stellar back-check late in the first period to disrupt a chance on an odd-man rush that looked like a sure goal
A tap of the stick to Sam Gagner, who made up for his earlier defensive gaffe with the tying goal. As three Oilers keyed in on Daniel Sedin, Gagner quietly made his way to the net, where he was able to whack in Daniel’s rebound from the right side. It’s his third goal in his last five games and sixth point in his last seven games since joining the Sedin line.
A tap of the stick to Derrick Pouliot, who scored a gorgeous goal to become the first player in NHL history whose first five NHL goals have all been game-winners. He stepped in off the blue line and Nikolay Goldobin found him with the puck. The Oilers gave him a clear path to the net and he froze Cam Talbot with a fake shot, then went around the goaltender and shot the puck into the open net.
Stick-tap to Nikolay Goldobin, who continued his excellent run of play lately with some more savvy playmaking. Aside from his heads-up play to Pouliot, he set up a Bo Horvat one-timer that nearly made it 3-1, but was cleared off the line by Sekera. Goldobin also had three shots on goal of his own and seemed more engaged in the defensive zone, at one point getting his stick in to disrupt a backdoor pass that would have been a dangerous chance.
I have to drop the gloves with Henrik Sedin and Brandon Sutter for their ugly giveaways in the defensive zone late in the third period. Sutter’s pass up the middle that was picked off by Ryan Strome was the more egregious giveaway, but Henrik’s was to the more dangerous player, as he tried to chip a puck past McDavid at the blue line and instead gave the NHL’s leading scorer a dangerous scoring chance.
