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Vancouver Canucks Game Review: First Home Loss, Is the Sky Falling? |
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Monday September 29: Arizona Coyotes 4 - Vancouver Canucks 2
The Vancouver Canucks were outscored and outworked by the Arizona Coyotes during a 4-2 loss at Rogers Arena on Monday night. Here are your highlights:
Both teams' lineups are looking more like what we'll see when the regular season begins, but just as it's important not to get too high over preseason wins, I think we shouldn't be too alarmed by a loss.
Arizona's top defense pairing of Keith Yandle and Oliver Ekman-Larsson were prominent over the course of the night; I daresay the Canucks would have looked a lot different if Dan Hamhuis and Kevin Bieksa had played—especially since they were down to five defensemen for the better part of two periods after Frank Corrado left the game with an upper-body injury early in the second period.
Details on Corrado are limited at this point. Apparently he "took a hit" and is "out for a bit." Make of that what you will.
Here's a quick look at how the workload broke down for the other five defensemen on Monday:
Luca Sbisa: 20:32 of ice time, 1 shot, 1 hit, 2 giveaways, minus-one
- The hit was a beauty, crunching Brandon McMillan into the Canucks' bench.
Yannick Weber: 21:05 of ice time, 5 shots, 2 giveaways, 1 penalty, even
- I thought Weber had a decent game; high-energy and lots of shots on net
Chris Tanev: 23:23 of ice time, 1 shot attempt blocked, 1 missed shot, 5 blocks, minus-two
- not the best outing for the normally-reliable Tanev
Ryan Stanton: 21:42 of ice time, 6 hits, 3 blocked shots, 2 penalties, even
- Stanton's not the biggest guy, but used his body more than any of the others on Monday
Alex Edler: 26:07 of ice time, 2 shots, 3 attempts blocked, 2 missed shots, 2 hits, 3 giveaways, 1 takeaway, minus-one
- An active night for Edler, who logged the most ice time of the bunch. He was the only defenseman to see power play time, since Vancouver only received one man advantage
I was watching Luca Sbisa for the first time as a Canuck on Monday, and thought he looked shaky. In addition to the second Phoenix goal deflecting in off his skate, he seemed a little panicky when it came time to make that first pass out of his own zone.
Hopefully another week of working with Willie Desjardins and Doug Lidster will help Sbisa get a better handle on his role and the team's system. I'd also assume he won't look so exposed when he's placed in a third-pairing role.
On the bright side, the Canucks went one-for-one on the power play, thanks to Radim Vrbata's goal. Considering we saw just one man advantage, Vancouver's deployment looked good, with Vrbata and Linden Vey working open ice alongside the twins, and Edler manning the blue line. We won't see 100 percent efficiency every night, but that was the Canucks' best stat of the night on Monday.
Up front, it was a bit of a mixed bag. The Canucks got killed in the faceoff circle all night, with only Nick Bonino winning more draws than he lost. Henrik Sedin was a shocking 3-10, while Linden Vey was 9-13 and Bo Horvat was 4-6.
Monday's game was also my first chance to see Derek Dorsett live. I liked his hustle. He was good on the penalty kill, skated well and scored his first goal as a Canuck when he tapped in Chris Higgins' dribbler early in the first period. But his line, with Higgins and Vey, had some defensive challenges. They were on the ice for all three Coyotes goals scored at even strength, so Dorsett finished the night as a minus-two.
Higgins was also on the penalty-kill with Bo Horvat for Shane Doan's second-period goal, giving him the honour of being on the ice for all four goals against. That can't be a good feeling.
As for the kids, I didn't think they were as prominent as they needed to be to improve their chances of sticking in the lineup. Hunter Shinkaruk saw just 8:36 of ice time, and while the young guns had a couple of shifts where they were able to cycle the puck and generate some scoring chances, there were also some moments where they lost the puck with embarrassing ease.
When asked about the kid line in his postgame news conference, Wille Desjardins singled out Bo Horvat for praise, further fueling the belief that he has the best chance to start the season with the big club—at least for a nine-game trial.
On a night that didn't go particularly well for the Canucks, Desjardins manages to walk a fine line between keeping a positive outlook and being frank about his team's effort. He hasn't been the most quotable coach so far but this level of scrutiny is brand new to him. I'm curious to see how his persona will evolve as the season wears on.
Facing 35 shots in a full game of action, Ryan Miller was victimized by a couple of tough bounces, as he discusses here.
Jeff Paterson and company had a field day on the TSN1040 postgame with Miller referencing yesterday's rain as part of the reason why he didn't try to come out to play the puck on Joe Vitale's opening goal, which I thought was making a mountain out of a molehill.
It was a pretty humid day yesterday, and since Miller is playing on the ice, I think he'd have a relatively clear perspective on the ice conditions.
As expected, Joacim Eriksson was assigned to Utica today, so we'll probably see Miller and Eddie Lack get one game each to close out the preseason. Now that Miller has shown some fallibility, it'll be interesting to see if Lack can play well enough to ignite Vancouver's latest goaltending controversy before the season begins.
Today's a day off for the Canucks, whose next game action comes Thursday in Edmonton, against the Oilers. Apparently Zack Kassian should be healthy enough to play on Thursday; I haven't heard any word on Brad Richardson's status.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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