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Streaky Vancouver Canucks now winless in 3 after home shutout vs. Ottawa

October 26, 2016, 1:53 PM ET [634 Comments]
Carol Schram
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Tuesday October 25 - Ottawa Senators 3 - Vancouver Canucks 0

Troy Stecher made a great first impression, but that doesn't change the fact that the Vancouver Canucks were outshot and outplayed as they were shut out at home by the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night.

Such as they are, here are your highlights:



The loss drops Vancouver's record to 4-1-0 on home ice but it also marks the third straight loss for the team after their strong start.

The trouble is coming primarily on the offensive side of the puck. Though they didn't look great against Ottawa's speed last night, with 16 goals allowed in four games, the Canucks are fourth in the league defensively with just 2.29 goals against per game.

The problem is scoring. Fourteen goals in seven games is an average of 2.00—and that's dead last in the league.

Two weeks into the season, here's who has the goals:

Bo Horvat - 3
Henrik Sedin - 3
Daniel Sedin - 2
Markus Granlund - 2
Jannik Hansen - 1
Ben Hutton - 1
Brandon Sutter - 1
Alex Edler - 1

So....players who haven't scored include....

Loui Eriksson - 4 assists
Philip Larsen - 3 assists
Sven Baertschi - 1 assist
Jake Virtanen - 0 assists

Eriksson led the team with four shots on Tuesday and Baertschi was second with three—accounting for nearly one-third of the team's total offense (22 shots) between them. They had a couple of the better chances in the game, but they both need to start putting the biscuit in the basket, as they say.

And Virtanen—well, the concern continues that his shoulder is causing more problems than anybody will let on.




It's a slippery slope for hockey players, who are often playing through one issue or another, physically. But if Virtanen's healthy enough to handle bigger minutes, I'd love to see him spend a couple of weeks in Utica, working to regain his confidence and his fire, which hasn't burned as brightly so far this season.

As for Troy Stecher—he certainly survived his trial by fire on Tuesday. He played 22:32—second on the team and just two seconds less than his partner, Alex Edler—and finished the night with one block and six shot attempts, though he wasn't able to get any of his shots through to Craig Andersen.

He and Edler were on the ice for what proved to be the game-winning goal by Ryan Dzingel, just 7:38 into the first period. The Canucks were burned by a bad line change on the goal from Megna, Skille and Gaunce, but Stecher and Edler had been out there for awhile when the goal came—a not-terrible 55 seconds, but they were back on their heels on the Ottawa rush.




That being said, full credit to Stecher on playing mostly smart hockey in his first NHL game. His best play came when he caught up to speedy Mike Hoffman to abort a breakaway attempt midway through the third period. Throughout the game, he seemed very cognizant of his positioning and put defense first—a trait which I'm sure will endear him to the coaching staff.

But—I hate to be a party pooper—his size is an issue. I saw him lose at least a couple of board battles, and there were other cases where his larger partner Edler would come over and switch with him to try to help him out of a tight spot when he was being outmuscled.

Edler's regular partner, Chris Tanev, isn't exactly a beast of a man himself, but he can hold his own along the boards. That's one spot where I thought Stecher had some trouble.

But hey‚ we haven't even seen him on the power play yet! The Canucks' only man advantage on Tuesday was just six seconds long after Erik Karlsson took the Sens' off the power play when Edler went to the box for holding the stick late in the first period.

With two days off between games for the first time this season, the tired Canucks are only holding an optional skate today. I doubt we'll get much insight into whether or not Tanev will be ready to return to the lineup on Friday in Edmonton, but even if he is, I'll be surprised if Stecher doesn't get another look.

I think Philip Larsen has been okay in his role so far this season—although he's not a big guy either at 6'1" and 185 pounds (Stecher is listed at 5'10" and 190). If Tanev does come back, I could see Larsen and Stecher each getting one game of the back-to-backs this weekend against Edmonton and Washington.

In other news around the league today...




With their current injury situation, should the Canucks consider re-acquiring Etem?

I'm not sure it really moves the team forward, but I do feel like it's more likely that Etem has some goals in his stick than Jack Skille or Jayson Megna.

For me, Skille's game last night was pretty much what I thought we'd get from him. He's involved and he goes to the dirty areas. Megna played 11:19 last night, had two hits, and was a minus-1 thanks to that opening goal by the Sens, on the bad line change. Both players were okay, but on a team that's desperate for offense, I don't get any kind of feeling that either of them is going to chip in on the score sheet.

Let's make that today's poll question:

surveys
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