Tuesday October 10 - Ottawa Senators 3 - Vancouver Canucks 2 (S/O)
They couldn't hang onto their third-period lead, but the Vancouver Canucks did earn a single point in their 3-2 shootout loss to the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
Overall, Jacob Markstrom has been terrific in his first two games, showing confidence as well as some impressive puck-handling—a talent that seems to have emerged out of nowhere.
Underrated part of Markstrom’s game is confident puck handling; has an 🍏 in 1st home opener start + really settled in after 1st shot went in
It stands out because Canucks goaltenders have been better known for handling pucks like grenades over the years. Even Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider had trouble making safe plays when they came out of their nets—let alone successfully advancing the puck up the ice like Markstrom has been doing this week.
Way back in the 70s, Gary Smith had a knack for it. He made this list of the league's all-time best puck handlers from The Hockey News, back in 2011. But in the 40-ish years since then? We've just looked on in envy when Ron Hextall, Martin Broduer or Marty Turco worked their magic. I even saw Evgeni Nabokov score an empty-net goal back in 2002 at what was then GM Place!
At 27, it's surprising that Markstrom's puck-handling seems to have improved so dramatically this year.
Either I didn't notice last season, or Markstrom's puck handling and passing has really improved #canucks
He has been very effective at getting the puck quickly up the ice.
He has also been pretty darn good at stopping shots. On Tuesday, the Senators outshot the Canucks 42-28.
It's disappointing that the Sens were able to outscore the Canucks 2-1 in the shootout, with Mark Stone tallying the winner, but Markstrom was excellent for most of the game.
The disturbing trend is his tendency to give up early goals—on the first shot of the game against Edmonton on Saturday, then the second shot last night—which just squeaked through his five-hole.
The good news is that Markstrom now limits the damage to just one goal.
Do you remember when he was recalled from his all-star campaign in Utica in March of 2015 after Ryan Miller was injured, and promptly gave up three goals on four shots and was pulled after 7:45 of action against San Jose? Present-day Markstrom seems to be better at regrouping, but the Canucks aren't good enough to play from behind all year long.
After keeping a low profile against the Oilers on Saturday, the Sedins and Thomas Vanek were much more prominent against the clog-it-up Senators. The trio led the team in power-play time and was on the ice for every goal scored on Tuesday—for both sides.
Henrik showed he still has some high-end skill with his cute bank pass to himself to help set up Chris Tanev for his first of the year.
It won't be easy for Vanek to win fans around these parts. At 33, he makes the team older, his skating and effort levels are questionable and as a late-summer signing, it's easy to see him as the player who's standing in the way of a young player like Brock Boeser getting into the lineup.
But the dude's a pure scorer. Jason Botchford put it well in The Provies:
When Vanek is on, he’s smooth, quiet and deadly. But you may not notice him for a period. Or two.
Then, when the game is over, you look up and he’s scored a goal and had an impact on another.
There was some fuss about Vanek's slashing penalty, which took the Canucks off a first-period power play, but he barely touched Craig Smith. I know it falls under the umbrella of the new zero-tolerance rule but in this case, I think Vanek was mostly just unlucky that he got caught.
Overall, Henrik was great on the dot again, going 8-for-11, while Bo Horvat was 12-for-20 and Brandon Sutter was 8-for-14. The sample size is small, but Vancouver is currently ranked fourth in the league with an overall faceoff percentage of 55.7 percent. Thank you, Manny!
Overall, it was a quieter night for Bo last night but they can't all be like the Edmonton game, can they? He would still be the toast of the town if he'd converted for the winner in the shootout.
The ice looked bumpy on Tuesday—perhaps in part due to a very busy schedule this month at Rogers Arena. Imagine Dragons played on Monday night; tonight, it's Kings of Leon; Friday is Jimmy Buffett. As a result, the Canucks will be practicing at UBC this morning, starting at 11:30 a.m.
The Winnipeg Jets are already in town after earning their first win of the year in Edmonton on Monday night. GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and coach Paul Maurice were among the Jets personnel taking in last night's game at Rogers Arena.
To wrap up today—go check out my Goal Posts column for this week, where I take a look at five things that are different about this year's Canucks.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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