Saturday November 18 - St. Louis Blues 4 - Vancouver Canucks 3 (O/T)
The Vancouver Canucks picked up their game play after a sorry outing against Vegas last Thursday, earning a point against the class of the Western Conference with an overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
With Anders Nilsson taking over the net, the Canucks scored first for the first time in four games—the last time was Sven Baertschi's opener in the 4-1 loss in Anaheim back on November 9. Brock Boeser was buzzing in the first period and looked like he was ready for another star turn on Hockey Night in Canada as he outworked both Colton Parayko and Brayden Schenn in the corner to score his seventh of the year.
If you think Travis Green leaned heavily on Boeser, Horvat and Baertschi against the Blues, you're right. Bo broke the 20-minute mark for the fourth time this season with 20:01 of ice time and Brock wasn't far behind at 18:58, ahead of Brandon Sutter's 18:45. Baertschi had an assist to go along with his seventh of the year in 17:19. He missed the last six minutes of the second period after blocking a shot with his foot, but did return for the third.
Boeser finished the night with nine shot attempts—four on goal, two blocked and three missed. On a night when the Canucks managed just 23 shots on goal in 62:41, it's safe to say that he drove a large part of the team's offense.
His defensive work was also strong—most notably on this backcheck, where his skating and his smarts stood out.
Boeser backcheck fueled by the fear of god for giving away a breakaway on the powerplay pic.twitter.com/LdpSooxus2
For the most part, the Blues played up to their reputation as one of the best in the league and but for a couple of unlucky breaks and the occasional breakdown, the Canucks were able to match them.
St. Louis' first goal came on—let's call it an 'aggressive' line change.
And I think Thomas Vanek should have had his sixth of the season to make the score 4-2 with 51 seconds to play in the second period—a play that was ultimately whistled dead for a phantom hand pass even though the only hand we saw was that of a Blues player—which is allowed in the defensive zone.
If the argument is that the Blues got possession to activate the delayed penalty when they gloved the puck down, the play should have been blown dead then—not after Vanek put the puck in the net.
Serious weaksauce there. Travis Green had every right to blow a gasket over that mess.
Other good stuff—two points from Loui Eriksson, including an assist on the most slow-motion shorthanded goal I've ever seen. Not sure Eriksson and Markus Granlund would have been able to pull off that scoring play if Vladimir Tarasenko had the slightest interest in backchecking.
Also, considering the scoring pace that the Tarasenko-Schwartz-Schenn line has been on, the new Sutter-Dorsett-Gagner combo was strong at shutting them down—with a little help from Nilsson. Tarasenko was held off the scoresheet despite 12 shot attempts, Schwartz didn't get a shot on goal and Schenn was low profile until the dagger—the overtime winner.
As for Jake Virtanen—he was a demon early on, laying out two hits on his first shift and getting two shot attempts in the first period. But Green plays the matchup game and when Mike Yeo is basically rolling his top two lines, the Canucks respond with the Sutter unit and the Horvat unit—and that means limited ice for the Sedins and Virtanen. The Blues finished the night with six forwards in single digits in even-strength ice time—Jake's 9:12 at even strength was actually more than Henrik's 8:19 or Daniel's 7:55.
Bottom line—the point keeps the Canucks hovering one point above .500 through 20 games—on pace for an 86-point season and just outside the playoff cutline thanks to one less regulation/overtime win than Dallas. Vancouver's ninth in the Western Conference, in a group of 10 teams that are separated by just five points between fourth place (Vegas, 24 points) and 13th (Anaheim, 19 points).
Air Canucks has lifted off for Philly, where the Canucks start their six-game road trip on Tuesday against the Flyers.
And finally, if you missed it—our hero Brock Boeser was Scott Oake's second guest on After Hours last night. Not much new content, but Brock did get into some detail about the accident that claimed his best friend from back home in Minnesota when he was away at the Ivan Hlinka tournament in 2014—and why he decided to stay and play, rather than returning home.
Brock still tends to lean on a few favourite cliches but he's working the 'y'knows' and the 'obviouslies' out of his interview-speak and comes across as a humble kid with a huge heart.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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