Vancouver Canucks go 2-0 vs. California teams, close out 2016 in Edmonton (canucks)

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Vancouver Canucks go 2-0 vs. California teams, close out 2016 in Edmonton

By Carol Schram

Dec 31, 2016 • 3:16 pm

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Friday December 30 - Vancouver Canucks 3 - Anaheim Ducks 2 (OT)

The Vancouver Ducks gave their fans a nice post-Christmas present, going 2-for-2 against the heavy California teams at Rogers Arena when they followed up their 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings with a 3-2 overtime victory over the Anaheim Ducks.

Here are your highlights:

Ryan Kesler ramped up his pest level to 11 against Johnny Gaudreau and the Ducks skated out of the Saddledome with the win, satisfied.

Physically and emotionally, it's tough to bring top-level intensity on consecutive nights. Kesler generally has something to prove when he comes to Vancouver but I think Friday's game was the second-most-important one on his list during this road trip.

That's not to say that Kesler was invisible against Vancouver. He still earned his share of boos from the crowd and played 26:33, more than any other player on either team. A large part of that was due to the fact that the penalties on the night went 7-1 against the Ducks. Kesler played 6:45 with the Ducks shorthanded, dominated in the faceoff circle as usual with a 13-7 record, and led both teams with six hits. But even though he's leading the Ducks in scoring with 31 points, he was a non-factor offensively, with just one shot on goal in the game.

The Canucks were able to capitalize on their early power-play opportunity against L.A. on Wednesday, but ended up down 1-0 after two first-period chances on Friday, when Ryan Getzlaf opened the scoring for the Ducks on a shorthanded opportunity.

Rikard Rakell pushed the score to 2-0 early in the second on a goal that was unsuccessfully challenged by the Canucks. I didn't think they had much of a chance of getting it overturned—the puck was loose—but this overhead view made me think maybe they did have a case after all.

Loui Eriksson got the Canucks on the board when he tipped a Ben Hutton point shot to record a power-play goal in his second straight game, midway through the middle frame on Vancouver's fourth man advantage of the game.

Both Canucks power-play units were wildly ineffective through large chunks of the game, but it's great to see the second unit click again. With the seven opportunities, there was plenty of power-play ice time to go around. I think, as the season wears on, that we will start to see the chances divided more equally between the two groups, rather than seeing the Sedins start virtually every odd-man opportunity. I know some people want to see Willie split up the twins, especially on the power play, but I'm not expecting that to happen anytime soon—especially if the second unit keeps scoring in its current form.

Going into the the game, the Ducks were a perfect 12-0-0 at delivering wins when leading after two periods—but the comeback Canucks struck again, perhaps taking advantage of a tired Anaheim team that figured it had the game in the bag.

Jack Skille tied the game just 2:02 into the third, on a terrific second effort—which was set up by an unbelievable behind-the-net play by Bo Horvat.

With no further scoring, the Canucks earned a 'good point' by coming back to force overtime—then finished the job with 59 seconds left to play in a tactical extra frame when Henrik Sedin was able to take advantage of an odd-man rush to score the game winner.

Maybe there is still hope for some chemistry between the Sedins and Eriksson?

That was a two-point night for Loui, only his third as a Canuck. Interestingly, one of the others was also against Anaheim—he had two assists in the 4-2 loss back on October 23rd. Hopefully the last two games are showing that he's finding his comfort zone with his new team and will continue to put more points on the board in the second half.

With the win, the Canucks are set to end 2016 on a positive note, but there's one more assignment tonight. What better way to spend New Year's Eve than in luxurious new Rogers Place, facing Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers?

Saturday December 31 - Vancouver Canucks at Edmonton Oilers - 7 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet

Vancouver Canucks: 37 GP, 16-18-3, 35 pts, sixth in Pacific Division Edmonton Oilers: 37 GP, 19-12-6, 44 pts, second in Pacific Division

Tonight, it'll be the Canucks who will need to dig deep as they play yet another set of back-to-back games while Edmonton has been sitting at home. Their last game was a 3-1 win over L.A. on Thursday.

The Oilers aren't dominating like they were at the beginning of the season, but they're still delivering reasonably good results. They're 4-0-1 in their last five games but their record at home isn't as strong as you might expect—they're ranked 21st in the league with a 9-7-1 record. But the Canucks have been brutal on the road so far this year. At 4-12-1, they're 29th overall away from Rogers Arena. Only the New York Islanders are worse on the road.

Most notably, Connor McDavid has slowed down. His 10-point lead in the scoring race has evaporated—he's now tied with Sidney Crosby, who missed the first six games of the season. Evgeni Malkin, Vladimir Tarasenko and Artemi Panarin are also hot on his tail.

McDavid had 12 points in nine games in October and 19 points in 15 games in November, but has recorded just two goals and 11 points in 13 games so far in December. Overall, the Oilers are getting it done at both ends of the ice—they rank eighth in the NHL in offense and 10th on defense. Sitting eighth overall in the league, three points behind the division-leading San Jose Sharks, this may finally be the year that they break the curse and get back to the postseason.

SportsClubStats currently ranks the Oilers' chance of making the playoffs at 94.4 percent. Even though they're just four points out of the second wild-card spot in the West after last night's win, Vancouver's odds are still a humble 7.2 percent.

Given the back-to-backs, it's understandable that on-ice participation this morning in Edmonton was limited.

After two solid outings by Ryan Miller, Jacob Markstrom is tagged to get the start tonight. Based on the "don't mess with a winning formula" theory, I doubt we'll see any other lineup changes among the skaters.

The Oilers are dealing with a few health issues. Darnell Nurse has been sidelined since early December after ankle surgery and isn't expected back until March. Also on the blue line, Andrej Sekera missed Thursday's game against L.A. with an illness and isn't expected to play tonight.

After scoring eight goals in his first 31 games, hard-working Tyler Pitlick tore his ACL a week before Christmas and is out for the season.

World Junior Notes

One other note before I wrap up for today, in case you missed this bombshell from the World Junior Championship on Friday night.

As far as I know, this move is without precedent. Finland has one game still to play in its preliminary round but, with an 0-3 record and the way the results shaped up in the rest of its bracket, the 2016 gold medalists already have no chance of making the medal round.

The reason for the big move with the coaching? Now, the Finns need to worry about avoiding relegation. The two teams that aren't advancing—in this case, Finland and Latvia—will play a best-of-three series next week and the loser will be moved from the IIHF's top division down to Division I—which mean they won't get to participate in the 2018 World Juniors.

Obviously, this is a scenario that the proud hockey nation of Finland would very much like to avoid. After winning gold at last year's World Junior and U18 tournaments and silver at the men's World Championship, Finland was being lauded for its hockey program and its string of great success.

This collapse has seemingly come out of nowhere—and doesn't reflect real well on Canucks prospect Olli Juolevi, who is the captain of the Finnish team. But I'd argue that the Finns' biggest issue in this tournament has been a lack of scoring. If tournament-eligible players like Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi and Sebastian Aho were manning Finland's top forward lines and power-play unit, like they did last year, this week probably would have unfolded a lot differently for Suomi.

If anything, the firing of the coaches tells me that the Finns see this problem as being something much bigger than an issue with their captain. And let's not forget, Olli Juolevi already has a gold medal from the 2016 tournament and a Memorial Cup with the London Knights. His winning pedigree has been pretty solid so far.

The traditional New Year's Eve battle between Canada and the U.S.—both undefeated so far—goes at 12:30 today, and there's plenty of NHL hockey all day long as well.

Enjoy. And have fun tonight. Happy New Year!

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