Friday February 23 - Vegas Golden Knights 6 - Vancouver Canucks 3
Well, that went pretty much as expected. The Vancouver Canucks put some good moments together but got torched by speed, skill and goaltending in a 6-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday night.
Here are your highlights:
The best story of the night was Jake Virtanen, who was held off the scoresheet but used his own great wheels to generate a team-high 10 shot attempts, many of them when he drove to the net. Playing on a line with Sven Baertschi and a back-in-the-lineup Sam Gagner, Jake responded well after being called out by his coach after a weak game against Colorado on Wednesday. He was rewarded with 14:33 of ice time—one of his busiest nights this year.
Games like this offer hope that Virtanen will eventually find his way as a productive NHLer. And to his credit, he seemed energized by the sights and sounds of Vegas.
Gagner also looked good in his return from injury, threading a lovely pass across to Sven Baertschi to tie the game 1-1 midway through the first period.
Yes, that's Luca Sbisa sprawling to try to block the pass.
Two minutes later, the Canucks got their only lead of the game when Thomas Vanek scored his 17th of the year while working down low with the Sedins. With all the talk of Vegas' speed, who would have projected that Vancouver's only plus players for the night would be Daniel (+1), Vanek (+1)...and Michael Del Zotto (+1)?
Brock Boeser has just one goal in six games since suffering that wrist injury when Dan Girardi fell on him in Tampa Bay. He hasn't been shooting as much, or had the same sauce, but his five shots last night were the most he's had in a game since being injured. That offers some hope that the wrist is starting to feel better—he needs eight more goals in Vancouver's last 21 games to break Pavel Bure's rookie goal-scoring record.
Bure's rookie record of 60 points looks like it's almost certain to fall. Boeser has assists in his last two games and is now up to 51 points on the year. He remains 14 points behind Mat Barzal in the NHL's rookie scoring race.
Philip Holm? Well, his first shift ended in Vegas' first goal of the night, but the blame for that breakdown started with Anders Nilsson, who was unable to control the rebound off Tomas Hyka's initial shot.
It was a rough night overall for Nilsson, who gave up five goals on 25 shots before being pulled at the end of the second period. Jacob Markstrom looked good in the third, in his first game action since being pulled against Florida last week. He faced just eight shots in the final frame on Friday but stopped them all; Vegas' sixth goal was an empty-netter that came off a Vancouver stick after Troy Stecher missed a back pass to the point with 1:51 left to play.
I can't ignore the elephant in the room: Erik Gudbranson has had a rough go of it since signing his contract extension on Tuesday.
He was on the ice for four of Colorado's five power-play goals in Vancouver on Wednesday, and four out of the six from Vegas on Friday.
Not the most auspicious week for the big guy—although the Golden Knights have a tendency to do that kind of damage against almost every team in the league.
With the win, Vegas passed Tampa Bay to take over top spot in the entire NHL.
No wonder it was a party at T-Mobile.
What do you think of this quote from Daniel?
"We’re getting to a point where one thing goes wrong and not three or four that go wrong in a game and that’s easier to pinpoint and fix," he told
Ben Kuzma of The Province after the game. "But we’ve got to be better. Until we get the consistency, we’re going to win one and lose one."
Do you think Daniel's correct, that the mistakes are lessening and the Canucks are headed in the right direction?
The Canucks have one more game before the trade deadline: Sunday in Arizona.
For now, all is quiet after the day-long discussions that finally saw Derick Brassard moved from Ottawa to Pittsburgh. But like a duck paddling on the water, I bet there's plenty happening just below the surface!
To close today: congrats to Willie Desjardins and his team full of ex-Canucks for rebounding to win bronze against the Czechs on Friday night.
It's not easy to regroup just one day after losing your chance to play for a gold medal. All the guys deserve credit for sticking with it in their last game on Olympic ice.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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