The Vancouver Canucks have hit the road for seven games in the eastern time zone over 12 days.
The trip itself is daunting. After easing in with the cellar-dwelling Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday, five of the remaining six teams on the docket are currently in playoff positions, with Ottawa just one point off the pace. Road games against the division leaders in both Montreal and Pittsburgh will once again test whether this Canucks team just might be for real.
After last year's second-half collapse, the cautious approach is to wait and see what kind of moxie this group brings to the ice in the new year, but while we're here, we have to give them credit for their impressive start. The Canucks were notorious for taking awhile to get going during the Alain Vigneault / Roberto Luongo years—and Vigneault's New York Rangers are continuing the pattern for the second straight season.
Meanwhile, despite last year's terrible finish and all the changes over the summer, Willie Desjardins has guided his team to one of its best starts in franchise history, with a 15-6-1 record over 22 games. That matches the start of the 1991-92 Canucks—the exciting, dynamic team that became one of the NHL's best to watch under coach Pat Quinn.
As
Iain MacIntyre remarks in the
Vancouver Sun:
Desjardins’ Canucks may be the most Pat Quinn-like team in Vancouver since then. They press relentlessly, attacking with four lines.
These Canucks probably aren’t as deep, nor are they as big and physically intimidating as were Quinn’s best teams here. Certainly, there is no Pavel Bure on the roster and the field at the top of the league was much smaller then. With only 22 teams, the playoffs were profoundly easier to make.
But the culture of the Canucks now, the clarity of purpose and the importance of each player to that purpose, is strikingly similar to what Quinn engineered. So is the players’ belief that their coach is honest and fair, and cares about them and will stand by them.
And that is what is as exciting about this team as its record.
MacIntyre's interview with Desjardins in this piece is well worth a read. He's not resting on his laurels at all—he still wants his team to get better.
I think we have a long ways to go before we’ll be the team we want to be. And it’s not that we don’t have good performances because we’ve had some good performances, for sure. But are we as consistent as we want to be every game and every shift? I think we can get better at that.
The game against Phoenix two weeks ago would be one example of the inconsistency Desjardins is citing. But those games seem pretty few and far between compared to last year.
One sub-plot I found very interesting to watch on Tuesday was how multiple Canucks were able to get under the skin of Jaromir Jagr. I'll give some credit to our boys for their tenacity, but I also get the feeling that Jagr's pretty frustrated by the lack of support he's receiving from his teammates this season. Poor guy is 42 years old and is still a force, but really shouldn't be expected to be his team's leading scorer.
After flattening Patrick Kane into the boards on Sunday, Luca Sbisa took on an even bigger target in Jagr on Tuesday.
That's not easy to do,
as he told Botchford:
"He’s huge. I couldn’t believe I got him on the ice. It was pretty surprised he wasn’t aware I was coming. He usually knows where everyone is coming from.”
Have you ever hit him like that before?
“A few years back I tried to hit him in the corner. He turned his behind into my chest. I legit was left lying on the ice and I couldn’t breathe.”
Alex Burrows and even Bo Horvat were also having success antagonizing Jagr during the third period. Not only did they keep him off the scoresheet, the Canucks genuinely seemed to have the upper hand in the battle. Not an easy feat to achieve.
The Canucks practiced today in Columbus. Here are your roster updates:
Kassian was slashed on the hand late in the third period against the Devils on Tuesday. He was furious as he went to the bench—it seemed clear at the time that he knew he was injured.
Alex Edler was also missing from today's regular practice.
Kassian's injury means Linden Vey draws back into the lineup, and onto the first power play unit, and that no roster decisions will be needed for the immediate future.
Of course, Dan Hamhuis is also back in Vancouver. Since the Canucks have given up just one goal in the two games since Hamhuis' injury, his absence hasn't been too much of a blow so far. While there's no definitive word on the nature of his injury or how long he'll be out of the lineup, Botchford makes the most assertive declaration that I've seen: "Hamhuis (is) expected to miss at least six weeks with a groin tear."
Jim Benning did swing a deal for a defenseman on Tuesday, acquiring Andrey Pedan from the New York Islanders in exchange for left-wing Alexandre Mallet and a third-round pick in 2016.
Mallet was a second-round pick by Vancouver in 2012. He had five points in 59 games with the Utica Comets in 2013-14 and was playing in the ECHL with the Kalamazoo Wings this year, where he had 11 points in 14 games before the trade.
Pedan is 21 and was drafted in the third round by the Islanders in 2011. He's another big Russian to add to our collection, at 6'4" and 211 pounds. Pedan played his junior hockey with the Guelph Storm but seems to have had some trouble finding his consistency—he's bounced between the AHL and the ECHL since he was drafted and played just 33 games last season.
When I heard about the trade, I figured that Benning had probably scouted Pedan while he was working with Boston and liked what he saw. Tony Gallagher
confirms in this article that plenty of thought went into the deal and that Benning expects the kid to have real NHL potential some day.
As Gallagher says, it's exciting to see Benning continuing to make small tweaks to the system in hopes that something will pay off down the road.
Finally, a quick note on Cole Cassels' 10-game suspension. The incident was a hit to the head of Damir Sharipzyanov of the Owen Sound Attack last Sunday.
Click here if you haven't seen the video. It's pretty nasty.
The league states that the reasons for the suspension were that there was an injury on the play, Cassels makes contact with the head, he comes from a long distance, and the defender is in a vulnerable position and Cassels didn't let up.
The Oshawa schedule means that Cassels won't be eligible to return to action until December 30, which is bad news when it comes to World Juniors:
The 19-year-old has been dominating at the OHL level this season, sixth in league scoring with 39 points in 22 games.
Sapurji says Cassels was being treated as a bubble player for Team USA, so the fact that he'd miss the first couple of games of the tournament likely means he won't get a chance to participate. A tough blow, but perhaps an important lesson learned.
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