It’s been a long time since I watched a Canucks game with my mom, but a confluence of events led to me watching the Canucks face the Lightning in the house I grew up in. My mom gets very vocal while watching games on TV, gasping at every potential scoring chance and talking to the players as if they could hear her.
She especially doesn’t like dumb penalties. Or even accidental penalties, really. Any penalty at all committed by the Canucks will net you a scathing comment, always aimed at the player and not the referees. She was not fond of Michael Del Zotto in this one. It’s an interesting soundtrack for watching the game.
Which I did. I watched this game.
- The Tampa Bay Lightning are the best team in the NHL and the Vancouver Canucks are definitely not, but the two teams at least looked like they belonged in the same league Saturday night. The Canucks showed a lot of guts, moxie, pluck, and gumption, hanging with the Lightning and getting the game within one goal in the third period, at least creating some excitement for the fans in attendance.
- There are two reasons to be cautious with your optimism. One is that the Lightning didn’t play their best. The other is that the Canucks were down by at least two goals for the vast majority of this game and the Lightning could afford to sit back. It was hard to shake the feeling that the Lightning could flip a switch at any moment and create a grade-A scoring chance, while it took everything the Canucks had to create a couple Grade-B chances at the other end.
- The Lightning opened the scoring on their first shot of the game when Chris Kunitz tipped Anton Stralman’s point shot into the top corner. Michael Del Zotto had a chance to tie up Kunitz’s twig to prevent the tip, but he instead tried to tie up Kunitz’s twig and berries.
- It’s tough to know what to make of Jake Virtanen right now. He got an opportunity to play alongside the Sedins to start this game and had a good start, getting in on the forecheck and throwing a couple big hits, but he seemed to be unsure of where to be on the ice and where to put the puck, neutering the Sedins’ cycle. It’s tough to tell if it’s a lack of confidence or hockey sense.
- You could tell Bo Horvat knew he had screwed up on the Lightning’s second goal by the way he threw his head back and hit the glass with his stick. He blew the defensive zone early when Sven Baertschi got the puck along the boards, but Baertschi took a moment too long to move the puck and Jake Dotchin knocked it loose. Horvat took too long to get back on Victor Hedman, leaving the Lightning defender with a wide open scoring chance that he put five-hole on Markstrom.
- Troy Stecher seems to be finding his game after some sophomore slumpness in the first half of the season. He’s showing more and more confidence in the offensive zone and Travis Green is likewise showing more and more confidence in him. He has nice chemistry with his University of North Dakota teammate, Brock Boeser, who set him up for a great chance in the second period. He finished with three shots on goal and an assist.
- Stecher ended up in no man’s land on the Lightning’s third goal, however. The Lightning played the rush perfectly, with Matthew Peca taking Alex Edler to the net driving up the middle. Peca should have been Stecher’s man, but it’s hard to fault either defenceman for how they played it. While Stecher ended up in the slot, Mikhail Sergachev passed back to Yanni Gourde for the one-timer from the right faceoff dot that sent the cap of Markstrom’s water bottle flying like an air hockey puck.
- The Canucks had nearly two minutes on a 5-on-3 to start the third period and, like Ryan Gosling’s parents, created some good looks. Andrei Vasilevskiy was just too good, as were Ryan Callahan, Braydon Coburn, and Victor Hedman, who played the entire penalty kill. Callahan erased what was shaping up to be the Canucks’ best chance on the power play, swinging his stick around to knock the puck off Boeser’s stick after the Canucks rookie dragged the puck around his sprawling form.
- Michael Del Zotto has been more and more physical of late, recording nine hits in this game and getting into a spat with Stamkos that led to the Lightning captain taking a retaliatory cross-checking penalty, breaking his stick on Del Zotto’s shoulder. Playing such an aggravating role would be a positive, if not for the two bad penalties he also took, making him a net negative in the penalties drawn/taken spectrum.
- There weren’t any outright bad goals on Jacob Markstrom and he kept the Canucks in the game with some great saves, but he still gave up four goals on 28 shots. Meanwhile, at the other end of the ice, Andrei Vasilevskiy showed why he’s the front-runner for the Vezina, making save after save until the Canucks finally broke through in the third period. That said, “Not as good as Vasilevskiy” applies to every other goaltender in the NHL right now.
- Leave it to Boeser to come through when the Canucks couldn’t find any offence. He started things off with a little more chemistry with Stecher, finding him with the puck after turning at the boards. Stecher cut around Kunitz into the slot, then found Thomas Vanek heading to the net. Vasilesvkiy went down expecting a quick shot, but Vanek showed tremendous patience, cutting behind the net for the wraparound.
- Watch Kunitz on the goal: if he goes to the right side of the net, he has a chance to prevent the goal. Instead he ends up practically on top of Vasilevskiy.
- Boeser then took matters into his own hands, burning Stralman in the neutral zone, then ripping the puck past Vasilevskiy’s blocker. It was a fabulous individual effort that brought to mind the preeminent sniper of the Canucks’ past, Markus Naslund. The goal kept him seven goals up on the Lightning’s Gourde for the lead in rookie goals, though he’s still seven points back of Matt Barzal in points.
- Markus Granlund led all Canucks forwards in ice time. While he played three minutes on the penalty kill, he still led all Canucks forwards in even-strength ice time. He replaced Brendan Gaunce on the shutdown line with Brandon Sutter and Loui Eriksson, and the trio played big minutes against the Lightning’s top line of Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, and Chris Kunitz.
- Unfortunately, that trio got badly out-shot by the Lightning and it’s hard to avoid questioning the decision to play a defensive-minded forward line so much in a game in which you’re trailing. With Sutter, Eriksson, and Granlund on the ice, the Canucks had just one shot on goal, though Sutter did pick up the assist on Boeser’s goal, making the initial breakout pass then changing before Boeser scored.
- Chris Tanev had a strong game, but he cut short the Canucks’ attempt at a comeback when he bobble the puck at the blue line, giving Cory Conacher a breakaway. Tanev tried to get back and lift Conacher’s stick, but instead got his stick up in Conacher’s face for a double minor. The common-sense solution: let half of the double minor be “served” as a penalty shot and the other half as a two-minute minor. Turns out, the common-sense solution is the actual solution. I don’t know why I’m so surprised by that, but it is the NHL, so I guess I do know why.
- Conacher scored on the penalty shot, then the Lightning allowed just one more shot on goal from the Canucks in the final few minutes of the game. The Canucks pulled the goaltender, but couldn’t muster much, with Alex Edler having to make a sliding save to prevent an empty net goal from Gourde at the horn. A meaningless gesture to some, but it prevented Gourde from gaining ground on Boeser in the rookie goalscoring race, which is one of the few things that matters right now for Canucks fans. Give Edler a trophy.
