Thursday December 12 - Vancouver Canucks 1 - Carolina Hurricanes 0 (O/T)
Next time Lady Luck plays her cards against the Vancouver Canucks, remember that she smiled on them against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.
An early whistle by an inexperienced referee on a delayed penalty call may have set the stage for Elias Pettersson's eventual overtime winner and Jacob Markstrom's shutout.
Here are your highlights from a game that was pretty high on the entertainment meter despite being short on scoring.
Let's start at the end and work our way backwards. Petey's 100th career point was a delight, as he pulled the puck off Jaccob Slavin's abandoned stick and roofed it behind Petr Mrazek.
Full credit to Brock Boeser on this play, too. After having been denied on some clear-cut scoring chances against Toronto on Tuesday, he managied just two shot attempts in regulation against Carolina — and got dropped to the third line in the third period, switching places with Jake Virtanen.
But Travis Green put The Flow out with Bo Horvat and Tyler Myers to start overtime and he played like a man who was not going to be denied — first, ripping a shot of his own, then retrieving the puck to maintain possession and eventually thread that crazy pass through to Pettersson.
We may not see as many picture-perfect snipes from Boeser these days as we did earlier in his career, but I think his passing has shown a marked improvement. I keep wondering how much of that is a result of playing and training every day with the super-skilled Pettersson?
Speaking of Pettersson — that 100th career point came in his 103th career NHL game, and is already the 11th game-winning goal of his career. That now ranks him second among all active Canucks, in just his second season. Bo Horvat has scored 12 game winners in 409 career games, and Brock Boeser is also in double digits with 10 in 172 games.
Next on the list — Alex Edler, with nine game winners in 841 career games. A team-leading four of those have come in overtime. Horvat and Chris Tanev (!) have three overtime winners, while Tuesday's goal was Petey's second.
Surprisingly, Boeser has just one. And I can recall it instantly — against Casey DeSmith in Pittsburgh on October 16, 2018.
As impressive as they looked against Carolina at 3-on-3, that's just the second overtime win for the Canucks this year — although it's also their second OT victory in three games, with J.T. Miller having dispatched Buffalo last weekend. Prior to that, they'd lost three games at 3-on-3, to Anaheim, St. Louis and Colorado, and sent four games to shootouts, where they've gone an impressive 3-1.
It's great that the Canucks have been able to get points when going past 60 minutes, but the tiebreaking rules in the standings have changed this year — it's now regulation wins that matter, not the old standard of regulation/overtime wins.
Given how tightly bunched the Western Conference is, that could be important for Vancouver at the end of the year. Even with the win last night, they still sit ninth in the West on Friday morning, one point behind second wild-card Vegas. Vancouver's 36 points have come off 11 regulation wins so far this season, which puts them at the lower end of the spectrum in that category.
Chicago (14th, 30 points) has just eight regulation wins while San Jose (12th, 32 points) and Los Angeles (15th, 28 points) have 10.
Calgary (6th, 40 points) and Anaheim (13th, 30 points) also have 11, like the Canucks, while Arizona (3rd, 42 points), Vegas (8th, 37 points) and Nashville (11th, 33 points) have 12, and it goes up from there. Colorado (2nd, 43 points) is tops, with 17 of their 20 wins coming in regulation, three more than their closest challengers.
That helps set the table for the weekend, when the Canucks take a quick trip south. They won't have time to pick up the Vegas Flu, with a game on Saturday night in San Jose before Sunday's 5 p.m. contest at T-Mobile Arena.
I'm a little surprised that the Sharks didn't get that traditional bump that comes from a coaching change in their first game under Bob Bougher on Thursday. They gave up four third-period goals to the New York Rangers on their way to a 6-3 loss. Vegas has also been a bit blah so far this season, compared to their usual standards. They're 5-4-1 in their last 10 games and dropped a 4-2 decision in St. Louis on Thursday. They'll play Dallas on Friday night before returning home to host the Canucks.
Before I leave Thursday's Canucks game behind, though — a couple more things.
Another Petey fact:
And Marky's big stat:
Jacob Markstrom may have been outplayed by Frederik Andersen on Tuesday, but he was at the top of his game against Carolina — shutting down a powerful offensive team and especially impressive in the second period, when the Hurricanes had three power plays and outshot Vancouver by a whopping 22-7.
Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet reported that Markstrom's mother was in the stands at Rogers Arena for the game — less than a week after he returned to the team following his father's memorial service in Sweden.
Not surprisingly, Markstrom said he felt better against Carolina than he did against Toronto on Tuesday, his first game back in action.
“I feel like I corrected the stuff I didn’t like in the Toronto game. I didn’t play a game for about a week before that, so I was a little too excited and little tense for that Toronto game. I just wanted to be a little loose and relaxed, and I thought we did that.”
Markstrom also provided what I suspect will be a meme that lives on, when the puck did a disappearing act in his gear after a save on Lucas Wallmark late in the second period.
I think Markstrom also expects even more from himself when his regular goaltending partner is sidelined. Remember when he gutted out all those consecutive games last fall when Anders Nilsson was dealing with his broken thumb — even while Markstrom himself didn't look like he was at 100 percent?
I wouldn't be surprised if Thursday's news of Thatcher Demko's concussion also added some fuel to Markstrom's competitive fire against Carolina. And despite only a 22-hour turnaround between the road games this weekend, I'm betting now that he'll try to get himself into both halves of the back-to-backs, like he did in the home-and-homes against Edmonton two weeks ago.
After all that, I guess I'd better acknowledge the non-goal that Hurricanes fans are mad about — and which would have spoiled Markstrom's shutout. In his just seventh career NHL game, referee Michael Markovic blew a quick whistle on a delayed penalty call.
As they say, though — and really, it's the only way to stay sane when looking at moments like this — these things tend to even out in the end. For now, the Canucks can pocket those two points and hope to keep their head above water on the road this weekend before rolling into a five-game homestand that will stretch over the Christmas break.
One lineup note as the road trip begins — the Canucks have made a swap of minor-league defense callups, sending Jalen Chatfield back down to Utica while Guillaume Brisebois replaces him.
Chatfield's a righty who has now been recalled three times by the Canucks over the past two seasons, but has yet to make his NHL debut. Brisebois is a lefty, who played eight games for Vancouver last season.
In 26 games with Utica this year, Brisebois has 3-8-11 — identical to his stat line from last season, when he played 49 games with the Comets.
I think Oscar Fantenberg has been just fine for the Canucks while Alex Edler has been out. He has one goal and is a plus-three in five games, and his ice time is on the upswing — he played 18:41 against the Leafs and a season-high 19:22 against Carolina. But I wonder if the organization is interested in taking another look at Brisebois — particularly with those back-to-back games this weekend?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»