|
Elias Pettersson has goal, assist in return to action as Canucks down Wings |
|
|
|
|
|
Sunday January 20 - Vancouver Canucks 3 - Detroit Red Wings 2
Rested, healthy and playing against so-so competition, the Vancouver Canucks overcame another slow start to push their record on their current homestand to 3-0-2 and move back into a playoff spot with at 3-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings in Sunday's matinee at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
One of the more worrisome elements of this homestand has been Vancouver's tendency to come out of the gate flat in the first period. They stayed true to form on Sunday, giving up the game's first six shots. But Jacob Markstrom seems to have moved past that period when he was prone to giving up an early goal on the first or second shot he faced. He weathered the storm calmly, with good positioning and limited rebounds, keeping the game scoreless until Elias Pettersson was able to announce his return to the lineup with a deft tip of a Brock Boeser shot to give the Canucks the early lead, midway through the first.
By the end of the opening frame, the shots had levelled out to a relatively reasonable 11-9 in favour of Detroit.
The Red Wings made another surge in the second, with Frans Nielsen tying the game on Detroit's 10th shot of the middle frame, just 8:34 into the period. Ex-Canuck Thomas Vanek has been on a hot streak lately and was Detroit's best player, named the game's second star. He tied for his team's lead with six shots on goal, assisted on Nielsen's goal and added his 10th of the year with a deflection after a rare Elias Pettersson giveaway off a failed clear, giving the Wings a 2-1 lead after 40 minutes.
Sunday was Vanek's second multi-point game in his last four outings and extended his current point streak to four straight games—his most productive stretch of the year so far.
The Canucks are now two weeks into their luxurious homestand, so it makes sense that they've been able to finish out their games strongly over the last week.
Though they were outshot 16-6 in the final frame by Buffalo on Friday, Loui Eriksson got the only goal, Thatcher Demko shut the door and Chris Tanev made a heady play to smother the puck and run out the clock with the Sabres pressing in the dying seconds.
On Sunday, the Canucks were even more methodical—earning the win in the third off Bo Horvat's 18th of the year and Antoine Roussel's fifth—another great tip, off a shot from Jake Virtanen. Shots in the third were 9-8 for Detroit, but the Canucks didn't allow the Wings a single shot on goal in the final 3:21 of the game: the only two attempts were both blocked by Alex Edler.
Final shots were 37-31 Detroit, so Jacob Markstrom made 35 saves and wasn't even named a star.
Bo Horvat took top honours for finally breaking his 11-game goalless drought with his first tally of 2019, part of a six-shot effort:
And Elias Pettersson was named third star with his 11th multi-point game in his 39-game NHL career to date, in his return to the lineup after missing five games.
Pettersson was a little rustier than usual; he was dinged for two giveaways on the night which bumps him up to 34 for the season—actually the highest number on the Canucks this year; Chris Tanev is second with 28 and Bo Horvat's third with 27. But I don't think anybody minds too much; in addition to being Vancouver's leading scorer and the team's beating heart, he's also third in takeaways (23) behind Jake Virtanen (33) and Tyler Motte (24), and even had a great blocked shot in front of Jacob Markstrom during a high-pressure second-period sequence on Sunday when his lined got pinned in the defensive zone for more than a minute but weathered the storm with no damage done.
The Canucks are off the ice on Monday, with a visit planned to B.C. Children's Hospital.
With Pettersson's return on Sunday, Tanner Kero was returned to Utica without ever even hitting the ice at Rogers Arena. He would have watched Friday's game against Buffalo during his recall, and did practice at 8 Rinks as an extra skater on Saturday—and he's actually on a one-way contract that pays him $800,000 this season, so he doesn't even see a bump in pay as compensation for his three-day recall and two coast-to-coast trips.
But with the Canucks completely healthy, the minor-league forwards who are looking for a chance to play must be hoping that Vancouver is able to make some trade-deadline moves to free up roster spots up front like they've already done with Anders Nilsson in goal and Michael Del Zotto on the blue line.
When Nikolay Goldobin is healthy-scratched for a third-straight game, and the fifth time in eight contests, and Tim Schaller has dressed for just 34 of 50 games, there's simply no room for a minor-league standout like Zack MacEwen to get a look on the NHL stage, no matter how well he plays in Utica—a highly unusual situation for the Canucks to be in at this point in the season!
And that's not to say that MacEwen doesn't deserve the buzz he's getting. The 6'4" 22-year-old, who was signed as an undrafted free agent two years ago, has followed up on a solid minor-league rookie season of 33 points in 66 games with 16-20-36 in just 44 games so far this year in Utica—third in team scoring behind Reid Boucher (17-22-39 in 33 games) and Kero (16-21-37 in 43 games).
MacEwen also remains waiver-exempt for all of this season and next season, so he'll be an easy player for the Canucks to call up when they have need for a winger.
And speaking of wingers in Utica, it seems the Kole Lind project is now starting to click.
After missing nearly the entire month of November with an upper-body injury, Lind needed some time to adjust to the rigours of AHL life after his return, but now seems to be starting to figure things out. He scored his first pro goal last Wednesday against Syracuse, then followed up with another one on Friday against Binghamton.
Lind is now at 2-6-8 in 28 games this season.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»