Saturday December 14 - Vancouver Canucks at San Jose Sharks - 7 p.m. - CBC, Sportsnet, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 32 GP, 16-12-4, 36 pts, fifth in Pacific Division
San Jose Sharks: 35 GP, 15-17-2, 32 pts, sixth in Pacific Division
The San Jose Sharks will be looking for their first win under new head coach Bob Boughner when the Vancouver Canucks stop by on Saturday to kick off a weekend road back-to-back.
After firing Peter DeBoer and three of his assistants on Wednesday, the Sharks opened their holiday homestand with a 6-3 loss to the New York Rangers in Boughner's first game in charge on Thursday.
I think Boughner's a pretty good coach — who probably would have kept his job in Florida if Joel Quenneville hadn't decided that a reunion with Dale Tallon in Florida was the best fit for him. And while San Jose's goaltending has been torched by the media for the last two seasons, I can't help thinking that the team's defensive play as a whole is also a factor. Boughner's specialty is defense.
I wrote about the coaching change, and Boughner's new crew of assistants, earlier this week:
Truth is, the Sharks are a little wonky on the offensive side of the puck, too. They rank 29th defensively, giving up an average of 3.50 goals per game, while they score just 2.65 to come in at 25th in that category. But when I look at players' individual numbers, most of them seem pretty reasonable under the circumstances.
I mean, Joe Thornton has always been more of a playmaker than a scorer, so 0-11-11 for a 40-year-old doesn't seem terrible — until we remember that he had 51 points in 73 games last season. Patrick Marleau's also 40, also at 11 points, and that tracks pretty close to the 37 points he picked up last season in Toronto.
The Sharks are now 0-5-1 in their last six games, which is what triggered DeBoer's dismissal. Marleau's pointless in seven. He also currently has the NHL's second-longest streak of consecutive games among active players, with 818 games played dating back to 2009. Tough spot for Boughner if he was to consider scratching the veteran in order to bring some different energy to his forward group.
Also in a funk this year — Brent Burns. Erik Karlsson is actually doing pretty well after the groin issues that bothered him last year. He has missed just one game this season, for the birth of his daughter, and has 24 points in 33 games, which ties him with Evander Kane for third in team scoring. And he's a minus-six, which looks fantastic compared to Burns' minus-23, which is the worst number for a defenseman and third-worst overall in the entire NHL.
Burns isn't making up for it on the offensive side of the puck, either. With 5-16-21 so far this season, his shooting percentage of 5.6 is a little below his career average but is up from 5.3 percent last season.
One problem is that he isn't shooting as much. He led the league with 320 shots when he won the Norris in 2016-17 and has hit the 300-mark for the last four seasons, but has put just 90 shots on goal so far this year, which projects to 217 for the year. The other is that his assists are way down — he had a career high 67 last year, but is projecting to just 39 this year, which would be his lowest total in that category since he had 26 in 69 games in 2013-14.
Burns hasn't put up a point in 10 games, which seems almost unfathomable. Will that continue against the Canucks, or is he finally due to break out?
The Canucks and Sharks have met once this year, with Vancouver romping to an easy 5-2 win. Aaron Dell was in goal that night, and will get the start again on Saturday. He has started only about a quarter of San Jose's games so far this season, but there isn't much to choose between him and Martin Jones, performance-wise. Dell is 3-4-1 with an .893 save percentage and 3.32 goals-against average.
One other note from the Sharks blue line: Marc-Edouard Vlasic will play his 1,000th-career NHL game against Vancouver on Saturday.
As for the Canucks — two things to note from Saturday's line rushes:
First — Travis Green is sticking with the elevation of Jake Virtanen onto the line with Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller, while Brock Boeser is skating with Antoine Roussel and Adam Gaudette. That alignment does look like it provides the Canucks with three credible scoring lines, and maybe the change of scenery will help Boeser get out of his scoring funk?
Second — after teasing us all week, it looks like Brandon Sutter will finally get back into action. He's slotting onto the wing of the fourth line.
“We’d better not lose a faceoff,” Jay Beagle joked to
Patrick Johnston of The Province earlier this week about the prospect of working on a line with Sutter.
“We got to make sure that we’re doing a job, hopefully against the top line. That would be the matchup that we’d want to have and both thrive on that,” he continued.
“We got two guys who can play the middle and with our system, I mean as soon as the faceoff happens, centre, wing it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Almost everyone system’s now is first man back is playing down low. There’s not much to the centre position and the wing position that’s set in stone anymore. It’s more of a once the draw happens everyone runs a route.”
I probably don't even need to mention that Jacob Markstrom is expected to get the start after his fantastic performance against Carolina on Thursday.
One final note — if you missed it, Sven Baertschi's agent has now gone public that he's looking for a trade for his client that will get him back into the NHL.
Jim Benning has a reputation for doing his best to accommodate players who no longer fit into the Canucks' plans. That's why Alex Biega was dealt to the Red Wings earlier this year — and he has been up with the big club since late October, although I'm not sure playing on that historically bad Detroit team really ends up being much of a treat?
Brendan Gaunce was another player that the Canucks could have kept in the organization last summer by issuing him a qualifying offer. When they didn't, he became an unrestricted free agent. This season, he has 13 points in 18 games in the AHL and earned a one-week call-up by Boston in late November, where he got into one NHL game.
I do get frustrated, though, when I hear Jim Benning beating the drum again this week that he's looking to trade for a scoring winger. Granted, he did pretty well when he brought in Josh Leivo and Tanner Pearson by trade last year. The Ryan Spooner acquisition didn't land quite so well, although sending Sam Gagner to Edmonton was another example of doing an outgoing player a solid.
But when I think of Baertschi and Nikolay Goldobin in Utica and getting limited chances when they're recalled — and even about the development of a player like Kole Lind, who could be NHL ready before too long — I wish Benning would focus more on getting the most out of the assets that he has.
That being said, the timing of this Baertschi news makes sense. The holiday trade freeze is less than a week away. Also, Taylor Hall's seemingly imminent trade from the New Jersey Devils has helped bring teams out of the woodwork who would be interested in a left-winger who can play in their top six.
I'm not saying Baertschi would have the same impact as Hall in a new home, but his price tag is also considerably lower, both in terms of assets a team would need to surrender to acquire him, and a cap hit of $3.37 million that's well below Hall's $6 million. For better or worse, Baertschi also has a year left on his contract after this season, while Hall is set to be a UFA on July 1.
Here's what we know so far about the Hall sweepstakes:
It seems like Ray Shero is trying to get a deal done quickly. Hall was held out the Devils' game in Colorado on Friday and is not expected to play Saturday in Arizona, either. In a perfect world, Jim Benning will have time to talk to the interested teams that miss out and see if he can interest one of them in Baertschi, who continues to play well in Utica.
Baertschi had one assist on Friday in the Comets' 4-3 loss to Binghamton. Now with 22 points in just 15 games, he's tied for third in scoring on Utica with Kole Lind and Brogan Rafferty, who have both played 27 games, and his 1.47 points per game puts him just ahead of team leader Reid Boucher, and among the top players in the entire AHL.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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