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Canucks getting set for weekend back-to-backs with win streak on the line |
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Saturday February 1 - Vancouver Canucks at New York Islanders - 10 a.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 51 GP, 29-18-4, 62 pts, first in Pacific Division
New York Islanders: 49 GP, 29-15-5, 63 pts, third in Metropolitan Division
First off — a programming note for the next couple of days. Since the Canucks are playing at 10 a.m. PT on Saturday in Brooklyn and 11 a.m. PT on Sunday in Raleigh, you'll get the setup for Saturday's game now. I'll drop the next blog on Saturday afternoon, summarizing the Islanders game and setting up for the Hurricanes.
The Canucks landed in the Big Apple on Thursday after their win in San Jose and hit the ice for practice in New York City on Saturday morning. As expected, Justin Bailey and Zack MacEwen were called up from Utica, and Tyler Motte was placed on injured reserve after being ridden into the boards by Erik Karlsson on Wednesday night.
Unexpected: Antoine Roussel is missing from practice.
Roussel literally played the very last shift of the game in San Jose on Wednesday, so it doesn't look like there's an injury issue with him. But his ice time has been lower than usual since the team came back from its break; he played just 11:02 against the Blues and 10:42 against the Sharks this week.
His season average is 11:49, but his ice time has varied wildly through the season — from three-straight games at less than 10 minutes at the beginning of the pre-Christmas winning streak, all the way up to a couple of games over 15 minutes at the end of the last road trip, in Minnesota and Winnipeg.
I'm curious to see if this all signifies anything meaningful. At this time of year, of course, I also wondered if Roussel might be on the trade block. With just one assist in his last nine games, he hasn't been particularly impactful on the score sheet lately. But I feel like he has scored some goals that have given the Canucks a real lift over the course of the season — and he's still in a class of his own when it comes to delivering the sandpaper game that keeps opposing teams honest. That tends to become even more important at this time of year.
Even though the Canucks had that stumble in Florida earlier this month, it's interesting to see that their 8-3-0 record in January is sixth-best in the league in terms of points percentage, with a handful of games left on the schedule on Friday night to finish out the month. And yes, the Lightning and the Panthers have been playing well against everybody. Vancouver's winning percentage is .727 while Florida's is .800 (8-2-0) and Tampa Bay's is .792 (9-2-1).
While the New York Islanders still sit one point above the Canucks in the overall league standings, they've taken a bit of a step backwards this month, with a 4-5-2 record for a .455 winning percentage. They're still holding down a playoff spot in the tough Metro Division, rank fifth in the Eastern Conference and have some games in hand on most teams. But as of Friday they have just a one-point edge over surging Columbus and are two up on Carolina (and Florida & Toronto in the Atlantic) and three ahead of Philadelphia.
The playoff race in the East looks like it'll come down to those six teams competing for four playoff spots, with two missing out. Montreal, in 11th, has now fallen eight points below the second wild-card. If their swoon continues, I can't imagine them being trade deadline buyers.
As for the Islanders — Saturday's game against the Canucks will be their first after their All-Star/bye week break. They snapped a three-game winless streak in their last game before the break, going 2-for-2 on the power play on their way to a 4-2 win over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
Not surprisingly, a good deal of the Islanders' success this year has been built on the defensive side of the puck. They're fifth in the league in goals-against, averaging 2.65 goals against per game, while the Canucks currently sit 13th at 2.96. Brock Nelson is the purest offensive threat — the team's only 20-goal scorer, with five game winners. And Mat Barzal is the only Islanders player with more than 40 points — he's at 42 in 49 games.
The Canucks also have just one player over the 20-goal hump — Elias Pettersson, at 21. But they have four forwards with more than 40 points and now, six guys with more than 15 goals — Petey, plus J.T. Miller (19), Bo Horvat (17), Brock Boeser (16) and Tanner Pearson and Jake Virtanen, each with 15.
For the Islanders, Barzal has 17 goals and Anders Lee has 16, but they do have three other players in double digits: Anthony Beauvillier (13), Josh Bailey (11) and Casey Cizikas (10).
I was going to give the Islanders some grief for their power play, which has been connecting at just 17.4 percent in January to put them in 23rd place. But then I noticed that the Canucks sit 27th for January, with just a 12.8 percent success rate. They're still seventh overall for the full season, but it's pretty incredible that even while they continue to draw penalties at a very high rate — tied for first with Washington with 39 power-play opportunities this month — they've scored just five power-play goals even as they've been winning much more than they've been losing this month.
Here's how the Islanders practiced on Thursday:
As far as the Islanders' goaltenders go, Semyon Varlamov has played a little more — 27 starts vs. 22 for Thomas Greiss. Greiss' .925 save percentage and 2.43 GAA are both a bit better than Varlamov's personal numbers, and his record is also a little better — 14-7-1 vs. 15-8-4 for Varlamov. But much like the Canucks, either option is solid — not unusual for a Barry Trotz team.
Saturday's game will be the first meeting of the year between the two clubs. The Canucks' last win against the team that drafted Travis Green came at Rogers Arena on March 5, 2018, thanks to an overtime goal by Brendan Leipsic.
I'll leave it there for now. Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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