Wednesday March 16 - Colorado Avalanche 3 - Vancouver Canucks 1
With seven rookies on their injury-riddled roster, the Vancouver Canucks kicked off a stretch of three games in four nights with a 3-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
All of Tryamkin's first shift..... in one gif. #Canucks pic.twitter.com/hG3wcjoNUN
— Ryan Biech (@ryanbiech) March 17, 2016
With his size, Tryamkin is an easy guy to watch on the ice, and he built a relatively eventful stat line in his first NHL game. In 11:33 of ice time, playing mostly with Dan Hamhuis on a night when the defense pairs got shuffled around a fair amount, Tryamkin got one of his three shot attempts through to Semyon Varlamov while also adding three hits and three blocks.
At his size, it takes him awhile to change direction—he's not exactly shifty in the corners—but his straight-line skating seemed good and for the most part, I thought his positioning was decent.
He was the cause of Emerson Etem's first-period holding penalty, after he let Jack Skille get around him along the boards, and he was on the ice with Hamhuis for Colorado's third goal by Andreas Martinsen. But his one shot on goal that did get through set up the goalmouth scramble in the first period that led to the Canucks' only goal, by Henrik Sedin.
With more points in his first game than Bure, #Canucks fans have declared Tryamkin to be a point per game player.#savior #PlanTheRoute
— Tie Sin Mickey (@BnBLine) March 17, 2016
Casting a big shadow, Tryamkin overshadowed the other newcomers in Wednesday's lineup.
Alex Grenier was the latest contestant in the game of "Who gets to play with the Sedins?" and stuck with the twins for most of the night, until Ryan Miller was pulled for the extra attacker in the last couple of minutes. He had some moments, driving to the net, and was on the ice for Henrik's goal but he ended the night a minus-one—on the ice for both of Mikkel Boedker's goals.
The second one, which turned out to be the game-winner, was certainly no fault of the forwards. Chris Tanev made an uncharacteristically terrible pass up the middle to serve the puck to Nathan MacKinnon on that play, pizza-style.
I hope we get to see more from Grenier, ideally in a top-six role. He has great size and seems willing to use it. On the bench with his helmet off during the national anthem, I even thought his flow gave him a whiff of a Jaromir Jagr look!
As for Andrey Pedan, he didn't seem as confident as when he was up for his brief recall earlier in the season. Since Dan Hamhuis played 28:18, he was also Pedan's main partner for the first half of the game, then Pedan shifted over to play mostly with Matt Bartkowski. He finished the night as a plus-one—he took a few shifts with Tryamkin, including the one that led to Henrik's goal—and had three shots, three hits, a giveaway and a holding penalty in his 13:15 of ice time.
Though he seemed a bit tentative on Wednesday, I hope Pedan doesn't get overshadowed by Tryamkin. He'll be waiver-eligible next season and I think he is showing that he can also bring some much-needed snarl to the Vancouver blue line.
After Colorado took the two-goal lead early in the third period, I thought we were on the way to another 5-2 decision, but the rest of the game played out pretty uneventfully—except for the return of The Clapper as part of the #20in20 Fan-atics night.
It was kind of weird, but it got the crowd roaring.
One positive from Wednesday's game: the face-off situation is improving. The Canucks actually won 51 percent of their draws against the Avs, led by a 9-2 night for Henrik Sedin and a 12-7 effort for Bo Horvat, who had a good all-round effort on Wednesday, a team-high seven shots on goal, and was named the game's third star.
Horvat's changing his approach a bit in the circle. "(Matt) Duchene is one of the best in the league and you just get a read on guys,… he told Ben Kuzma of The Province after the game. “I’ve kind of changed up a few things with my faceoffs in trying to outsmart him or being quicker. I’m getting my body in there, too.…
Horvat's getting stronger on the dot and Henrik's looking as healthy has he has been in months, but Jared McCann continues to struggle. He was 0-for-10 on Wednesday. I wonder how much he has worn down as the season has gone on—that whole healthy scratch/conditioning program thing went out the window with all the injuries, didn't it?
McCann has now played in eight straight games. His last healthy scratch was against San Jose back on Feb. 28.
As things stand now, I fully expect that McCann will be penciled in for Utica once he becomes eligible to play in the AHL next season.
Here's the word from practice today:
No Hansen/Granlund/Weber/Dorsett/Sbisa at #Canucks practice. It is a skate and fly, to Edmonton #CanucksOn1040
— Jon Abbott (@HockeyAbbs) March 17, 2016
Alex Biega is skating with the team for the second straight game, so Willie may have some defensive options available to him as the Canucks go into a back-to-back weekend - on the road in Edmonton on Friday then back home to face St. Louis on Saturday. The Blues are already in town after a 6-4 loss to Edmonton on Wednesday, so they'll be well-rested as they set up shop at Rogers Arena for the next couple of days.
Finally, a quick word on the expansion talk that has been buzzing around for the last couple of days.
The best explanation I've seen of how everything's projected to work can be found here, in Elliotte Friedman's "30 Thoughts."
The goal is to make a decision on expansion before this year's draft in June, and to set the parameters for an expansion draft at that time. If one or two new teams do join the league, it'll happen for the 2017-18 season—a full year down the line—and the expansion draft would be in June of 2017. The rules of such a draft need to be laid down soon, though, so GMs can plan their rosters with that draft in mind.
And yes, the goal this time around is for the new expansion team(s) to be competitive as soon as possible—which means some good players should be available.
It's not clear yet what will happen regarding players with no-movement clauses. Sounds like the NHL thinks they could be claimed by an expansion team if they're left unprotected, while the NHLPA has not signed off on this and thinks they should be protected. The final decision on that issue alone will have a huge impact on how an expansion draft would play out.
I'm not one for mock drafts as so much will change all around the league before the real draft takes place.
But keep an eye on the Canadian dollar, which took a 1.5 cent jump on Wednesday and has already gained another half-cent today. The dollar was as low as 69.5 cents back in January and has climbed to 77 cents today, a level not seen since last July. If the trend continues, that'd be a serious boost for the bid in Quebec City, which might still be in this horse race after all!