Tuesday November 29 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Minnesota Wild 4
Well, that was fun! Never thought I'd get a chance to say this, but the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Wild entertained with a wide-open, back-and-forth game that saw the home team come out on the right side of a 5-4 score on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
Traditionally, the Wild are one of the Canucks' easier opponents when it comes to my job doing stats. When I think Minnesota, I think of a low-scoring, low-shot one-goal game—like February 16, 2015, when Eddie Lack got the win and Alex Biega played hero in a 3-2 victory at Rogers Arena. Shots were 29-22 for Vancouver.
On Tuesday, there was concern going into the game about the Canucks' young D-core, with players being asked to step up in the absence of both Chris Tanev and, now, Alex Edler. Instead, it was Minnesota's defense that became unexpectedly porous.
Boudreau on D-zone play:It was horrible. I don’t know why. It’s not like we’ve changed anything. This is a team that gives up 2 goals a game
When the Wild jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the second period on a pair of goals from Jason Pominville, I figured that the Wild would shut it down the rest of the way, as they often do. This is the team that has given up more than three goals only one other time this season and, even after last night, boasts the lowest goals-against per game in the league, at 2.09. The Canucks, by contrast, are 25th at exactly 3.00.
The tide turned when a couple of young Minnesota defensemen took lazy second-period penalties—first, 22-year-old Matt Dumba interfered with Brandon Sutter, then 23-year-old Jonas Brodin hooked Sven Baertschi.
These calls came just minutes after Ryan Miller came up big, making four saves off the Wild power play as 22-year-old Troy Stecher sat in the box for two minutes after a high stick on Jason Zucker.
That set up the new Stecher-Hutton power-play combo—and these guys are so green that they don't seem to know that it's impossible to come back from a two-goal deficit against the Wild. And off the top of my head, I'd say the last time the Canucks scored on consecutive power plays was probably somewhere around the 2010-11 season?
But the fun didn't stop there. The Canucks jumped out to a 4-2 lead early in the third period on Loui Eriksson's sixth of the year and a deflection off a Luca Sbisa shot that was originally credited to Sven Baertschi but was eventually changed to Bo Horvat.
The Wild answered back, on a breakaway by Jason Zucker, then a deflection of their own that was originally credited to Ryan Suter but was eventually changed to Erik Haula.
Like I said—a complex night in the world of stats!
Baertschi did eventually notch the winner in his return after missing two games with a foot injury, successfully deflecting another one of Troy Stecher's shot attempts past Darcy Kuemper to secure the win.
Final shots—42-35 for Minnesota. Ben Hutton earned first-star honours thanks to his first-ever power-play goal, an assist on Eriksson's goal, a team-high four shots and a team-high 24:27 of ice time.
When all was said an done, here's how the workload broke down for the young blueliners:
Hutton: 1-1-2, 24:27, 4 shots, minus-1
Tryamkin: 0-0-0, 21:40, 2 shots, even plus-minus
Sbisa: 0-1-1, 19:41, 1 shot, even plus-minus
Gudbranson: 0-0-0, 19:21, 2 shots, minus-1
Stecher: 0-2-2, 18:46, 3 shots, even plus-minus
Larsen: 0-0-0, 15:39, 0 shots, even plus-minus
Interesting to see Nikita Tryamkin hit another new career-high in ice time—especially with no power-play time. He was laying the body early and led the Canucks with five hits—and it's nice to see him shooting the puck. I'm looking forward to hearing his goal song some day soon!
As for Philip Larsen, he was mostly invisible—and that's fine by me. If his shifts can play out uneventfully, that's a win in my book.
Interesting to note that Larsen got just 43 seconds of power-play time, compared to 4:22 for Hutton and 4:17 for Stecher.
The Canucks also escaped the game with no new injuries—and two of their walking wounded are getting closer to getting back into action:
One other line note from practice—Brendan Gaunce spent some time in the second period last night bumped up to the second (?) line between Eriksson and Granlund, but played just one eight-second shift in the third. He's back in his usual spot today.
#Canucks shuffle Chaput back between Granlund-Eriksson Gaunce returns to Skille and Megna #CanucksOn1040
And finally, some interesting fallout from Jake Virtanen's weekend interview, which appeared on The Hockey News website on Sunday.
Ben Kuzma has the followup story—that Virtanen made a phone call to Jim Benning on Sunday when the story broke—in The Province.
“I don’t hold that against him,” Benning responded to Virtanen's comment that 'I don’t know exactly what it (the plan) is and they (Canucks) didn’t really communicate with me much.' “Jake has a good heart, but he’s a young player and sometimes a little naive. I told him not to worry about it, but now when guys ask you the plan, here it is: ‘You’re there to practise and play hard a lot in games and keep improving and there’s no timeline as to when you’re going to be up.’"
As far as the smoke that puffed up last weekend when Elliotte Friedman reported that the Buffalo Sabres' scouting staff had been watching a lot of games in Utica and might be interested in Virtanen?
“Nope — not trading him,” stressed Benning.
Kuzma also spoke with Sven Baertschi, whose own road to becoming an NHL regular had plenty of stops in the AHL, including one in Utica when he was first acquired by the Canucks.
Baertschi confirms that it's tough for a local player in a hockey-mad market to keep his mind on the game at all times.
“There are so many distractions for players and Jake is a really popular guy in Vancouver. He just needs to take a breather and focus on getting better. He’s a unbelievable player and has so many tools, he just needs to regain his confidence and the ability to make plays.
“There were times where I was playing in the AHL and didn’t know why, but you have to grind away.”
Hopefully, Virtanen can learn from Baertschi's example.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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