Thursday March 16 - Dallas Stars 4 - Vancouver Canucks 2
If you're rooting for the Vancouver Canucks to finish as low as possible in the standings in hopes of improving their draft lottery odds, Thursday's game was a winner for you.
The Canucks finished out their homestand with a 4-2 loss to the Dallas Stars, allowing their opponent to leapfrog them in the Western Conference standings.
Here are your highlights:
Personally, I'm not a supporter of the Team Tank philosophy—this year, or any year. There are so many variables that go into successfully developing an NHL prospect, from his fit with the organization to how he's developed to injury challenges.
Also, the draft lottery is constructed to offer a degree of reward to teams that finish lower in the standings, but even in a normal year, a last-place finish only guarantees a 20 percent chance of a first-overall pick—meaning there's an 80 percent chance that team won't pick first.
This year, the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights have also been added to the mix. They'll receive the same odds as the team that finishes 28th overall.
Frank Seravalli of TSN breaks down how the odds this year with a handy chart. Instead of a 20 percent chance of getting the first pick, the last-place team's odds this year will drop to 17.9 percent.
For the 28th place team—and Las Vegas—the odds drop from 11.5 to 10.3 percent, and odds also drop a bit all the way down the rest of the list.
Also an issue this year—the top prospects in this year's draft pool aren't at the same level as the impact players that we've seen in the last couple of year.
As Seravalli puts it, "The fact that Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier – the two players battling it out to be No. 1 – aren’t expected to make the same immediate impact as Matthews has also kept teams focused on closing out the season in a winning fashion."
Speaking very generally, I'm thinking of this year's draft as being similar to 2012. Nail Yakupov proved to be a huge disappointment as a first-overall pick—he has six points in his 35 games with St. Louis this year and 117 points in 287 total games over five NHL seasons.
Click here for a closer look at that first round from 2012. Alex Galchenyuk is certainly a player, chosen at No. 3, but Filip Forsberg, chosen at 11—and traded by Washington to Nashville for rental player Martin Erat—is probably the best of the bunch.
Another thing that makes the 2012 draft interesting is the fact that eight of the top 10 players chosen that year were defensemen. That allows for a bit more of an apples-and-apples comparison than we're normally able to do with top picks who all play different positions.
Here's a reminder of that order of selection of the blueliners:
No. 2 - Ryan Murray - Columbus
No. 4 - Griffin Reinhart - New York Islanders
No. 5 - Morgan Rielly - Toronto
No. 6 - Hampus Lindholm - Anaheim
No. 7 - Matt Dumba - Minnesota
No. 8 - Derrick Pouliot - Pittsburgh
No. 9 - Jacob Trouba - Winnipeg
No. 10 - Slater Koekkoek - Tampa Bay
Safe to say if we had a do-over today, five years down the road, that order would be different?
My point is that a team can finish near the bottom of the standings—and can even be rewarded in the draft lottery—but there's still no guarantee that a higher pick is going to turn out better than a player chosen a bit later.
So, I left Thursday's game disappointed that the Canucks lost another game in the final 20 minutes—outshot 20-9 and outscored 2-0 in the third period on their way to their third straight home loss. But if you're a Team Tank believer, you ended the night with a smile on your face—not only did Dallas leapfrog the Canucks, but Carolina and New Jersey also won and the Detroit/Arizona game was a three-pointer, with the Wings taking the win in the shootout.
The Canucks wake up today in 27th place in the standings—now below Dallas and Detroit, just one point up on New Jersey in 28th and only four points ahead of Arizona in 29th.
There's a real chance they can fall even farther in their last 12 games—eight of which are on the road, including the next five. If the Canucks have been running out of gas when trying to close out games on a nicely spaced-out homestand, what's going to happen over the next week in Edmonton, Chicago, St. Louis, Minnesota and Winnipeg?
One positive—the team could get some players back from the infirmary over the next week.
#Canucks have Goldobin/Skille/Markstrom on ice early, prior to Edmonton trip #CanucksOn1040
Sounds like Nikolay Goldobin and Loui Eriksson should be back next week. Benning called Erik Gudbranson "week to week," so there's still a chance that he'll get back on the ice this season.
As for last night's game, I was hoping so much that Nikita Tryamkin would get a Gordie Howe hat trick! The big guy seemed a bit more aggressive going to the net on Thursday—he finished with two shots on goal and got an assist on the Canucks' first goal of the game by Sven Baertschi after parking himself on the edge of the crease.
Baertschi has the #Canucks on the board, but a late Stars goal has Dallas up 2-1 after 20. Shots: 10-8 Vancouver. pic.twitter.com/6LQLIApYzX
Ignore that caption. Last night was actually Tryamkin's second fight. He also tangled with Zack Smith of the Senators back on November 3 in Ottawa.
His pugilistic style needs work but wow, that reach!
1) Benn throwns a mantrum after getting tossed by Tryamkin 2) Tryamkin is so dedicated to his high helmet lifestyle he adjusts it mid fight pic.twitter.com/kOxD9KSXig
Benn did not return to the game after the fight—yes, Dallas got 20 shots in the third period without their captain and best player. The Stars are downplaying the possibility that he was injured by choosing to fight Tryamkin.
Stars aren't sure if Jamie Benn's injury is related to fight. Lindy Ruff said after game that he liked fight, set example for team
Until last night, Tryamkin had been a bit more tentative than usual in the three prior games since he returned to action after his bout with the mumps. Hopefully Thursday's game is a sign that he's getting back into the groove and will deliver some more exciting moments through these final games of the season.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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