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.
Can I drop the gloves with the entire team? I can? This is my feature and I can do whatever I want? Awesome. I’m dropping the gloves with every single Canuck, because this game was an utter disaster from start to finish and it made everyone sad.
Let’s start by dropping the gloves with Anders Nilsson. He didn’t have a lot of help and still finished the game with 41 saves, but he allowed some bad goals, including the second shot of the game from a bad angle. That was PK Subban’s first goal of the game and his second was from centre ice: it was going wide until Nilsson missed the catch with his glove and tipped it into his own net. Awful night for Nilsson, who ended up smashing his goalie stick over the crossbar in frustration later in the game.
Michael Del Zotto gets the gloves dropped. His giveaway led to the first Predators goal and he struggled alongside Derrick Pouliot all game. That pairing just did not seem to click.
Dropping the gloves with Derrick Pouliot, who was on the ice for five of the Predators’ seven goals. His play on the 2-0 goal was particularly frustrating, as he dumped the puck in on the power play, then chased after it himself when he had no chance to reach it. A quick lofting pass later and it was a shorthanded 2-man breakaway for an easy goal.
The offside review rules get the gloves dropped for erasing a Canucks goal late in the first period because Thomas Vanek’s skate was barely half an inch above the ice. Heck, let’s drop the gloves with the offside rule in general. It’s an antiquated rule that slows down the game and prevents offence. Do away with it entirely.
I’ll give a stick-tap to Henrik Sedin for reaching a milestone: 800 career assists. His saucer pass was likely intended for Daniel Sedin on the other side of the ice, but Alex Burmistrov neatly knocked it down, then lifted the rebound over Pekka Rinne.
Brock Boeser gets a stick-tap for continuing his point streak despite the complete clustercuss happening around him. He assisted on Burmistrov’s goal with a lovely zone entry, then went hard to the net to make space for Burmistrov to score. He now has 29 points in 29 games, leading all rookies in scoring.
I’ll drop the gloves with Burmistrov and his linemates, Sam Gagner and Thomas Vanek. They may have created a couple decent chances, but they gave up a ton defensively. They got badly out-shot when they were on the ice — shot attempts were 17-3 for the Predators when Burmistrov was on the ice at 5-on-5 — and they had some serious backchecking issues.
Let’s drop the gloves with Jake Virtanen, who needs to cut to the net whenever he has the chance instead of settling for wrist shots from a bad angle. He’s like a generic brand David Booth right now.
The 6-1 goal was a mess. I want to drop the gloves with so many people: Nikolay Goldobin for not getting back on Kevin Fiala; Alex Edler for taking himself out of the play going down for a shot block and not getting up quickly; Markus Granlund for swinging his stick at the puck instead of taking the body; Derrick Pouliot for being somewhere other than the defensive zone while all of this was happening.
I’ll drop the gloves one more time with Pouliot, who really had a tough game. He made a soft play on Filip Forsberg, letting him get to the front of the net, but the worst part was that he let his momentum take him behind the net instead of stopping and defending the crease. Calle Jarnkrok had no one to check him with an open net and made it 7-1.
Alex Edler gets the gloves dropped too. It was his turnover at the blue line that led to the rush for the 7-1 goal and he tried to play goalie instead of taking one of the Predators in front of the net. He also had the worst corsi on the team: shot attempts were 31-11 for the Predators with Edler on the ice at 5-on-5.
Dropping the gloves with PK Subban, who decided that Jake Virtanen’s high stick on Alexei Emelin was worth a sucker punch from behind. That’s bad anywhere, but particularly in Vancouver, where we’ve seen that situation go south in a hurry.
