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I Watched This Game: Canucks 1, Sharks 4

It seems a little unfair that the first team the Canucks faced coming out of the All-Star break was the division-leading San Jose Sharks, a well-oiled hockey-playing machine that plays with speed and precision the Canucks haven’t known for years.
Daniel Wagner
I Watched This Game

It seems a little unfair that the first team the Canucks faced coming out of the All-Star break was the division-leading San Jose Sharks, a well-oiled hockey-playing machine that plays with speed and precision the Canucks haven’t known for years.

At the right time in the right situation, the Canucks could compete with the Sharks; after a week without a game was the wrong time and on a hockey rink playing hockey was the wrong situation. Soccer in late August would be a better time and situation.

Unfortunately, I didn’t watch the beautiful game; I watched this game.

  • If the Canucks need a model for rebuilding on the fly, the Sharks would be a pretty good model. The Sharks even come complete with a pair of aging veteran stars like the Canucks: one of the best playmakers of his era and a perpetually underrated goalscorer.

    The only problem is that following the Sharks’ model would require the Canucks to have started planning the Sedin succession plan over a decade ago by drafting Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture equivalents, not to mention catching and shaving a sasquatch and, even then, there’s no guarantee that every sasquatch is as good at hockey as Brent Burns.
  • The Sharks were all over the Canucks in the first period like Smash Mouth on the work of Neil Cicierega, out-shooting them 13-6 and creating dangerous chances on seemingly every chance. “They came out on a different level than we were,” said Philip Larsen after the game, which explains a lot. The Sharks were at ice level, while the Canucks were on Level 300. Really, it’s shocking the Sharks didn’t score more while the Canucks watched from the balcony.
  • Patrick Marleau came into the game with 499 goals and, nice guy that he is, didn’t keep us in suspense, opening the scoring on the power play. The Canucks’ penalty kill got utterly schooled by a single Brent Burns pass that caught all four skaters in the neutral zone and sent Joe Pavelski in with Marleau. Chris Tanev wasn’t able to get back in position to block the pass to Marleau and he became the 45th 500 goalscorer in NHL history. Unlike the 45th president of the United States, he didn’t immediately become a national embarrassment.
  • The Sharks were unlucky not to score earlier, as they created more scrambles around the goalmouth than IHOP around peoplemouths. It could have been 5-0 after the first period, but it was instead just 2-0 after Larsen couldn’t find Chris Tierney’s stick, but a Miller rebound did.
  • Poor Larsen. Apart from failing to tie up Tierney’s stick on the Sharks’ second goal, he just kept making highly noticeable gaffes. One shift was full of them, as he kept fanning on passes, losing the puck while under no pressure, and nearly had a rebound deflect off him into his own goal. Apart from all those really obvious, terrible plays, he wasn’t half-bad!
  • After the first period, the Canucks were significantly better. For the first time in a while, both the Horvat line and the Sedin line were clicking, with Horvat looking like he realized something at the All-Star Game: he could become one of the best players in the NHL. Except, he’s not quite there yet, as was evident when he lost the handle on two great opportunities. Alternatively, the vandals took his handles, in which case he really should have taken the advice to “Look out, kid.”
  • Unless he starts scoring in bunches, Loui Eriksson is likely to get knocked off the Sedin’s line, which would really be a shame, as they’ve looked more and more like the Sedins lately. Their passing was on point in this game, but they just couldn’t find their finish. Have they tried looking in Finland?
  • Shout out for that last joke to the past week spent packing and moving, while getting minimal sleep. Couldn’t have done it without you.
  • At one point Troy Stetcher fell to the ice in a puck battle and ended up sitting on the puck. The ref yelled at him, “Don’t put your hand on the puck!” Stetcher just looked at him, both hands in the air. Did that ref think that Stecher has a hand attached to his butt? Also, would it be terrible or awesome to have a hand attached to your butt? Let me know in the comments.
  • The Sharks’ third goal ticked me off, mainly because Joe Thornton pretty blatantly pulled Stecher down with his left hand, a clear cut holding penalty. But the refs missed it and Burns scored. That was upsetting enough, but it was the Johns, Shorthouse and Garrett, talking about Thornton “out-muscling” Stecher that ground my gears, because he didn’t out-muscle the smaller Stecher; he cheated and got away with it. 
  • After playing a pretty ugly game, Larsen scored his first goal as a Canuck, revealing his entirely awesome goal song: “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti, better known as the theme from Rocky. If only the goal itself matched the epic nature of the song. Alas, it was not to be: Larsen’s shot hit a Shark and beat Martin Jones. Although, banking a puck off a shark to score a goal does sound pretty epic, depending on the species of shark. Bull shark? Badass. Zebra shark? Stop wasting our time and get that stupid shark off the ice.
  • Tierney finished off the game with his second goal, firing a puck top corner past a screened Ryan Miller. Only, the ref immediately waved it off, citing Joel Ward for goaltender interference. The ref must be a fan of Kellyanne Conway: like the Bowling Green Massacre, the goaltender interference never happened. Upon further review, the interference was determined to be an alternative fact and the goal was allowed.
  • “Fake news!” shouted Willie Desjardins from the bench after it was declared a good goal.