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Monday December 9: Vancouver Canucks 2 Carolina Hurricanes 0
The Vancouver Canucks played three games in four nights at home and won them all, most recently a 2-0 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday night. Here are your highlights:
Good friends from their stint with the AHL Chicago Wolves last year, defenseman Chris Tanev and goaltender Eddie Lack were Vancouver's key players in the win. Tanev scored what proved to be the winning goal on Vancouver's second shot of the game, while Lack delivered his first NHL shutout in his home debut for the Canucks.
I've seen Lack play in exhibition games over the past two seasons and thought he showed promise, but he looked really solid on Monday night. Being so familiar with Roberto Luongo's playing style, it was fascinating to notice the differences between the two.
To me, Lack seems to have a more upright stance, and more economy of movement in his crease. His positioning seemed very efficient.
The two parts of his game that really stood out on Monday were his glove hand and his rebound control. His catching glove looks like a giant baseball mitt and was easily trapping everything that came its way, while Lack was absorbing shots like a vacuum and failing to surrender many rebounds to the 'Canes—an important part of their game.
The game itself was no beauty, again. Lots of scrambly play, neutral-zone defending and not much intensity. But entering the third period with a one-goal lead, the pressure was on Lack and his teammates to avoid their patented late-game collapse.
The Hurricanes pressed harder than the Avalanche did on Sunday, outshooting Vancouver 13-7 in the third and hemming the Canucks in their own zone for long periods of time. But Lack was up to the challenge, stopping everything he faced to preserve the win.
The crowd chants of "Eddie! Eddie!" in the dying seconds should be a moment he'll remember for the rest of his life. He gave an excited pump of glee when the game ended, and couldn't wipe his contagious smile off his face as he chatted with Dan Murphy after being named the game's first star.
Jannik Hansen added an empty-net goal in the late stages, but Lack was able to do what Luongo hasn't—shutting the door to get two points when his team scored just one goal. Is this the beginning of yet another goalie controversy here in Vancouver?
Tortorella did remember to say "Lui's our guy," as he sang Lack's praises after the game, but how much rope does Lui get? With every point so important in the Western Conference playoff race, how much can Luongo falter before the calls will start for Lack to get more playing time?
With the schedule this weekend, he could be back in net as soon as Friday against Edmonton. It's assumed that Luongo will play the Saturday Hockey Night in Canada game against Boston and it *would* make sense to split the duties.
I, for one, am looking forward to seeing Lack play again. He was very good on Monday and has the kind of personality that makes me want to cheer for him.
It was another chatty night for Tortorella after the game. If you have nine minutes to watch all his postgame comments from Monday, you'll get a good idea of where he's at regarding most of the guys on the team, including Lack:
Now that things are going well, he seems to be enjoying spending time with the guys after games.
Despite another unproductive game from the Sedins, Tortorella dismissed the idea that they're being hampered without a consistent right-winger. What happened to those days when they could play with just about anybody?
Once again, Hansen was largely ineffective. Torts talked about putting Booth with them for a couple of shifts and the line immediately giving up a couple of 3-on-2s, so that was quickly kiboshed.
Nucker—did you notice that Kassian was paired with the twins for one very effective shift in the third period? After Vancouver had spent a long stretch defending in their zone, Daniel, Henrik and Zack were able to get the puck down the ice and put some sustained pressure on the Hurricanes for a good period of time. As the shift ended, it generated a nice round of applause from the generally quiet crowd—who really didn't get much to cheer about on Monday night.
Kassian seemed fresher than most of his teammates at that late stage. Torts played him a lot in the third period and he finished with 13 minutes, so perhaps this is another baby step towards working his way back into a larger role.
The Canucks don't play again until another back-to-back this weekend: Edmonton on Friday, then Boston on Saturday. Admitting that the team looked tired late in Monday's game, Torts has scheduled two days off before getting back to work on Thursday. What happened to that talk of fatigue being a "mindset" earlier in the year?
The win ties Vancouver with Montreal as the hottest team in the league and vaults the Canucks into seventh place in the Western Conference—for now. Sitting idle for three days means they'll probably get passed again before Friday, but it sure looks good to be back in the pack!
Quick Hits:
- As many of you predicted in the comments yesterday, the Pierre-Marc Bouchard dream has died a quick death. He went unclaimed on waivers and will now be assigned to the New York Islanders' farm team.
- Does Ryan Kesler have beef with Blake Price of TEAM1040? The trouble started last night with this tweet from Price:
Strangely, as red hot as Kesler is, he's flat out fanned twice in prime scoring locations tonight..
— Blake Price (@blakeprice1040) December 10, 2013A fan took exception and called Price a name that I can't repeat here, and included Kesler in his reply.
The interesting part? Kesler himself retweeted the negative comment shortly after the game—and that tweet is still up on Kesler's Twitter feed. Seems like a pretty raw response—I thought only coaches were allowed to have adversarial relationships with the media who cover them?