Vancouver Canucks push for playoffs, shut out Coyotes for 5th-straight win (reid boucher)

reid boucher

Vancouver Canucks push for playoffs, shut out Coyotes for 5th-straight win

By Carol Schram

Jan 5, 2017 • 2:53 pm

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Wednesday January 4 - Vancouver Canucks 3 - Arizona Coyotes 0

Life keeps getting better and better for the Vancouver Canucks and their fans. On Wednesday, the Canucks won their fifth-straight game, earned the first shutout of the season for one of their goaltenders and generated a heartwarming P.R. story along the way. Win-win-win!

Here are your highlights:

Based on this chart, the Canucks are still playing from behind more than any other team in the league except Colorado, but they added another 50:09 to their 'playing with the lead' total last night.

Sven Baertschi scored his 11th of the year—and his third-straight after two goals last game—at the 9:51 mark of the first period, as he confidently pressured Kevin Connauton, then went high glove on Mike Smith.

In the second period, the Canucks cranked up the defense, limiting the Coyotes to just two shots on goal.

In the third, they earned some style points. First, Brandon Sutter provided the insurance goal on his first career penalty shot.

Then, Bo Horvat made a little boy's dream come true when he tallied his team-leading 12th goal of the year.

Dog-lover that he is, how could Bo not oblige the boy? He did it with plenty of speed and style, too.

I was also impressed with Bo's clinical work in the faceoff circle last night. He was 9-for-15 in total, for 60 percent, and Henrik was even better—10-for-14 for 71 percent. The team's faceoff percentage is now fifth-best in the league at 52.4 percent for the season—a number that seems much more significant now that they're winning!

Oh yeah—add one more feel-good story to the list. After being denied an official shutout during the first game of the season because of Loui Eriksson's own goal while he was on the bench for an extra attacker, Ryan Miller finally tallied the 37th goose-egg of his career on Wednesday night. He bore down in the dying minutes, stopping five of the Coyotes' 22 shots for the game in the final 4:11 of action.

With the win, the Canucks officially move into ninth place in the Western Conference. They're one point behind the Los Angeles Kings, who sit in the second wild-card spot—and three behind the Calgary Flames, who hold the first one.

That sets up a very intriguing mini-playoff this weekend. The Canucks and Flames are scheduled for a home-and-home series—Friday in Vancouver, then Saturday night in Calgary, on Hockey Night in Canada. Calgary's 6-4-0 in their last 10 games while the Canucks are 7-2-1, but Vancouver's still feeling the sting of that pre-Christmas no-show, when they lost 4-1 at the Saddledome and were outshot 37-14.

If this streaking, confident Canucks team can take both games from the Flames this weekend, they'll pass 'em in the standings and almost certainly hold down a playoff spot as they get ready to head back out on the road.

One more positive stat before I close the book on this game.

Of the Canucks' 19 wins this season, just nine have come in regulation. Yes, that means Vancouver is contributing to the loser-point problem but it also means they're doing in well in games that go past 60 minutes. The Canucks are a solid 5-2 in overtime and 4-1 in the shootout this year. Those were the points that Vancouver missed out on last year, when they started the season 1-8 in overtime and shootout games before eventually finishing the season 4-9 in overtime and 5-4 in the shootout.

When was the last time things were this good in Canuck-land?

A sobering reminder that what goes up can sometimes come quickly crashing down.

For now, as long as the winning continues, I'm not going to second guess Willie Desjardins' player deployment or ice-time choices. Keep Megna with the twins. Keep the minutes for the Horvat line right where they are. Keep using Gaunce-Chaput-Skille on the fourth line while Rodin sits in the press box. Keep giving Ryan Miller most of the starts. It's all good.

Just one note from practice so far this morning. Here's something in Canuck-land that didn't go perfectly smoothly:

Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come for Reid Boucher, who has had a roller-coaster season already this year.

Over at World Juniors, it's gold-medal day. Too bad Brock Boeser has missed out on Team's USA's chance to play for gold against Team Canada due to his wrist injury.

The timing of the injury couldn't have been worse. Boeser returned to practice with his North Dakota team on Wednesday and could get back into game action on Friday.

The Russians and Swedes face off for bronze in Montreal at 12:30 PT, then it's Canada-USA for gold at 5 p.m. PT.

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