Saturday November 23 - Vancouver Canucks 2 - Washington Capitals 1 (S/O)
In one of their most impressive games of the year to date, the undermanned Vancouver Canucks delivered a strong defensive performance as they improved their record on this road trip to 2-1 with a shootout win over the Washington Capitals.
Here are your highlights:
On Friday, I predicted that the Canucks would start Thatcher Demko and that Jay Beagle would play against his old team. I was wrong on both counts.
Beagle's injury has now been identified as a hip ailment, and the Canucks made the decision to go back to Jacob Markstrom for a third-straight game following his outstanding 45-save performance against Nashville on Thursday.
Apparently the real decision-making actually came on Wednesday, when goaltending coach Ian Clark advocated for Markstrom to get back in net despite his 6-1 loss in Dallas the night before.
"Clarky met with Marky and just felt like it was coming," Travis Green told
Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet. "I think we wanted to show him some confidence as well and get him back in the net right away. He’s given us two big games after that."
Saturday's win came with an extra level of emotion because it was Hockey Fights Cancer day in Washington. Less than two weeks after Markstrom announced his father's passing from the disease following the Canucks' own tribute to the cause in their November 10 loss to the New Jersey Devils, the Capitals delivered a moving ceremony that paired six afflicted children with the team's starting lineup.
Markstrom hasn't spoken to the media about what he has gone through but after Saturday's game, he told reporters "Every day is emotional," when asked about the ceremony.
He acknowledged that he knew before gametime what lay ahead before the opening puck drop.
"It’s such a good cause," he said. "You know how much it means. When it affects you first hand… it’s tough. You want to have hockey, you know, you go play hockey and you get away and you don’t think about anything else for an hour. But it’s tough.
"You can’t do it by yourself. I’ve got my brother, my sister and my mom and my friends back home. I talk to them every day. It means the world that they’re back home right now and taking care of stuff, and letting me be here to play. I would love to be there to help them."
Markstrom also acknowledged the support that he has received from the Canucks organization while he has worked his way through this difficult time. It's a tribute to his character to see him getting his game back in shape in such a relatively short time.
On the Saturday Headlines on Hockey Night in Canada, Elliotte Friedman mentioned that Markstrom's family situation has been part of the reason why there hasn't been any discussion yet on a new contract for the soon-to-be-30-year-old netminder, who's scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. Friedman said that he believes Markstrom is still in Vancouver's long-term plans and expects conversation on a new deal to begin soon.
As for Alex Edler, there was no postgame update on the upper-body injury that took him out of action following just his fourth shift of the game, not even midway through the first period.
There was some concern that he might have been affected by an early heavy hit by Alex Ovechkin. He also blocked a shot by Nick Jensen on that same shift. Later, he threw a hit on Jakub Vrana before the hit on Travis Boyd that marked his last action of the game. Edler did finish a 39-second shift, but the concern is that Boyd's skate might have caught Edler under his arm when it came up.
Edler played just 3:15 on Saturday, leaving Nolan Baumgartner to juggle his other five defenders for just over 56 minutes if you include overtime.
The end result?
Jordie Benn: 22:37
Chris Tanev: 25:41
Quinn Hughes: 25:13
Troy Stecher: 17:26
Tyler Myers: 25:21
That's a new career high for Quinn, beating the 24:57 that he logged against New Jersey back on November 10. Troy Stecher picked up some of Edler's usual penalty-killing time, while Tyler Myers took over on the second power-play unit.
Sunday is a day off for the Canucks, who will get back to work on Monday in Philadelphia. We should get an update on Edler — and Jay Beagle — at Monday's morning skate.
Despite being shorthanded, the Canucks did an excellent job of keeping their wits about them against one of the NHL's most potent offences. Heading into the shootout, the shots were even at 33-33. Yes, Alex Ovechkin got seven shots through on a team-high 12 attempts, but how about keeping both Ovi and John Carlson off the scoresheet? Carlson's eight-game point streak was snapped, and he had just one shot on goal and three attempts in the game — and was foiled by Jacob Markstrom in the shootout.
Jakub Vrana got Washington's only goal — just 2:22 in, well before Edler left the game. The Canucks evened the score by capitalizing on a first-period 5-on-3 — something they couldn't manage in a similar situation in Dallas earlier in the week. Elias Pettersson scored his 10th of the year on a rocket one-timer with six minutes to play in the opening frame — wrapping up the scoring in what turned out to be a goaltending duel the rest of the way.
After being pushed hard by Nashville in the third period on Thursday, this time it seemed like it was the Canucks that were pressing for the winner in the late stages of the game. In overtime, they had a golden opportunity to win when Evgeny Kuznetsov was penalized for hooking Chris Tanev, but for the second time this year, the Caps and Canucks ended up going to a shootout.
T.J. Oshie is well known as one of the league's greatest shootout players. The Caps boast a long list of additional offensive firepower and came into the shootout with a 3-1 record this season — and having beaten the Canucks in Vancouver by a 2-1 margin last month, with goals from Oshie and Backstrom besting Elias Pettersson's marker.
This time, it took seven rounds before Bo Horvat beat Braden Holtby for the only goal of the shootout, which was also the game winner.
Here's who Markstrom stopped, in order:
T.J. Oshie
Evgeny Kuznetsov
Alex Ovechkin
Jakub Vrana
Lars Eller
John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov
The Canucks end their season series with Washington with 1-0-1 records for three points for both sides. After digging deep to get back into the win column in Nashville, a victory in Washington should definitely be something the team can build on.
"We said in the room that we don’t want to be one-and-done," captain Bo Horvat told Iain MacIntyre after the game. "We want to be a team that comes to play every night and knows how to win, and I thought we brought it tonight. Everybody."
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