Saturday March 23 - Calgary Flames 3 - Vancouver Canucks 1
The Calgary Flames showed fans at Rogers Arena why they're heading into the playoffs as the top team in the Western Conference as they skated to a 3-1 win over the desperate Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
Going into Saturday's game, the Canucks were 3-1 against the Flames this year, most memorably starting off their season with the 5-2 home win that introduced Elias Pettersson's prodigious talent to the NHL world.
But in the race for what I cleverly heard called the "Vice Presidents' Trophy" earlier this week—cuz nobody's catching Tampa Bay—the Flames became the first Western Conference team to break 100 points with their win on Saturday night and are now tied with Boston for second overall.
Part of the Canucks' success this season has been their ability to keep Calgary's top line in check. The trio was held off the score sheet on Saturday and with the five-game season series now complete, Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk both finished out the year with a relatively tame (for them) 1-4-5 while Sean Monahan went 2-2-4.
On Saturday, there was no containing Mark Giordano, who showed why he's the front-runner for the Norris Trophy this year at age 35. The Flames captain opened the scoring midway through the first period, then added two assists to go along with two takeaways in a relatively comfortable 20:35 of ice time to earn first-star honours. Now with 72 points in 73 games—a new career high—Giordano has put up a sixth-straight season with more than 10 goals and is second in the league in scoring by defensemen behind Brent Burns.
It's hard to believe now that Giordano originally went undrafted—or that he spent the 2007-08 season playing for Moscow Dynamo in the KHL before coming back to Calgary and starting his evolution into one of hockey's top two-way defensemen.
As for the Canucks, they delivered a good effort but were outmatched for most of the night. In the first period, they had a tough time getting out of their zone as they were outshot 12-6, and Vancouver didn't generate many dangerous scoring chances throughout the game.
Jay Beagle had his hustle dialled up to a new level, working hard to try to create offense off the penalty kill, and Vancouver's lone goal came just nine seconds into a 4-on-3 power play early in the third period, when Brock Boeser sniped his 25th of the year low to the glove side of Mike Smith from the top of the zone, extending his point streak to nine games.
Elias Pettersson picked up the secondary assist on that play, so he's now up to 64 points in 64 games—and holding a 23-point lead over second-play Andreas Johnsson in the rookie scoring race.
Pettersson has feasted on the Flames this year, with 5-4-9 in five games, so it's no wonder that Calgary was aggressively game-planning against him. Fellow Swede Rasmus Andersson seemed to be tasked with the job of keeping Petersson in check; the two were going back and forth all night, with Petey giving as good as he got against the 214-pound blueliner.
Late in the game, down by two goals, there was a scary moment when Troy Stecher took a puck off the face from close range while he was down on the ice attempting a desperate shot block.
Though he left the ice in obvious discomfort, Stecher once again showed that he's tough-as-nails by shaking it off and fulfilling his duties as the second guest on Saturday's After Hours—with nothing more than a swollen lip and a hint of a lisp to show for the incident. He said he's fine and fully expects to play on Sunday against Columbus.
Sunday March 24 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Columbus Blue Jackets - 7 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 75 GP, 32-33-10, 74 pts, sixth in Pacific Division
Columbus Blue Jackets: 74 GP, 40-30-4, 84 pts, fifth in Metropolitan Division
Those stat lines really drive home the discrepancy between the Eastern and Western Conference playoff races, don't they? Though the Columbus Blue Jackets are 10 games above .500, they're fighting for their playoff lives—and, presumably, the job security of general manager of Jarmo Kekalainen.
Despite going all-in at the trade deadline by keeping Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky and acquiring Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel, the Blue Jackets have gone 5-7-1 since February 25 and are coming into Sunday's game three points out of the last wild-card spot in the East.
Their current four-game road trip started off well enough, with a 2-1 overtime loss in Boston. But the Blue Jackets delivered a pair of listless performances in Alberta earlier in the week, dropping a 4-2 decision to the Flames on Tuesday before falling 4-1 to Edmonton on Thursday.
They've been in town for a couple of days, and Torts decided to schedule a team dinner on Saturday night to try to light a spark under a team that seems to be wilting under pressure as games take on additional importance.
Though Bobrovsky was dealing with a nagging injury earlier in the week, he is expected to get the start for Columbus on Sunday.
As for Artemi Panarin, much has been made of his apparent desire to sign in a city that's close to water when he hits unrestricted free agency on July 1. I believe it was Elliotte Friedman, on the 31 Thoughts podcast a few weeks back, who suggested that the only Canadian cities that the Bread-man might consider would be Toronto and Vancouver—and the Leafs are a non-starter for obvious salary-cap reasons.
But Vancouver has cap space, has an up-and-coming team, and has a wide-open spot on Bo Horvat's wing that would be nicely upgraded by a player like Panarin.
And apparently he has been enjoying his time in town:
That should help amp up the speculation!
Both teams took very optional skates on Sunday morning.
We won't get an update on lineups until closer to game time, but don't discount some possible switches by Travis Green, now that the winning streak has come to a close.
It's likely that Thatcher Demko will also get the nod in net. He notoriously made his NHL debut in a 5-4 overtime win over the Blue Jackets at Rogers Arena just under a year ago, on March 31, 2018.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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