Wednesday December 30 - Vancouver Canucks 2 - Los Angeles Kings 1
It wasn't exactly a strong 60-minute effort, but the Vancouver Canucks started well and took advantage of their chances to come out of the Christmas break with a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
After their grim 14-shot effort against the Flames in Calgary before the holiday break, it was great to see the Canucks come out of the gate with some offensive enthusiasm. The Canucks got the first seven shot attempts in the game and drew a penalty when Jake Muzzin high-sticked Loui Eriksson just 54 seconds into the opening frame.
Some lackadaisical defending by the Kings allowed Eriksson to use the power-play to wander uncontested in front of Kings' goalie Peter Budaj, then take his time picking the top corner. It seemed like he was alone in the slot for an eternity—not the kind of stingy defending we're used to seeing from the Kings.
Kings player 1: "I thought you were covering Eriksson..." Kings player 2: "I thought YOU were covering Eriksson..." pic.twitter.com/ghU08Pi9SZ
The defense was weak on this play, but I like the Canucks' movement, too. I'd like to see this second power-play group get more opportunity to show their stuff—I think there's some untapped offensive potential there. The goal was Vancouver's first in four games with the man advantage—and marked the first time in 10 games that the Kings had been scored on while they were shorthanded.
After the goal, the Canucks kept coming. At the 7:33 mark of the first period, Jayson Megna recorded Vancouver's 10th shot—and his third of the game. But the pressure eased off significantly from there. Vancouver finished the game with 20 shots in total, so they only got 10 more over the remaining 52:27 of game action.
The goal that proved to be the game-winner came very early in the second period. Daniel Sedin forced a turnover by Derek Forbort, then Troy Stecher jumped on the loose puck and quickly fired it towards the net, where Henrik Sedin tipped it home for his eighth of the year.
And now Henrik Sedin will demonstrate the perfect way to open the 2nd period 🚨 pic.twitter.com/8sDymvB7hE
That's point No. 993 for Henrik, who inches ever-closer to that magical thousand-point mark.
Once they were down by two, the Kings started to ramp up the pressure. Ryan Miller was Vancouver's best player for the final 40 minutes, stopping 13 shots in the middle frame and 15 of 16 in the third.
Reigning Norris Trophy winner Drew Doughty never seemed to leave the ice—he played 29:23—but he was quiet, with just one shot, and was on the ice for both goals against. Alec Martinez and Tanner Pearson led the way offensively for the Kings, with five shots each, and it was Pearson who finally managed to thread a shot through traffic to beat Miller with 3:17 left to play in the third.
That set up a frantic finish, but the Canucks were able to hang on for the win.
Vancouver got a solid boost from having Alex Edler back in the lineup. Luca Sbisa was still the high-minute man at 22:36, but Edler was right behind him at 20:43.
By playing Sbisa with Chris Tanev and putting Edler with Troy Stecher, the Canucks were able to deploy two pretty solid defensive pairings—and after scoring last game, Nikita Tryamkin looked furious when his one shot on goal didn't result in a second-period goal.
Willie Desjardins did revert to the classic pairing of Edler and Tanev while the Kings had their goalie pulled for the extra attacker in the dying minutes. The pair played the final 1:21 and limited the pressure to just three shots on goal by Los Angeles.
I also liked seeing Edler lay the body on Kings' captain Dustin Brown on his first shift, just 18 seconds into the game. It was his only recorded hit of the game, but it sent a good message and might have helped him find his legs after being out of action for a month.
All in all, the Jayson Megna experiment on the first line was reasonably successful. He started especially well with the Sedins—all three of his shots came during that early flurry. And both his missed shots hit the goalpost, so he was thisclose to putting up some points. He did finish the night with a plus-one, on the ice for Henrik's second-period goal.
Anton Rodin took the pregame warmup but was ultimately scratched to make room for Megna. If Rodin's knee is feeling strong enough, I'd like to see him get into the mix for one of the back-to-back games this weekend. He might not be well-suited to match up against the big, bad Anaheim Ducks on Friday, so Saturday's game in Edmonton could be a better bet.
Wednesday's bottom line—it was worrisome to see the Canucks sit back and let the Kings bring the play to them for the last two periods, but great to see them score first and hold the lead all the way through the game. That made for a cheery atmosphere in a reasonably-full Rogers Arena, though there was no time to do the wave or go in for other frivolity in a third period that featured a stretch of nearly seven minutes of continuous action midway through.
The Canucks are practicing at Rogers Arena this morning, preparing to host the Ducks on Friday.
Meanwhile, at World Juniors, Canucks prospect Lukas Jasek and the Czech Republic are currently on the ice for the early game in Montreal, facing Denmark.
Jasek has been bumped up to the second line to play with Senators prospect Filip Chlapik (who has two goals in two games)
Later, Olli Juolevi and the Finns play a crucial game against the 2-0 Swedes. Though four of five teams in each group will advance to the medal round, the Finns put themselves in a deep hole with Tuesday's 3-2 loss to Denmark, so they're now 0-2.
The Finns fell behind 3-0 to Denmark before scoring twice in the third period.
"We are not able to score. We hit the posts or the crossbar. I don’t know," a taciturn Juolevi told Lucas Aykroyd of IIHF.com. "There were too many shots that they blocked, as well. It’s hard to say.
"We just ran out of time. We had 60 minutes. We should have been able to score more goals than two."
The Swedes look like they haven't even broken a sweat in their first two games, beating Denmark 6-1 on Monday before besting Switzerland by a 4-2 score on Wednesday. Finland was off yesterday, so they will be the more well-rested team.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»