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Brock Boeser scores 2 more as Vancouver Canucks sweep season vs. Penguins

November 23, 2017, 1:55 PM ET [225 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Wednesday November 22 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Pittsburgh Penguins 2

I wonder if Matt Murray had nightmares about Brock Boeser last night?

After shutting out the Vancouver Canucks both times he faced them last season, Murray gave up five goals in two games to the rookie sensation as the Canucks swept their season series against the two-time Stanley Cup champs with a 5-2 win at PPG Paints Arena on Wednesday.

Here are your highlights:



In the second game of their Pennsylvania back-to-back, the Canucks came out of the gate strong against the sluggish Penguins. Boeser scored his 10th of the year just 3:52 into the game after taking a sweet feed from linemate Sven Baertschi. It was Midwestern Madness as Omaha, Nebraska native Jake Guentzel quickly replied with the first of two goals of his own, then Loui Eriksson finished off the first-period scoring with his second goal in as many games, converting a smart takeaway by Thomas Vanek by bouncing the puck off the knob of Murray's stick.

The other Canucks goals were also significant. Derrick Pouliot got his first as a Canuck against his former team with two seconds left in what had been an ineffective power play. For the second straight night, Vancouver went 2-for-3 with the man advantage, which moves them up to 15th in the league with a 19.8 success rate for the year. What is this madness?

Even Brandon Sutter's empty-netter was a feel-good moment—just his second of the year and the first time he has rippled the twine since opening night against Edmonton. Sutter's second only to Bo Horvat in ice time among Canucks forwards this season and his shutdown game has been a key part of the team's success but offense has been hard to come by. The empty-netter was his first point in seven games and just his sixth of the season—and Pittsburgh is his old team, too.

In his seventh start of the season, Anders Nilsson made 43 saves, improving his record to 5-1-1. With a goals-against average of 2.25, his .934 save percentage lands him right between Sergei Bobrovsky (.936) and Corey Crawford (.932)—very good company! Nilsson now has just one win less than Jacob Markstrom, despite having played less than half the number of games. He's certainly doing everything he can to ignite the city's next goalie controversy.

Speaking of which—if you missed it, Calgary put Eddie Lack on waivers today. Hard to believe now that the fanbase was outraged when Jim Benning elected to hang onto Jacob Markstrom and trade Lack to Carolina back in the summer of 2015, isn't it? I'm surprised to see that Lack turns 30 in January; I'd forgotten what a late bloomer he was when he broke through with the Canucks. He's in the final year of the contract extension he signed with the Hurricanes, which carries a cap hit of $2.75 million—more than the $2.5 million that Anders Nilsson is making this year.

I won't talk too much about Boeser since he's now getting plenty of ink elsewhere, but I will mention that his 11 goals now have him tied with Clayton Keller and his 21 points have moved him into the rookie scoring lead—despite having played five fewer games than Keller.

Even I was startled when I was reminded last night that Boeser's actually tracking ahead of what Pavel Bure did in his rookie season in Vancouver.




The Russian Rocket started his season late and needed some time to get adjusted before exploding late in his rookie year. Boeser has found his way much more quickly. It's going to be amazing to see what lies ahead.

I wonder if Iain MacIntyre penned a poem for Bure back in the day?




One final note from the game—Erik Gudbranson went down late in the second period with what appeared to be a wrist injury.




The Canucks are off today—watching football and probably eating turkey as they settle in for five days in New York City with games upcoming against the Devils on Friday, Rangers on Sunday and Islanders next Tuesday. So we won't get word on Gudbranson's status until tomorrow—but the injury comes with Chris Tanev close to getting clearance to return from his thumb injury.

If Gudbranson misses any amount of time, that'll add another layer of intrigue to the trade-him-or-re-sign-him debate that is already raging as he approaches unrestricted free agency at the end of the year.

Finally—it's U.S. Thanksgiving!

I wrote about all the ins and outs of this landmark day in my Goal Posts column yesterday:




With Wednesday's win, the Canucks are IN—in the first wild-card spot, fourth in the Pacific Division and seventh in the Western Conference.

But here's an example of just how volatile this year's playoff race will be. After beating Montreal on Tuesday night, Dallas moved into the second wild-card spot. The Stars were then shut out by Colorado on Wednesday—and fell to 13th. Not much room for error!

Canucks fans have plenty to be thankful for. Vancouver and St. Louis are the only teams with eight road wins under their belts at this stage of the season. Goaltending is good. The power play is starting to work, secondary scoring is starting to happen and we may be witnessing the emergence of one of the brightest stars in franchise history—a star, I'll remind you again, who was chosen 23rd in his draft year.

I'm even hearing some chatter that Travis Green could be in the mix as a Jack Adams candidate. That'd be an extraordinary achievement for a coach who's an NHL rookie himself!

To wrap up today—just in case you missed it, check out this John Tavares highlight that set up the Islanders' game-winning goal against the Flyers last night:




Watching this guy next week should be another highlight of the Canucks' road trip.
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