I was going to start off today with some prospect notes, but Elias Pettersson has stolen the spotlight!
â @_EPettersson, who ranks sixth in League scoring this season (6-14—20), led all players with six assists and nine points in four games last week. #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/OZZN3XSACt
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) November 4, 2019
Petey went pointless in Anaheim last Friday but his other three games were all multi-point performances — three assists against the Panthers last Monday, a goal and three assists on Wednesday in L.A. and two goals against the Sharks on Saturday.
This is a good time of year for Pettersson. Last year, he was named second star for the week ending November 4, following the first five-point night of his career in that awesome 7-6 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Nov 2, 2018. He earned first-star honours for the first time during the week ending December 9, when he picked up 2-6-8 while logging his second five-point game in the 6-1 win in St. Louis on Dec. 9.
In addition to sitting sixth in NHL scoring, Pettersson is also making a case for himself as a Lady Byng candidate.
on top of everything else he does well, #Canucks Elias Pettersson is only player in #NHL top 40 scoring without a penalty minute so far this season
— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) November 3, 2019
With 20 points in just 14 games so far this season, the Canucks are already nearly a quarter of the way to their 81-point total from last year, after playing just 17 percent of their games. Their current pace would multiply out to 117 points over the season — which would have been good for second overall behind Tampa Bay last year and tied with their franchise-best 2010-11 season.
So — this graphic is very interesting.
Coming out on top in their clash with the Sharks Saturday, the @Canucks have now accumulated 20 points in the standings already. As this list shows, the VAN franchise has only once had more after 14 games of a season pic.twitter.com/oe8Vu2KCn2
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) November 3, 2019
What happened in those other hot-start seasons?
Projected as Stanley Cup contenders coming out of the full-season lockout, the Canucks started off red hot in the 2005-06 season, but lost steam as the year went on. They finished the year in the middle of the pack in all major statistical categories and ended up missing the playoffs for the first time in five years thanks to a fourth-place finish in the Northwest Division — an outcome that cost coach Marc Crawford his job. That also led first-year general manager Dave Nonis to swing for the fences that summer when he traded a package that included Todd Bertuzzi to Florida in exchange for a package that included Roberto Luongo.
That all came after the 2003-04 season — the year where the West Coast Express was at the peak of its powers, but got derailed by the Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident on March 8, 2004. Going into that game, the Canucks were 36-20-8-4 for the year (yes, ties still existed back then). That awful 9-2 loss to the Avs kicked off a 1-4-2-1 stretch before the team rallied to win its last six games of the year. The Canucks ended up finishing one point ahead of Colorado in the Northwest with 101 points, but were eliminated by Calgary in overtime of the seventh game of the first round of the playoffs thanks to Martin Gelinas' winning goal.
The 2014-15 season, of course, was the first year of the Jim Benning/Willie Desjardins era. Ryan Miller was great and I think everyone was so relieved for the breath of fresh air after Mike Gillis and John Tortorella were dismissed that the team cruised along pretty well until Miller was injured in a 4-0 road win over the New York Islanders in late February.
Even then, they kept scoring, finishing eighth overall offensively that year and buoyed by Radim Vrbata's 31 goals.
The Canucks were 34-22-3 when Miller went down. With Eddie Lack and Jacob Markstrom manning the net the rest of the way, they finished off with a respectable 14-7-2 record to end the season with 101 points and a second-place finish in the Pacific Division. But once again, they were undone by the underdog Flames in the playoffs, falling in six games this time around.
So....history suggests that it's a little early to plan the parade, no matter what MoneyPuck's Stanley Cup Odds chart suggests.
Still, it is nice to see the Canucks strong at both ends of the ice. And for now, it seems like their team depth should help them weather this recent outburst of injuries.
Back to today...here's how the Canucks are practicing on Monday at Rogers Arena. Adam Gaudette and Jake Virtanen swapped roles a bit on the weekend, and Gaudette gets the top-line spot on Monday.
Monday #Canucks practice lines:
— Brendan Batchelor (@BatchHockey) November 4, 2019
Pearson-Horvat-Gaudette
Miller-Pettersson-Boeser
Leivo-Sutter-Virtanen
Schaller-Beagle-Eriksson
Edler-Myers
Benn-Tanev
Fantenberg-Stecher
Extras: Baertschi, Sautner
The good news — Ashton Sautner is in the mix after being knocked out of Saturday's game in San Jose. Brendan Batchelor also noted that Antoine Roussel was out skating before the main group. I'm expecting we'll see him ready to get back into game action sometime this month.
The not-as-good news — Quinn Hughes isn't back with the main group quite yet, so he probably won't be ready to play on Tuesday.
Jim Benning says Q Hughes skated this morning in his own. Officially day to day. Will try it again tomorrow #Canucks
— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) November 4, 2019
The St. Louis Blues got into town on Sunday, so I imagine they'll practice on Monday as well. No Stanley Cup hangover for them — they're currently first in the Central Division with 21 points and are riding a four-game winning streak, with three of those wins having come in overtime. Since the Canucks beat the Blues in a shootout back on October 17, St. Louis has gone 6-2-0 overall.
Now — back to prospects.
I wanted to remind you that we have a chance to catch 2019 first-round pick Vasili Podkolzin in action during the CIBC Canada Russia Series over the next two weeks. The games are being televised on Sportsnet. The Russians will take on an all-star team from the QMJHL on Monday and Tuesday, then play the OHL All-Stars this Thursday and next Monday and finish off against the WHL on November 13 and 14.
Team WHL also includes Canucks prospects Carson Focht and Jett Woo from the Calgary Hitmen.
I'll talk more about them next week but for now, let's focus on Podkolzin, who has had another complex season since being drafted. Bouncing back and forth between teams at three different levels under the SKA St. Petersburg umbrella, he is pointless in 11 games with the big club but is 2-5-7 in 12 games with the VHL team in Russia's second-tier league and has four assists in two games with the MHL squad — the junior team.
Monday and Tuesday's Canada-Russia games are both scheduled for 4 p.m. PT. Monday's game will be televised on Sportsnet One, while Tuesday's broadcast is on the main Sportsnet channel and Sportsnet 360 — ahead of the Canucks' game against St. Louis at 7 p.m. on Sportsnet Pacific.