Tuesday November 28 - New York Islanders 5 - Vancouver Canucks 2
Thomas Vanek's second power-play goal of the year and a beautiful shorthanded rush by Bo Horvat didn't do much to distract me from thinking about who wasn't on the ice as the Vancouver Canucks turned in a stinker in their 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Tuesday at Barclays Center.
Here are your highlights:
Games against up-and-coming teams like the Islanders should be a measuring stick, and the Canucks got the short end this time around.
They were outshot 36-25 and fell behind early when they gave up their sixth shorthanded goal of the season just seven seconds into their first power play—and that was after winning the draw in the offensive zone!
Yeah, they got it back on that power play, and Bo served up the league-leading eighth shorty of the year on the Isles in the second period...
...but there wasn't much else to get excited about. Did you see the shot of Boeser yawning on the bench at the beginning of the third period?
The Golden Child's pointless streak has now stretched to a scary *two* games—and maybe I'm being a little sarcastic about that, but it did hurt a bit to see local boy Mathew Barzal grab an assist to move two points ahead of Boeser in the rookie scoring race...and deliver a charming between-periods interview with Dan Murphy.
Alex DeBrincat's the latest kid to catch our attention. The 5'7" Chicago Blackhawks forward notched his first career hat trick as part of a four-point effort on Monday night. With seven goals and 11 points in his last eight games, he's now up to 18 points for the season, four back of Boeser.
I started thinking about the absences of Brandon Sutter and Erik Gudbranson as I watched Chris Tanev struggle and Bo Horvat seemingly never leave the ice on Tuesday night.
Tanev did pick up an assist on Horvat's goal, but doesn't look like he's working with his usual calm confidence in the three games since he has come back from his thumb injury. I wonder how badly he's still hurt—we've seen him come back too soon from injuries before, then end up getting shut down for long periods of time.
Horvat played 19:42—not an outrageous number for him, but it was the highest of any forward and a little above his season average. His group was on the ice for three of the five goals against and he did the lion's share of the penalty-killing work up front, covering 3:19 with Vancouver shorthanded.
That P.K. time and all his work on faceoffs got me thinking about the 2013-14 season, when John Tortorella's response to injuries was to lean even harder on the Sedins and Ryan Kesler, who eventually wore down. I felt like Travis was sliding into that trap last night, looking down his bench and calling Bo's name every chance he got.
Also worth noting—though we were told that part of Alex Burmistrov's value lies in his penalty-killing skills, he did not get one second of shorthanded icetime in his 8:59 of ice time on Tuesday. Between that and the loss, the stage should be set for Nikolay Goldobin to show us what he has learned in Utica this year when the Canucks face the Predators in Nashville on Thursday.
For all of the heat that Brandon Sutter and Erik Gudbranson take from the Canucks fanbase, their absences have been noticeable. Sutter (and Derek Dorsett) were doing the heavy lifting that allowed the other players to have some fun out there but without a shutdown line, we see matchups like the Horvat line against the Tavares line—and that doesn't turn out so well for Vancouver.
According to the handy
injury update at the CBC Sports website, Gudbranson's upper-body injury "is likely to keep him out of action for multiple weeks," but Sutter's shouldn't be out of the lineup for too long. Despite having flown back to Vancouver for treatment and rehab, he's projected to return during the first week of December—so, within a week or so. Whew.
What else?
• Anders Nilsson's save percentage slid to .924 and his goals-against average rose to 2.63 after Tuesday's game. Much like his start against St. Louis at the end of the last homestand, Nilsson failed to deliver a timely save or two that could have helped spark the Canucks offensively.
• After stymieing fans with his selection of Ben Hutton in Sunday's shootout against the Rangers, Travis Green continues to lean hard on the affable defender. Without playing one second of power-play time, Hutton led all Canucks with 22:20 of ice time, and came out of the night with an even plus-minus. He has played less than 20 minutes just three times all year—and two of those times were the first two games of the year.
Hutton's now just one second behind Michael Del Zotto as the Canucks' ice-time leader, averaging 22:08 per game—up by nearly two minutes from last season. He's also a plus-four on a team that's now carrying a goal differential of minus-5, and has slipped down to 10th place in the Western Conference.
With the Eastern Conference portion complete, the Canucks are now 2-2-1 on the road trip that started with such promise in Pennsylvania. They're starting to head for home but will have one more tough matchup first, visiting Nashville on Thursday night. The Predators are 8-1-1 in their last 10 games and have the second-best home record in the league behind the Islanders, with just one loss so far this season at Bridgestone Arena.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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