Holding a playoff spot heading into Thanksgiving, Canucks face the Penguins (chris tanev)

chris tanev

Holding a playoff spot heading into Thanksgiving, Canucks face the Penguins

By Carol Schram

Nov 27, 2019 • 2:17 pm

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Wednesday November 27 - Vancouver Canucks at Pittsburgh Penguins - 4 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet 650

Vancouver Canucks: 25 GP, 12-9-4, 28 pts, third in Pacific Division Pittsburgh Penguins: 24 GP, 13-7-4, 30 pts, fourth in Metropolitan Division

It's U.S. Thanksgiving Eve, and the Vancouver Canucks are holding down a playoff spot as they get set to face the Pittsburgh Penguins for Game 5 of their two-week road trip.

Will they still be there tomorrow? Yes. Their spot is safe, win or lose.

Colorado, San Jose, Vegas and Calgary are all two points or less behind Vancouver — and all four of those teams are also in action on a busy 13-game Wednesday night schedule.

If the surging Sharks win and the Canucks lose, Vancouver will get bumped into the second-wild card spot, but that's as low as they can go in the next 24 hours. The Flames and Golden Knights are both two points back, but both have played more games than Vancouver. So even if they catch the Canucks, points-wise, they can't overtake Vancouver in the standings tonight.

Heading into Wednesday's games, even last-place Los Angeles is only seven points out of a wild-card spot in the West. In the East, only New Jersey (nine points) and Detroit (12 points) are more than six points out.

After the St. Louis Blues' last-place-to-a-Cup run last year, I bet that means at least 29 teams believe they still have a shot at making the playoffs this season. And even the Devils and Red Wings may not be counting themselves out.

In the coming days, I'll be taking a closer look at whether that old Thanksgiving-playoffs-tenet still holds water. But as far as Vancouver is concerned, perhaps the more meaningful stat is that after 25 games last season, the Canucks were 10-13-2 after a 4-0 road loss in San Jose on November 23 — their seventh-straight regulation loss.

Though they've had their challenges this month, as of Wednesday the Canucks are six points ahead of last year's pace through 25 games. Scoring has improved slightly, from 73 to 76 goals. The big improvement is on the defensive side of the puck, where goals against has dropped from 96 to 70.

That seven-game losing streak last November was brutal, defensively — 30 goals allowed, or an average of about 4.25 per game. If you recall, that's when Anders Nilsson was out with his fractured finger and Jacob Markstrom gamely tried to carry a ridiculously heavy load on his own — with the exception of Richard Bachman's disastrous appearance in the Canucks' 6-2 loss in Minnesota on November 15.

Nilsson's first game back from his injury was that shutout loss in San Jose. After that, the Canucks gave up four goals or more just 14 times in the season's remaining 57 games — around once in every four games.

This year, they've given up four or more six times in 25 games — a little less than once every four games. Five of those games happened in the last 10, but the team has been trending in the right direction again. over the last three games. They gave up three in Nashville, one in Washington and two in Philadelphia.

After taking Monday off against the Flyers, Jacob Markstrom will be back between the pipes against Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

The Canucks' morning skate on Wednesday was optional, so there were no line rushes. Travis Green wouldn't tip his hand as to whether he'd insert Nikolay Goldobin straight into the lineup after Tuesday's call-up, but Jeff Paterson's sense of intuition suggests that Goldy's in.

As well as Vancouver is trending defensively, a single goal scored in three of their last four games and a season-long dearth of five-on-five scoring would suggest that Goldy should get his crack. He's rarin' to go.

As for the Penguins — the good news for Markstrom is that he won't have to face Sidney Crosby, who's on the shelf as he recovers from sports hernia surgery. Impressively, just as the Penguins trucked along while Evgeni Malkin was injured earlier in the season, they're 3-1-3 so far since Crosby left the lineup. They have points in their last five games and are riding a two-game winning streak after victories over the New Jersey Devils and Calgary Flames — with Tristan Jarry in net and Jake Guentzel scoring the winner in both those contests.

Guentzel's NHL success has often been attributed to being Crosby's linemate, but he's doing it on his own right now — on a five-game point streak with four goals and three assists during that time.

Here's a look at how the Penguins rolled their lines at practice on Sunday, ahead of their win over Calgary on Monday. That game marked Kris Letang's return to action after he missed eight games with a lower-body injury.

Wednesday's game will also mark the first edition of the new version of Tanev-vs-Tanev, after Chris' brother Brandon signed an impressive six-year, $21 million contract with the Penguins as an unrestricted free agent on July 1. The Pens took a lot of heat for the deal at the time, but Brandon is one of just a handful of Penguins players who has stayed healthy so far this season. For a guy who's known primarily for his defense and had a career-high 29 points last season with Winnipeg, he has a respectable 12 points in 24 games so far this year and has worked his way up into Pittsburgh's top six.

No word yet on who will start in net for Pittsburgh. Now with seven games played this season, Jarry is 4-3-0 with an impressive .945 save percentage and 1.82 goals-against average, while starter Matt Murray sits at .907 and 2.60, with a record of 9-4-4 in 18 games played so far this season.

With that, you're up to date for now. Enjoy the game!

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