Thursday March 16 - Vancouver Canucks vs Dallas Stars - 7 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific
Vancouver Canucks: 69 GP, 28-32-9, 65 pts, sixth in Pacific Division
Dallas Stars: 69 GP, 27-32-10, 64 pts, sixth in Central Division
It should be a battle of two evenly-matched but struggling teams as the Vancouver Canucks finish off their five-game homestand by hosting the Dallas Stars on Thursday night at Rogers Arena.
It's no wonder the mood around the team is grim these days. The Canucks will be looking for their first win at home since Chris Tanev's overtime winner gave Vancouver a 2-1 overtime victory over Calgary nearly a month ago, back on February 18. Since then, the Canucks' only two wins have come on the road in Los Angeles and Anaheim; Vancouver has gone 0-5-3 at home.
The Canucks are also back in another huge power-play slump. They've scored just once with the man advantage in their last 31 attempts over the last 13 games. Over a stretch of more than a month, dating back to February 14, Vancouver's power-play efficiency has been a mind-boggling 3.2 percent.
The Canucks are now sitting in 28th place in the league at a 13.6 percent power-play success rate for the season. That's another two clicks below the performance that was so troublesome last year, when they connected on 15.8 percent of their opportunities.
It's hard not to look at the performance of the Sedin twins when assessing the power play. As usual, Henrik and Daniel lead the team in power-play ice time this season, averaging 3:07 and 3:03, respectively. They have 12 points each with the man advantage this year, so they're on pace to finish the year with 14.
That's well below the production that the Sedins have delivered in the past—Henrik got 35 power-play points and Daniel got 42 when Vancouver boasted the best power-play in the league in 2010-11. Since then, there has been a trend downwards, but even in the last two seasons Henrik had 25 power-play points in 2014-15 and 20 last season while Daniel had 25 and 19.
I still wish Willie Desjardins had given the twins and Loui Eriksson more time to see what they could do together on the power play—a configuration that worked as recently as September, when they were all playing for Team Sweden during the World Cup of Hockey. But the expected alchemy never happened.
The other surprising part of the twins' decline this season has been on the defensive side of the puck. Henrik's carrying the team's best golf score this season, with a minus-21—tied for 15th-worst in the league. By comparison, Daniel's a relatively respectable minus-12.
Henrik took responsibility in a conversation with
Jason Botchford of
The Province on Wednesday.
“I feel like we should have produced more than we have this year, that’s for sure,” Henrik revealed. “A lot of games it felt really good, we just weren’t able to put the puck in the net. The power play is a huge part of that. It hasn’t been working.
“It’s a year where we have felt we have cost us games and that hasn’t happened before. That’s something we have to get back next year. We have to be better.”
The twins were able to bounce back after the disastrous 2013-14 season with John Tortorella. That year, Henrik finished the season with 50 points in 70 games and Daniel had 47 points in 73 games.
Right now, Henrik sits at 42 points and Daniel has 32. Both players have appeared in all 69 games so far this season, so they're going to need a heckuva finish just to match those disappointing totals from three years ago.
Also unsettling—the Canucks finished with 83 points during Torts' 2013-14 campaign. They'd need to go 9-4-0 in their last 13 games to match that number this season.
Tonight's game should feature two pretty evenly-matched teams, as the Dallas Stars have gone from the best team in the Western Conference to one of the worst this season. The Stars sit one point behind the Canucks in the conference standings and are last in the league defensively, averaging 3.29 goals against per game. By comparison, Vancouver ranks 22nd at 2.88.
The Stars come into tonight's game on a three-game losing streak that has seen them allow 17 goals and make a goaltending switch midway through all three games. The Canucks gave up six goals in their last game; Dallas beat that with a 7-1 loss in Edmonton on Tuesday.
On the other hand, the Stars are on an 11-0-1 run against the Canucks. Vancouver did get the 5-4 overtime win on a Markus Granlund goal in the teams' other meeting at Rogers Arena, back in November, but Vancouver hasn't beaten Dallas in regulation in more than four years—the last time was February 21, 2013 in Dallas.
No word yet on which of Dallas' netminders will get the nod to start tonight, but guess who's back in goal for Vancouver?
To close today, if you haven't seen it yet, take a minute to read Alex Burrows' emotional story for the Players' Tribune.
The Ottawa Senators are 6-0-1 since Burrows joined their team, and he's 4-2-6 in those seven games, with one game-winning goal.
If the playoffs started today, Burrows and the Sens would meet the also-surging Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs. How much do you think he'd relish the opportunity to go up against Marchand, Bergeron and Chara in the postseason once again?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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