Sunday, January 15 - New Jersey Devils 2 - Vancouver Canucks 1 (OT)
A successful Coach's Challenge late in the third period may have saved the Vancouver Canucks from an outright loss, but Sunday's 2-1 defeat at the hands of the New Jersey Devils was lacking in both entertainment value and the end result.
Such as they are, here are your highlights:
Over the many years that I've been doing Stats for hockey games, I've found that New Jersey has probably been the single easiest team to cover. They don't score much and they usually play pretty good defense so there typically aren't a whole lot of goals—or even shots—to record.
This year's Canucks games have been true to form. Shots were 24-22 in Vancouver's favour in their 3-2 loss in Newark back on December 6, and yesterday's game finished with the shots tied at 22 for each team in the Devils' 2-1 overtime win. The Canucks started well, getting the first three shots of the game in the first two minutes of play, but I'd say that was the biggest sustained stretch of offense that we saw at any point in the game.
A couple of unusual sequences did provide some statistical intrigue, though. The Canucks opened the scoring midway through the second period when Loui Eriksson roofed his 10th of the season just behind the crossbar. It wasn't initially called a goal on the ice—but the Sedins immediately stopped playing and demanded a replay to confirm that a goal had been scored. And they were right.
Gets the @Canucks on the board and puts himself two away from 1,000 points.
With less than five minutes to play in the third, it looked like the Canucks were going to get dinged for a loss when Kyle Palmieri snuck a puck past Markstrom's skate for what looked like a 2-1 Devils lead. But Vancouver successfully mounted a Coach's Challenge, which showed that Taylor Hall had put himself offside when the Devils entered the zone.
The Canucks got one more break before the end of regulation, when Karl Stollery was dinged for embellishment after being tripped in the corner by Alex Edler with 1:48 left to play in the third. The third period ended with both teams at 4-on-4 before cutting down to 3-on-3 for overtime.
Full points to the Devils on the game-winner. Travis Zajac made an outstanding defensive play to strip the puck from Sven Baertschi, and Taylor Hall's not the guy you want to see bearing down on your goalie. With a sharp wrister, the game was over just 1:28 into the extra frame.
Former Canucks goaltender Cory Schneider was named the game's first star, but he barely broke a sweat. Schneider stopped a Brandon Sutter breakaway and made one flashy around-the-world glove save on a Luca Sbisa slapper late in the third period but other than that, his outing wasn't exactly filled with challenges.
If you're a glass-half-full person, you look at the Canucks' 6-1-3 record over the last 10 games and marvel at the single regulation loss and points in nine out of 10 games. It's the first time that has happened since the pinnacle of the Torts era, when the team went 10-1-2 during the month of December, 2013.
If you're more the glass-half-empty type, you lament the fact that this group is 0-1-3 in its last three games and that its early-season success in games that go beyond 60 minutes is starting to balance out. With two overtime losses in the last week, the Canucks are now 5-4 in games that are decided at 3-on-3, and the shootout loss in Philadelphia puts them at 4-2 in shootout situations.
Conversation is continuing, of course, about the power play, which went 0-for-3 on Sunday and did not look dangerous.
Two, one and none. Shot totals on three #Canucks power plays against the #Devils.
It is interesting to note that four of those 10 worst power plays are from this season. Are the Canucks' frustrations part of a larger league-wide trend?
I also think Willie missed an opportunity to get Reid Boucher into action yesterday against his old team, the Devils—and I hadn't even considered the fact that Willie will also get his second chance in a week tomorrow to insert Boucher against the *other* team that waived him this year, the Nashville Predators.
But it sounds like Boucher will remain little more than a rumour in the Vancouver lineup for the foreseeable future.
Willie Desjardins on Reid Boucher nearing gameplay: "No. Rodin is the guy I'll give the first try to. I want to see where he's at." #Canucks
Today's scheduled practice has been cancelled in favour of a team day off, so we won't get any other player updates until Tuesday's morning skate before the Preds game.
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