Monday February 10 - Vancouver Canucks 6 - Nashville Predators 2
Wow — what a night!
With the Legends in the house, the Vancouver Canucks came out hot and bumped their slump with a decisive 6-2 win over the Nashville Predators on Monday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
With Brock Boeser out of action after suffering that upper-body injury against the Flames on Saturday, Travis Green did one of his biggest lineup shuffles of the year in hopes of lighting a spark under a team that had gone 0-3-1 in its last four games.
With big-bodied farmhands Zack MacEwen and Justin Bailey in the lineup and Tim Schaller scratched, here's how the lines rolled out:
The game started with good pace after the Legends — Stan Smyl, Trevor Linden and Markus Naslund — were welcomed by the crowd at centre ice, and had new, bigger, more colourful banners unveiled for their own retired numbers.
The men of the hour, the Sedins, were also in the house, and drew a standing ovation when they were introduced during a commercial break.
With Pekka Rinne back in net for the first time in four games, the Canucks were able to capitalize early against the potentially rusty netminder — who allowed four goals on 17 shots before being pulled in the first minute of the second period.
MacEwen got things started, working well with his linemates before unleashing a shot from the slot.
Five minutes later, Brandon Sutter picked up his seventh of the year as he subbed in for Boeser on the first power-play unit. After struggling lately with the man advantage, the group looked much more dynamic as it whipped the puck around and shifted positions before the goal.
Before the first period was out, Jordie Benn scored his first goal as a Canuck as he lobbed in a shot from the left point. Looking at his No. 4 on the black skate jersey, it took me a minute to identify him. My first thought was — Michael Del Zotto? Next, Gerald Diduck!
As a B.C. boy, perhaps no one was more excited than Benn about having Linden and Naslund in the house.
“Only having one goal, they’re probably making fun of me,”
said Benn after the game. “They scored a lot of goals in their day. But growing up watching the Vancouver Canucks and finally getting my first goal, it was pretty cool.
“I looked up to those guys. It was pretty cool to see them on the ice and they came into the dressing room before the game.
“If any one of us standing at the bench can’t get fired up when they (introduce) Trevor Linden, and the whole crowd goes nuts, and then they do it again for Markus Naslund, if you can’t get up for that, I don’t what’s going to get you up. It was pretty cool the fans cheering that loud. When they do that, we all get fired up.”
The 4-0 goal that chased Rinne early in the second was originally credited to Elias Pettersson, but I thought all along that it belonged to Tanner Pearson, who got credit after the game ended.
Without that, we would have been deprived of a delightful dad joke from Petey:
Travis Green said after the game that he thought Pettersson was feeling better against Nashville than he was on Saturday against Calgary. I feel like this tweet also indicates that he's on his way back to full health.
Despite the four-goal hole, Nashville made a huge push in the second period. They got two goals and could have had more if not for some serious heroics by Jacob Markstrom, who stopped 17-of-19 shots in the second and 36-of-38 on the night.
With two minutes left in the second, J.T. Miller put a stop to Nashville's pressure with his 22nd of the season, then Jake Virtanen finished off the scoring with one more insurance goal in the third.
Quinn Hughes also finished the night with three assists, moving back into the lead in the rookie scoring race and tying a very impressive record.
So — it was all smiles on Monday night. A great way to bump a slump and to kick off the big celebration of the 50th season.
With the win, the Canucks hit 67 points and give themselves a three-point cushion over Edmonton, Vegas and Calgary — all tied with 64. Winnipeg's in the second wild-card at 63 while Arizona sits ninth after a win in Montreal on Monday, also with 63 points.
Tuesday's schedule sees Vegas in Minnesota, the Jets hosting the Rangers, and Chicago facing an Edmonton Oilers team that has now reported it will be without Connor McDavid for the next 2-3 weeks as he deals with a quad injury.
That also means the Blackhawks will be on the second half of a back-to-back on Wednesday when they face the Canucks, when the Sedins' jersey numbers are officially retired.
A couple of other quick notes to close out today:
• The Canucks are off the ice on Tuesday, but the team did announce that Micheal Ferland has now officially been assigned to the Utica Comets for a conditioning loan of up to six days. The Comets play three times over the next week — at home to Laval on Wednesday, then on the road against Syracuse on Friday and Rochester on Sunday.
In their last game, Reid Boucher's third-round shootout winner gave the Comets a 5-4 win over Syracuse last Saturday, ending a two game mini-slump. With 22 games left on the regular-season schedule, Utica currently sits comfortably in third place in the North Division. They've lost ground on the first-place Belleville Senators, who are now 9-1-0-0 in their last 10 games, but the Comets still look like they should easily qualify for the playoffs.
• The NHL announced on Tuesday that Antoine Roussel has been fined the maximum $5,000 for his late-game slash on Yannick Weber on Tuesday.
Roussel received a slashing minor, a cross-checking minor and a 10-minute misconduct on the play, while Jarred Tinordi also earned a misconduct for stepping in on behalf of his teammate.
• Finally — congratulations to Northeastern for their third-straight Beanpot win on Monday! Jordan Harris scored in double overtime to give Northeastern the win after Trevor Zegras tied the game for Boston University with less than two seconds remaining in regulation time.
After their team fell behind 2-0, Canucks prospects Tyler Madden and Aidan McDonough keyed the comeback with second-period goals. The Huskies went up 4-2 before allowing Boston University to battle back, setting the stage for the thriling conclusion.
In addition to this goal, McDonough also picked up two assists in the game.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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