Tuesday January 14 - Nashville Predators 5 - Vancouver Canucks 1
With 20-plus pages of comments on yesterday's blog, I think last night's loss has been pretty thoroughly sliced, diced and pureed.
In case you missed it, here are the highlights:
The best moment? Definitely Alex Edler's goal.
Maybe I appreciate goals more when they're so few and far between, but it was great to see the Canucks keep the pressure on after Linden Vey's shot got the Preds scrambling in their own zone. I loved the way they opened up the play by pushing the puck back to the D, then Tanev's pass to Edler through the legs of James Neal was an absolute beauty.
The most disappointing moment? Vancouver's inability to capitalize on ice-cold backup Carter Hutton after Pekka Rinne pulled himself from the game at the 2:55 mark of the third period.
Down by just one goal, Linden Vey lost the initial draw but within about 30 seconds, the puck was in the Nashville zone and the Sedins went to work. The Canucks posted seven shot attempts in the next 90 seconds or so. Three got through, then three missed the net, and the last one was blocked.
After Nashville cleared the zone and changed their tired defenders, the Canucks promptly iced the puck. Nick Bonino lost the defensive-zone draw to Mike Ribeiro, Nashville got back to the attack, and the moment was lost.
The Canucks weren't terrible on the draw overall on Tuesday—they won 27 faceoffs to Nashville's 31—but timing is everything. Vey was actually five-and-five, so it would be a bit simplistic to say that the team was missing Bo Horvat, who did end up being scratched from the lineup due to illness.
Not a great night for Frankie Corrado. He and Luca Sbisa were on the ice for Nashville's back-breaking third and fourth goals in the third period, though the primary blame for that third goal falls on the slumped shoulders of Eddie Lack, who let in a stinker from a bad angle off the stick of Filip Forsberg.
Also not a great night for the normally rock-solid penalty-killers, who gave up two goals on six chances to a very good Nashville team whose weakness has been its power play at home.
After San Jose pulled out a 3-2 win over Arizona last night, the Canucks got knocked down to the second wild card spot. Boom. Yes, we still have games in hand, but a two point cushion over Calgary and four points over Dallas and Colorado does not make for a comfortable bed to lie in.
And then there's this:
Remember how bad last year was? Canucks are already 4 points behind their pace from last season, and have scored 13 goals in the last 8 gms
— Blake Price (@blakeprice1040) January 14, 2015I'm still stubbornly clinging to the idea that this year is not the same as last year, but that's a sobering stat from Blake Price.
After 41 games in 2013-14, the Canucks were 23-11-7 with 53 points after their shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on December 30.
This year, with the more spaced-out schedule, we're two weeks farther along, but 23-15-3 for 49 points. Yikes.
There is one very important difference between this year and last year. This was the point last season where players were dropping with injuries at a Pittsburgh Penguins-like pace. I do believe that those holes—and the extra efforts required by the players who stayed healthy—sapped the team's gas tank for the rest of the year.
With a reasonably healthy roster (the Canucks are a middle-of-the-pack 14th-healthiest team in the NHL this season with 57 games lost to injury, according to Man Games Lost), I just don't think we're bracing for the same sort of collapse, despite the tough sledding over the pat three games.
For a very balanced view of the season so far, check out this Jeff Paterson column of his likes and dislikes about the team at the halfway point. Not a lot to argue with here: he gives credit where it's due and doesn't gloss over some of the more troubling signs.
The Canucks practiced in Nashville today, where Chris Tanev and Nick Bonino were the missing bodies:
Tanev & Bonino took a maintenance day, said coach, adding he believes his team will rebound. "None of our guys take losing lightly."
— Vancouver Canucks (@VanCanucks) January 14, 2015For what it's worth, Tanev missed a couple of shifts early in the first period before coming back to play 17:52 in total. Bonino hobbled to the bench in the second period after blocking a shot, but didn't miss a shift.
Here's what Gordie Howe has to say about playing hurt in his book, Mr. Hockey:
A reporter once asked me how many times I'd been hurt in my career. I told him that I'd been hurt in some way or another in every game I'd played. As a professional athlete, it's critical to be able to distinguish between being hurt and being injured. Hurt you can play through, but if you're injured you'd better sit down or risk making it worse.
Naturally, Howe suggests that players of his era were tougher than present-day players, with their inferior equipment and their perpetual need to protect their jobs and play for their next contracts. Let's not forget that today's players are bigger, and the game's much faster than it was in Howe's day. There's a lot more momentum behind every collision today.
I sure hope that the Canucks can get the fire back in their bellies soon enough, but Howe's comments are a good reminder that there's always a lot going on with players' health that we'll never know about.
Onwards. The NHL's eighth-worst defense awaits on Thursday in Philadelphia.