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Canucks power-play explodes for 5 goals as the slump is bumped in Nashville |
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Thursday November 21 - Vancouver Canucks 6 - Nashville Predators 3
Imagine the Vancouver Canucks' power-play numbers if they played the Nashville Predators 82 times a year?
After going 3-for-3 in their win against Nashville in Vancouver last week, the Canucks bumped their slump with a 5-for-6 performance with the man advantage in Music City on Thursday night.
Here are your highlights:
In my last blog, I casually speculated about whether Peter Laviolette might be on the hot seat in Nashville after his team's relatively slow start this season. I was a bit surprised to see afterwards that there actually seems to be a fair amount of chatter about the idea.
It was certainly amplified by the team's poor performance on Thursday — which has now dropped them to dead last in the NHL in the penalty-killing category, with a 71.0 percent success rate. And with Pekka Rinne pulled after 40 minutes — for the third time in his last four starts — the Preds team that's supposed to be built around its amazing defense is now tied for 25th in the league in goals against, giving up an average of 3.43 per game.
Meanwhile — the Canucks scored five times with the man advantage for the first time in eight years.
I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that Henrik Sedin was named the game's first star that night in Chicago, with a goal and three assists. Daniel earned third-star honours with a goal and two assists and four players had two-point nights: David Booth, Cody Hodgson, Alex Edler and second star Dan Hamhuis.
On Thursday in Nashville, Hamhuis was on the ice for three of Vancouver's goals. Only problem for him is that he now plays for the other side. But since penalty-killing isn't counted in plus-minus, Hamhuis actually finished the night as a plus-one, on the ice for the third-period even-strength goal by Matt Duchene that made the score 5-3 and tightened the screws on a Vancouver team that hung on for dear life to preserve the win, much like they did last month at Madison Square Garden.
Despite all the offensive dynamite, Jacob Markstrom claimed first-star honours after facing a season-high 48 shots. Against the Rangers, 17 of the 40 shots Markstrom faced came in the third period. The Preds upped the ante with 22 in the final frame.
Statistically, Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes had the biggest nights, with three points each. Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller and Bo Horvat each chipped in a goal and an assist and, just like he did last week against Nashville, Tanner Pearson finished off the scoring with a picture-perfect shot the length of the ice with the Preds' net empty.
Perhaps the most fun goal of the night belonged to Tyler Graovac — who became the first of the Canucks' three players named Tyler to hit the scoresheet this season after accepting an unexpected assignment from Newell Brown to join the second power-play unit.
Graovac has played on special teams in the minors, but never before in the NHL. He certainly looked like he had a grasp on the concept when he tipped Alex Edler's shot past Rinne late in the first period to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead.
I'm not sure this game is a blueprint for more success going forward, but I have to give the Canucks credit for rebounding well after the defeat in Dallas that Bo Horvat said they'd learn from. They did the same earlier in the season when they blew that big lead against Washington, then crushed Florida 7-2 in their next game.
Saturday November 23 - Vancouver Canucks at Washington Capitals - 9:30 a.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet One, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 23 GP, 11-8-4, 26 pts, third in Pacific Division
Washington Capitals: 24 GP, 16-4-4, 36 pts, first in Metropolitan Division
That's a good place to segue into Game 3 of the road trip — a very early 12:30 local-time start on Saturday at Capital One Arena against the Washington Capitals.
Washington's 6-5 comeback win in Vancouver last month came smack in the midst of a 13-game stretch where the team went a heady 11-0-2. Since then, they've come back to earth slightly, losing two of their last four games including a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the New York Rangers on Wednesday. But they're still sitting in first place overall in the league, three points ahead of the New York Islanders, Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues.
Stop me if you've heard this before — injuries down the middle have become a bit of an issue for Washington. Workhorse Nicklas Backstrom missed Wednesday's game with an upper-body injury and won't play Saturday against Vancouver. Ex-Canuck Nic Dowd has also missed four games on the fourth line with a hand injury, and won't be ready to play against Vancouver.
As I'm sure you heard, depth winger Garnet Hathaway is also in the midst of a three-game suspension after spitting on Erik Gudbranson during a scrum earlier in the week. So, here's how the Caps rolled out their lines at practice on Friday:
The chatter about John Carlson has died down a bit, but I think that's because he has pretty much already won this year's Norris Trophy. Carlson picked up a point on the Caps' only goal at MSG on Wednesday, which extends his latest streak to 12 points in his last eight games. With 36 points so far this season, he's tied with David Pastrnak for fourth overall in the league, 11 points ahead of second-place defenseman Cale Makar, and currently on pace for 119 points. To put that in perspective — no defenseman has even scored 100 points since Brian Leetch did it in 1991-92. Carlson's already more than a third of the way there.
Braden Holtby will get the start for Washington on Saturday, while I'm sure Thatcher Demko will come in for Vancouver to give Jacob Markstrom a well-deserved day off.
As we saw last year, Jay Beagle is a conquering hero when he returns to D.C.
Though Beagle was at the Caps' practice rink on Friday, he didn't take to the ice for the Canucks' well-attended optional skate.
In just his second game back in action after missing a week with an undisclosed injury, Beagle looked like he was in some pain at one point against Nashville, but stayed in the game. With the Canucks defending vigorously in the third, he finished with 14:29 of ice time, above his season average of 12:36, playing 6:36 in the third period and on the ice until the very last shift.
Travis Green didn't provide an update on Beagle after Friday's skate, but I'd expect he'll play on Saturday — especially because it's his old team.
Green did offer these comments on two of the Canucks' other injured players:
As for the Utica Comets, they're up in Canada this weekend, with back-to-back games against the Laval Rocket on Friday at 4 p.m. PT and Saturday at noon PT, basically right after Canucks-Capitals wraps up.
With Michael DiPietro in net for their last game, the Comets couldn't preserve a 4-3 lead and ended up dropping a 5-4 decision to Binghamton in overtime last Wednesday. Francis Perron, Nikolay Goldobin, Vincent Arseneau and Carter Bancks had the Utica goals, and Brogan Rafferty picked up another two assists.
Now with 2-9-11 in 17 games, Rafferty is one point off the AHL lead in points by a rookie defenseman. The overall leader in points by a defenseman is our old friend Derrick Pouliot, who has 3-13-16 with the San Antonion Rampage so far this year.
With that, you're up to date. Don't sleep in on Saturday! Enjoy the game!!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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